A great opening scene can tell audiences almost everything they need to know about a movie. It can introduce a character, establish a tone, create an unforgettable image, or throw audiences straight into the action before they’ve even had time to settle into their seats. Some films, however, take that even further and deliver iconic openings that are just as famous as the rest of the picture.
The most iconic movie opening scenes aren’t always the most technical or visually impressive. Sometimes, they become a part of pop culture because of one perfect image, an unforgettable death, or a legendary action sequence. From Raiders of the Lost Ark to Jaws, these are the most iconic introductions in movies.
8
Ghostface’s Phone Call is Synonymous With Scream
Not many horror movies can say they introduced themselves as confidently as Scream. The film kicks off with Casey Becker (Drew Barrymore) at home alone, making popcorn when the phone rings. What starts as a seemingly harmless conversation with a stranger takes an odd turn when the caller begins asking Casey about horror movies. It escalates into a terrifying game with Ghostface where Casey learns that her boyfriend is being held outside, and her life is in grave danger.
Scream’s opening scene is iconic because it completely subverts audience’s expectations. Drew Barrymore was already a major star, and many assumed Casey would be a protagonist, only for her character to be brutally murdered before the main story starts. The first few minutes of Scream expertly demonstrate its understanding of horror genre rules and how it’s willing to break them, which would become an iconic part of the slasher franchise. Casey’s phone call and the line, “What’s your favorite scary movie?,” became just as popular as the movie itself.
7
51 Years Later, Jaws’s Opening Scene Still Terrifies Audiences
Before Jaws introduces Chief Brody, Amity Island, or even the enormous shark that will terrorize the town, it introduces its monster through a nighttime swim. A young woman named Chrissie runs off into the water, and an unseen predator attacks her from below, violently dragging her through the water as she screams in agony. An ominous score plays in the background until the creature pulls her under completely, leaving only silence on the water’s surface.
That restraint is exactly what made Jaws’ opening scene so effective. Spielberg didn’t need to show audiences a gory, gruesome attack; he instead weaponized the fear of the unknown, which produced a considerably more frightening result. Chrissie’s death also immediately establishes the movie’s tone: the ocean is no longer a harmless, fun summer setting, because something enormous is waiting beneath the surface. The sequence became the blueprint for countless horror movies that followed, proving that what the audience cannot see is just as scary as what it can. Even decades later, Jaws’ first death scene is an iconic sequence.
6
No Opening is As Chaotic As Saving Private Ryan’s
Saving Private Ryan opens with an elderly man visiting a cemetery in Normandy with his family, before the movie cuts back to June 6, 1944. The audience is suddenly aboard a landing craft approaching Omaha Beach with Captain John Miller and a group of American soldiers, who are met with devastating gunfire from German troops when their doors open. What follows is a heartbreaking extended depiction of the chaos and brutality of the D-Day invasion. As war movies go, Saving Private Ryan does everything to avoid making the conflict look heroic in the conventional sense.
Soldiers are killed almost immediately, men struggle through the water while under fire, and the beach becomes a landscape of bodies, blood, and confusion. Rather than beginning with a straightforward action sequence where the heroes look invincible, Saving Private Ryan makes the audience feel vulnerable and overwhelmed alongside them. The scene lasts roughly 24 minutes, and by the time Miller reaches the beach, viewers understand the physical and psychological cost of the mission before the search for Ryan has even begun.
5
Violence And Ordinary Conversation Exist Side-by-Side in Pulp Fiction
Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction starts small. Two criminals sit in a diner discussing the risks of armed robbery. Realizing that robbing coffee shops and diners is safer and more lucrative than banks or liquor stores, they decide to rob the very establishment they are sitting in on the spot. They draw their guns, announce the robbery with a volley of threats, and the film cuts to the title credits. The brilliance of the scene lies in that almost nothing about their conversation feels like the beginning of a typical crime movie.
Tarantino lets the characters ramble and joke on topics ranging from pop culture to relationships before eventually letting loose. It’s one of the director’s signature techniques, where he lulls the viewers with an entertaining conversation set in mundane places before skipping 10 steps and jumping into the action. The opening scene plays again toward the end, proving that the seemingly-random chat is actually a part of the movie’s deliberately fractured structure. Pulp Fiction is a masterclass in comedic timing and conversational character work, and its opening sequence gives you a clear picture of the stylized crime flick you’re getting yourself into.
