10 Movies Where The First Scene Is The Best
1. The Player
Robert Altman's legendary Hollywood satire The Player begins with one of the most staggering, bewildering, and ambitious openings to any film ever, with a 7-minute, 47-second single take sequence executed for real and with no editing tricks.
The scene begins by literally showing the film's crew setting up the take, complete with a visible clapperboard and audible crew members, before pulling out and craning up to reveal that we're at a film studio.
Our protagonist, studio exec Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins), then pulls up to the lot and heads into his office while being harassed by an eager screenwriter.
For the remainder of the scene, Altman passes back between Griffin taking meetings in his office and the various "characters" on the lot, before finally breaking the single take once he receives a death threat on a postcard.
The sheer number of moving parts in the opening is nothing short of astonishing: actors, cars, and complex camera movements, all while keeping the picture in clear focus for almost eight entire minutes.
Altman shot the scene fifteen times before he was done, but the jaw-dropping end result was most certainly worth all that toil. It's a terrific movie from start to finish, but even people who've never seen The Player will know that opening scene.