10 Most Devastating Movie Openings That Totally Broke You

2. The Plague Dogs

Most films about dogs at least have the decency to wait until the third act to start killing them off, but not so with The Plague Dogs.

Written by Richard Adams - who also famously made the notoriously cheerful Watership Down - this animation is a strictly not-for-kids given that it follows two dogs, Rowf and Snitter, who are used as experimentation subjects in an animal testing facility. It's a pretty heavy film, even as it chronicles their escape, as you can probably imagine.

To highlight just how important the discussion on animal cruelty is to Adams, the opening scene shows Rowf, mostly out of context, drowning as two scientists watch on and take notes. He dies before you've really even settled in to watch. Even more disturbing, he's then revived and you learn this is his life, being repeatedly drowned and revived because humans are just absolute garbage.