10 Movies Where The First Scene Is The Best
7. Spectre
Unlike Inglourious Basterds, Spectre certainly isn't a great movie all the way through, and like a number of Bond films, can't ever rise above its delirious pre-titles sequence.
Sam Mendes kicks off Daniel Craig's penultimate 007 joint with a covert op in Mexico City during the Day of the Dead, where Bond attempts to track and subdue a terrorist plotting a bombing.
The sequence, conceived as a single take - though achieved through some impressively woven seams - follows Bond as he passes through the festival, enters a hotel with a beautiful woman (Stephanie Sigman), climbs out onto the balcony, and takes aim at his target, Marco Sciarra (Alessandro Cremona).
But Sciarra manages to escape in the explosive chaos that follows, and Bond engages him in a foot chase. Sciarra's helicopter eventually arrives to pick him up, but Bond chases him onboard, leading to a punch-up in the chopper as it continues to ascend.
The sequence climaxes with Bond kicking Sciarra out of the chopper, incapacitating the pilot, and just barely gaining control of the bird before it can crash into the Mexican masses below.
No matter Spectre's many mistakes, it's as thrilling and ambitious a pre-titles sequence as the franchise has ever delivered, though every other action scene in the movie pales massively by comparison.