10 Movies Where The First Scene Is The Best
8. Inglourious Basterds
Inglourious Basterds is an incredible film from top to bottom, but Quentin Tarantino absolutely outdoes himself - as he often does - in the very first scene above all else.
Basterds' unforgettable 20-minute prologue takes place in 1941, as ruthless SS officer Hans "The Jew Hunter" Landa (Christoph Waltz) arrives at Frenchman Perrier LaPadite's (Denis Ménochet) farm to investigate the whereabouts of the Jewish Dreyfus family.
Tarantino has a whale of a time dragging this sequence out to a gut-wrenching degree, given that Landa clearly suspects LaPadite is hiding the Drefuses yet maintains an unsettling level of superficial civility throughout the conversation.
Tarantino eventually reveals that LaPadite is indeed hiding the Dreyfuses underneath his floorboards, and Landa promises to spare LaPadite's family if he confesses.
After a tense exchange, LaPadite acquiesces, and Landa has his men empty their guns into the floor, killing all-but-one of the Dreyfus family. The single survivor, Shosanna (Mélanie Laurent), promptly flees, bringing the sequence to an end.
Though Basterds certainly has its fair share of all-timer sequences - the tavern and the climax of Operation Kino, for two - that opening scene contains perhaps the finest fusion of acting, writing, and direction in the filmmaker's entire filmography.
It does so much with so little - we're captivated for 20 entire minutes with little more than a few actors in a farmhouse.