Ranking Every James Bond Opening Scene From Worst To Best
4. The Spy Who Loved Me
The Spy Who Loved Me's cold open, like Goldfinger before it, is vintage 007. It again serves as perfect example of the unrelenting appeal of the Bond series, but its spectacular stunt gives it the edge over Goldfinger.
James Bond is in bed with a woman in the Austrian mountains when he is contacted by Mi6. Unfortunately for Bond, the woman he is with reveals his location to nearby Soviet agents, and a ski chase ensues. The coordination and choreography of the skiing is phenomenal, and this sequence is one of the best snow-set action scenes in all of Bond. Marvin Hamlisch's synthesizer score is the most 1970's thing you'll ever hear, but I mean that in the best possible way. But the real draw of this opening scene is its climactic stunt.
With his enemies in hot pursuit, 007 is forced to ski off the edge of a mountain, and after an extremely long free fall he finally pulls a chord to reveal a Union Jack parachute. According to Bond legend, at the 1977 premiere of The Spy Who Loved Me the audience erupted into a standing ovation the second the parachute opened, and its no surprise why. Watching this stunt forty years later it is just just as awe-inspiring as it was at its debut, and it may even be the best stunt in the entire Bond series.