4
Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope Kicks Off a Sprawling Story
After the famous “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away” title card, A New Hope’s opening crawl begins explaining the conflict between the Galactic Empire and the Rebel Alliance. Then, the text disappears into the distance, and audiences are taken to space, where Princess Leia’s Rebel blockade runner is being pursued by an enormous Imperial Star Destroyer. The huge scale of A New Hope’s opening sequence is exactly what makes it so phenomenal.
The audience has barely entered the movie before a spacecraft fills the screen and appears to be flying overhead almost endlessly. It immediately communicates the Empire’s overwhelming strength without needing to go on a lengthy ramble. Combined with John Williams’ iconic score, the sequence created a visual and musical language that has been imitated countless times since. The Star Wars franchise boasts epic stories, but A New Hope’s beginning does far more than tell viewers they’re watching a space opera – it tells them they’re in a whole other world.
Who’s That Character?
Identify the silhouettes before time runs out.
Identify the silhouettes before time runs out.
Easy (7.5s)Medium (5.0s)Hard (2.5s)
3
Inglorious Basterds’ Opening Gets Very Tense, Very Quickly
Inglorious Basterds opens in Nazi-occupied France, where SS Officer Hans Landa arrives at a secluded dairy farm under the guise of a routine inspection. Over a glass of milk, Landa engages in polite conversation with the farmer, LaPadite, discussing everything from milk to cigarettes. He’s effortlessly charming, but Landa reveals that he knows a Jewish family is hiding under the wooden floorboards beneath their feet.
The scene becomes increasingly tense without needing a conventional action sequence, as Quentin Tarantino’s film turned every single expression, action, and piece of dialogue into an exhilarating and nerve-wracking experience laden with double meaning. Christoph Waltz plays Hans Landa as an unnervingly polite, switching languages and flattering LaPadite before suddenly ordering his men to fire through the floor. With so much anticipation built, the violence is still shocking, and Landa is, within minutes, shown to be one of cinema’s most terrifying villains. Mundane interrogation somehow became an unbearably tense scene.
2
Kubrick’s Lauded Bone-to-Spacecraft Cut is Iconic in 2001: A Space Odyssey
Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey begins millions of years in the past. Among desolate prehistoric landscapes, a band of early hominids struggles for survival, but their existence changes with the arrival of a mysterious black monolith. It triggers a cognitive awakening: an ape realizes a bone can be used as a tool and a weapon, eventually using it to kill an enemy and reclaim control of the waterhole. Tossing the weapon skyward, A Space Odyssey then cuts to an orbital satellite circling Earth.
It’s one of the most famous and lauded transitions in film history, compressing an incomprehensible amount of time into a single visual idea. Connecting one of humanity’s earliest tools with the advanced tech of the future, A Space Odyssey’s opening establishes its enormous scope without explaining anything. It’s mysterious, strange, and unforgettable, and every second demands viewers’ full attention. By connecting man’s first to the advanced technology thousands of years later, Kubrick establishes the film’s core thread: although humanity changed, we are still, in many ways, the same.
1
Raiders of the Lost Ark’s Boulder Chase is Unforgettable
Raiders of the Lost Ark’s opening scene is easily the most iconic in cinema history. Indiana Jones enters a hidden temple in the Peruvian jungle and navigates a series of dangerous traps to locate the golden idol. Using his whip to disarm a betrayer, he replaces the idol with a bag of sand but accidentally triggers ancient booby traps. He dodges poison darts and barely escapes before realizing that a massive boulder is rolling toward him.
The opening is basically an entire Indiana Jones adventure compressed into 10 minutes. Indy gets the treasure, loses it, narrowly escapes death, is betrayed by Satipo, confronts René Belloq, flees pursuers, and discovers that his own pilot is terrified of snakes. Most importantly, Raiders of the Lost Ark’s introductory scene establishes exactly who this archeologist is: brave, clever, reckless, persistent, and just as capable of getting himself into trouble as he is getting out of it. The boulder chase has subsequently become one of the most recognizable sequences in action movie history by establishing the tone, protagonist, sense of adventure, and humor that defines the franchise. Its simplicity in hindsight is what makes it so good.
