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

2. Scream (1996)

Heath Ledger Joker The Dark Knight bank heist opening
Dimension Films

The Scream franchise is famous for its shocking twists and turns, and the opening of the 1996 original might be its best one.

With actress Drew Barrymore being a major star at the time, it was expected that she'd have a substantial role in the film, especially considering that she was all over the marketing. So when she was brutally murdered in the opening few minutes? Well, that was director Wes Craven tearing up the rulebook, throwing it on the ground, and stamping on it, right in front of our faces.

Even without the element of Barrymore's fame, it's just a tense and well-paced scene, with the slow realization that Casey is caught in a trap making the entire sequence drip with dread. Add some incredible voicework by Roger L. Jackson as the voice of Ghostface, a few bursts of shocking violence, and that agonizing moment where Casey comes so close to reaching her parents, and this is horror filmmaking at its absolute best.

The scene is so effective that it traumatized several Redditors who have kids of their own, and it's not hard to see why.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for almost nine 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 for 10+ years, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers and uploading them to YouTube (they're admittedly a bit rusty by today's standards). If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order or to tell you about the making of 1988's Remembrance of the Daleks, Danny is the person to ask.