10 Movies That Peaked In Their Opening Scene
6. Casino Royale
The Movie
With audiences long-tired of the excess silliness and over-reliance on awful CGI in Pierce Brosnan's Bond films, 2006's Casino Royale was the perfect tonic - a serious, violent and practical-minded reboot that instantly confirmed Daniel Craig as one of the best-ever iterations of 007.
It's not perfect - the product placement and Richard Branson's cameo are embarrassing, and the poker scene is a massive chore on repeat viewings - but as far as "gritty" reinventions go, it's right up there with Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight saga.
The Opening Scene
Though many will point to Casino Royale's unforgettable Madagascar chase as the film's show-stealing opening scene, this sequence doesn't actually kick off until 10 minutes into the movie - and even then, it's not quite the best scene in the film.
Indeed, the movie kicks off with a deliciously simple, reined-in black-and-white sequence as Bond gets the drop on a traitorous MI6 agent in Prague.
With its eerie quiet and terse, silky smooth dialogue, the scene would feel more at home in a John le Carré novel than a Bond film - at least until director Martin Campbell brilliantly cross-cuts to Bond scoring his first kill.
Between savagely murdering a man in a toilet and coldly shooting this MI6 Agent dead, we get a glimpse at Bond's multi-faceted nature - at once a tenacious thug and effortlessly detached when the mission calls for it.
That the scene ends with the best gun-barrel in the entire Bond franchise and one hell of a titles sequence - scored to Chris Cornell's brilliant "You Know My Name" - is just the icing on the cake.
You can argue that the Madagascar chase is more of a spectacle, because it absolutely is, but in terms of firmly burying Brosnan's Bond and instantly establishing Craig as an all-timer 007, the film's opening six minutes are nothing short of perfection.
There are of course several superb set-pieces throughout the film, but nothing that services Bond as a character quite so succinctly.