Saving private Ryan

For the time? A New Hope. Opens with easily the most impressive spaceship battle ever filmed, moves to an exciting battle, introduces an awesome menacing bad guy ("If this is a diplomatic ship, then where is thr ambassador? breaks neck with one hand and throws away the body) and kickstarts the plot.

Inglorious bastards

The Matrix

Children of Men (2006) sets the scene perfectly: the future is filthy, the youngest person on the planet has just died, and our protagonist just narrowly survived a terrorist act. Marvellous film.

2001: A Space Odyssey

Simply the sun rising over the Earth set to Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

Zombieland is overall underrated, but the intro is impeccable. Perfectly sets up the rules and the humor the rest of the movie follows.

also, just thinking about the start of cool hand luke makes me giggle uncontrollably.

Two favorites that come to mind:

Contact

Baby Driver

Intro to Lord of War (2005)

The Dark Knight and Baby Driver seem to be the favorites so far.

Pretty hard to beat the opening sequence of The Dark Knight. Really sets the tone for the whole movie.

Up

Most of the James Bond movies, hard to pick one.

Ghost Ship. The rest of the movie is horrible but the first scene is inspired.

Super troopers. (This cut off the first part, and the end part. Look up the movie.)

WALL-E

I liked Manhunter opening scene too. The colours and the quiet.

Bladerunner, obviously.

Contact

28 days later

Saving Private Ryan is my pick but just to add something new to the conversation I’ll add Catch Me if You Can for one of the best illustrated opening credits.

Love the opening to Pulp Fiction

That Lord of war bullet opening was pretty iconic

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Baby Driver

Casino Royale

Reservoir Dogs (1992) by Quentin Tarantino

"Let me tell you what like a virgin is about. It's all about a girl who digs a guy with a big dick. The entire song is a metaphor for big dicks."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyR4RK0LA_E

The Dark Knight - great IMAX-shot visuals, amazing atmosphere and music, action right out of the gate. Sets the tone that the Joker is one crazy mf'er while being basically an entire heist movie in a few short minutes.

Star Trek: Into Darkness - The first 10 minutes is my favorite demo sequence of all time. COLORS are really vivid and make the alien world look actually, well, alien. Good audio effects with spears whooshing by and water falling off the ship. Really nice cinematic shots of the Enterprise and the volcano. Ignore what the characters are saying (because it's all dumb) and stop watching the movie after the alarm clock goes off, but everything else is about the best thing you can watch on a really nice home theater setup.

NAAAAAAAAAAAAAA SUWENYAAAAAAAA HAMANIIII CHIHUAHUAAAAAAAAA

28 Weeks Later, absolutely visceral

I think Raiders of the lost Ark is perfect in a way.

I also love

Leon: The Professional La Haine Home Alone Braindead

I'm still trying hard to remember the one I thought of a while ago while writing these down.

x-men origins wants a word (rest of the movie is...not that great) https://youtu.be/kpcQOPz-HaE

The Dark Knight

Not quite the FIRST scene but I've always really liked the opening sequence of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas where they're driving through the desert.

Master & Commander.

Drive

I recently re-watched 2001: a space odyssey and its both one of the best and worst opening scenes ever.

That'd be a specific vintage porn movie, one that I'm so very fond of to these days. 🧐

Scream. Pure camp, but actually scary. So good.

Equilibrium. Definitely a B movie. Call it a Matrix clone if you will, but that opening was an incredible experience in the theater.