10 Movies That Peaked In Their Opening Scene
Saving the best for... first?
It's a common filmmaking maxim to finish strong, to ensure that audiences leave the cinema filled with delight and wonder, rather than trying to make sense of a baffling last-minute decision that might colour their opinion on the entire movie.
But sometimes directors go the total opposite direction and, for whatever reason, get the prime rib material out of the way in the very first scene.
While the majority of these 10 movies are thankfully consistently good or even great, not a single one of them quite managed to top the intensity, the charm and the technical astonishment of their opening scene.
From unforgettable character introductions to all-timer displays of technical filmmaking craft, these opening sequences set an impossibly high bar from the outset, and one that made the rest of each movie pale in comparison.
And if you're left wondering why neither Up nor Saving Private Ryan made it onto this list - the marriage montage and Normandy sequence are in fact the second scenes in each respective film. That's how seriously we're taking this.
So, whether these movies simply went that extra mile for the opening scene or left audiences genuinely crestfallen for the remainder, each reached their unambiguous high-point within the first few minutes...