Every James Bond Movie Pre-Credits Scene Ranked Worst To Best

Skyfall, one of James Bond's most elite adventures, opens with an absolutely stunning chase sequence in Istanbul.

This particular film is a little more low-key action-wise than many Bond films and this opening is the main time where the film partakes in more extravagant, fantastical action. In doing so, it packs a feature-film's worth of thrills into just ten minutes and delivers an utterly enthralling white-knuckle thrill ride that's full of awesome stunts, well-placed humour and intelligent usage of Istanbul's geography.

It also sets up the themes of the film very well. M (Judi Dench) orders fellow agent Eve Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) to take a shot at Bond and the man he's fighting and hits Bond by mistake, almost killing him. This excellently sets up the journeys of both Bond and M in the film; he has to rebuild his career after this near-death experience and she has to come to terms with her mistakes.

This opening also neatly foreshadows two other things: the film's main villain (Javier Bardem), who also had a near-death experience thanks to M, but has responded by turning to evil, and the fact that viewers are in for one of the greatest Bond flicks of them all.