No time to make one last trip to the bathroom or refill your popcorn- these movies will have you hooked from the second they begin! These film beginnings will forever redefine your cinematic expectations. Dive in now!
1. Ghost Ship (2002)
When Ghost Ship first starts, you’re privy to a fun party on the deck of a large passenger ship. The fun quickly turns to grisly horror after a wire ends up becoming loose. It cuts straight through the whole party, cutting people in half among other gory violence. It’s quite the start to the film!
2. 28 Weeks Later (2007)
Zombie films rarely have happy stories, but 28 Weeks Later has a particularly dark opening. When a family ends up stuck in a building with a horde trying to break in, you might think that the father will go out guns blazing to save his family.
He doesn’t. He runs away and actually abandons them to their fate. So much for unconditional love.
3. X2 (2003)
Superhero movies can sometimes have some pretty incredible openings, but X2 was a special treat. It opens up with an attack on the White House. Nightcrawler shows off just how powerful he is by teleporting and morphing from room to room.
He completely destroys the Secret Service and makes it to the President of the United States with little problem. For fans of Nightcrawler, this was an especially fun opening scene.
4. Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977)
When John Williams’ score blasts through the theater and you see that scrolling text telling you about the state of the world, you know you’re watching a Star Wars film. For audiences in 1977, this opening set the scene for a gigantic franchise that would be going strong several decades later.
5. Lord of War (2005)
Want to know the horrors of war? Lord of the War has an uncomfortable opening scene. It follows the manufacture of a bullet for wartime. It starts out in the factory, then ends up burying itself in the brain of a child soldier.
It’s a rough reality check for those unaware of just how cruel war can become.
6. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
Cate Blanchett is a powerful actress with an even more powerful voice. So, when she gave those opening lines as Galadriel in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship Ring, audiences knew they were in for something special.
Even today, you can’t help but get goosebumps or have a chill run down your spine when her narration opens the film.
7. Scream (1996)
Slashers were becoming a bit of a bore by the mid-1990s. Scream wanted to keep people on the edge of their seats. The movie showed it wasn’t your typical slasher when it killed one of the members of the main cast in the opening act.
Nothing like a bit of unexpected murder to start off a movie.
8. Jaws (1975)
The opening scene of Jaws let audience members know exactly what they were in for. An innocent swimmer ends up stripping down for a night swim. She ends up hunted in the water and inevitably ends up pulled down below the water’s surface.
It’s a tension-filled opener that pulls the audience right now. It may also have contributed to a rising fear of swimming with sharks in the ocean.
9. Watchmen (2009)
Sometimes the right song can really make a movie’s opening scene something special. Such is the case with Watchmen. It opens with Bob Dylan’s The Times They Are A-Changin’ and shows a brief, succinct, alternate history of the world.
It pays off well and introduces the cinematic style of the film, too.
10. Dawn of the Dead (2004)
Another great zombie opener comes from Dawn of the Dead. Life seems normal until a wife discovers her husband has died and turned into a zombie. She narrowly escapes and ends up plunged into a zombie-infested world.
It’s a stark reminder of how quickly the world can go from bad to worse.
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