20 Greatest Opening Movie Scenes Of All Time

12. Goodfellas

Goodfellas, Martin Scorsese's seminal 1990 gangster drama, is the perfect crime film. Based on the real life case of Henry Hill, Scorsese's film is a tour-de-force in good storytelling, enshrining Goodfellas as one of the all time greats of the genre.

There are plenty of key moments in the film to note, most of which involve Joe Pesci in one way or another, but one of the best involves the now iconic opening scene where Hill and fellow gangsters Tommy DeVito and James Conway are on their way to dump a body. Only, it turns out that the body isn't actually a body, and that the person is alive and well in the trunk of the car.

What follows serves as an introduction to the brutal mob violence that typified Scorsese's film, with Pesci's DeVito taking a kitchen knife and stabbing the victim repeatedly, before DeNiro's Conway shoots him at pointblank range.

Then, in a bid to drive home Goodfellas' tonal dissonance, Hill remarks that this was all he ever wanted to do in life, a line of dialogue accompanied by a swelling jazz accompaniment. It's the perfect introduction to a world that's all but normalised brutality and violence, and while the film boasts moments of equal notoriety, it can't be overstated just how well the opening sets the stage.