10 Best Opening Movie Scenes Of All Time (According To Reddit)

7. Back To The Future

Back To The Future Amp
Universal Pictures

Sticking with Spielberg (who's on producing duties here) but with a significant shift in tone, the intro sequence in the original Back To The Future is a textbook example of smart visual storytelling.

Though it's just a single shot that pans across a room, the amount of information it conveys is remarkable. For starters, all the clocks and crazy inventions tell us that Doc is a bit of a nutter, but that's not even the half of it: there's the newscaster describing the stolen plutonium, when is then revealed to be in this very room; there's the shot of Marty putting Doc's key back underneath the rug, establishing that the two of them have a very close relationship; there's the homemade dog feeder, which is just bloody cool; and that's not to mention the slew of minor details, like the newspaper cutout describing Brown Mansion's destruction, or the sight of a man hanging off a clock's arms... foreshadowing alert.

And who could forget Marty blowing up that giant speaker, before uttering one of the cheesiest, yet most fitting quips of all time: "Whoa... rock 'n' roll."

This one is far from an obvious choice when discussing the best movie openings, and though it might not be showy or action-packed, it lays a lot of foundations for the movie's story in a creative, efficient way.

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Contributor

Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!