10 Greatest Opening Lines In Movie History

Those unfamiliar with the late great Hunter S. Thompson and his deliciously depraved ways could be forgiven for assuming that Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas would be some form of introspective exploration into the sordid backdrop of Sin City. Few could have been expecting the drug soaked bacchanalia the film swiftly descends into.

The lullaby-esque tones of The Lennon Sister's My Favorite Things are sharply contrasted against black and white imagery of civil opposition to the Vietnam War as the opening credits appear. The audience's natural reaction is to ask themselves what the f*ck is going on, a question that is only repeated as Samuel Johnson's portentous quote, "He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man", briefly flashes up on-screen.

This bizarre array of seemingly unconnected material had audiences hooked from the get go. If Johnson's words failed to warn them, viewers who didn't know what sort of a film they were in for experience a sudden epiphany as Johnny Depp, in tones reminiscent of an early television newscaster, dramatically announces;

"We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold."

Kicking off Fear and Loathing's legendarily debauched story, Depp's line appropriately parallels the feeling of a drug kicking in. Once audiences hear the immortal opening salvo to the 1998 cult classic, they know that they're in for a psychedelic experience of their own.