10 movies that peaked in their opening scene

There’s an old saying about first impressions, that is, for the most part, bang on the money. Get an initial meeting wrong, and you’ll be making up for it for the rest of your life. However, if you nail it, then you can coast off that baby for years. The same principle can be applied to Hollywood movies.

Critics and fans alike regularly debate the ‘greatest opening scenes’ of all time, as a great introduction is vital in setting the tone for what is about to follow. But that doesn’t always guarantee that when the first scene slides away into the story the narrative that follows will be of any real quality. 

Sometimes, directors like to play tricks on their audience. They’ll make a really good opening and then unleash two hours of garbage onto the unsuspecting punters. It’s a cruel practice, and it should be outlawed, but for now, it is perfectly legal. 

These ten films all began with so much promise, but all faded away shortly after the first scene ended. At least you don’t have to waste too much time with them; just watch the first 15 minutes or so and then go and do something else.

10 movies that peaked with the first scene:

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (James Mangold, 2023)

The fifth full-length flick from everyone’s favourite hat-wearing, whip-wielding ophidiophobe (look it up) was pretty disastrous all around. As well as costing Disney a tonne of money, it served up a less-than-satisfactory ending to one of cinema’s greatest heroes. Time-travelling Nazis? Archimedes? Antonio Banderas?

Still, the movie’s opening set piece is thrilling. A digitally-de-aged Harrison Ford as Indy battles Nazis on a moving train with his bumbling associate (played brilliantly by Toby Jones) in tow. It feels like classic Indiana Jones; nail-biting action inspired by the adventure serials of old. One last hurrah for the old dog, for a brief moment. 

X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Gavin Hood, 2009)

Three years after the original trilogy ended, the brains behind the ‘X-Men’ series decided that a solo film starring Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine would be a good idea. They were wrong. X-Men Origins: Wolverine had its moments, but was a mediocre and unnecessary follow-up to the franchise that helped kickstart the superhero movie boom. Also, it features that version of Deadpool, which we’re not even going to talk about. 

That being said, the opening sequence – where Wolverine and his brother Sabretooth (Liev Schreiber) fight and die in numerous wars across history – is great. Exciting, stylish, relevant to the plot, these scenes tick all the boxes.

Swordfish (Dominic Sena, 2001)

It turns out that the only good thing about the ill-fated thriller Swordfish comes from a different movie. The film opens with villain Gabriel Shear (John Travolta) monologuing about Dog Day Afternoon, specifically how the bad guys in that film would have gotten away if they’d murdered their hostages. 

This chilling speech eerily foreshadows Shear’s actions later in the plot. This is as good as it gets, however, as the rest of Swordfish is shallow and unsatisfying. The movie focuses way more on explosions and gunfights than any sort of cohesive plot, which is a shame, as its best moment is just a man addressing the camera.

Ghost Ship (Steve Beck, 2002)

After directing the visual effects on The Hunt for Red October and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Steve Beck decided to try his hand at moviemaking. Sadly, neither of his efforts, Thirteen Ghosts or Ghost Ship, made much of a dent, and he walked away shortly thereafter. 

Despite being a general flop, the opening to Ghost Ship is magnificent. A group of passengers danced and chatted aboard a cruise liner in the 1960s. Then, suddenly, a metal wire snaps, flinging it across the deck and viciously slashing open everything in its past. This is just what you want from a horror opening: sudden, innovative, and memorable.

Snake Eyes (Brian De Palma, 1998)

With Brian De Palma behind the camera, Nicolas Cage in the lead role, and Ryuichi Sakamoto on musical duties, Snake Eyes should have been great. Sadly, it failed to live up to the glorious hype promised by that particular collection of names. Instead, it was just fine — an experience utterly devoid of substance with a few fun moments here and there. 

One of those moments comes within the opening few minutes. Against the backdrop of a big boxing match, the camera follows Cage’s character around uninterrupted for about 13 minutes. It’s a seriously impressive tracking shot, one that doesn’t get talked about nearly enough and is well worth studying. You can skip the rest of the movie if you want.

The Happening (M. Night Shyamalan, 2008)

M Night Shyamalan – the patron saint of “It was going so well, until…” — left us with a lot of hope that this picture may eventually switch directions on a dime, but we had hoped it wouldn’t go from good to bad so quickly. The twist-obsessed director has made many movies that don’t live up to their potential. Take The Happening, for example, a film about a series of mass suicides that rock the planet to its core. 

The opening of the movie is horrifying. One man plummets to his death from a construction site scaffolding, followed by another, then another, then another. Their helpless colleagues watch on in horror, as this deeply disturbing scene plays out before them and the audience. The rest of The Happening falls off a cliff, especially when the twist is revealed, but that opening is truly something.

Spectre (Sam Mendes, 2015)

Hot off the heels of Skyfall, Sam Mendes’ next Bond film, Spectre, was surely going to be just as good. Spoiler alert – it wasn’t. Spectre was sluggish, boring, and utterly ridiculous. Blofeld as Bond’s adoptive brother? Absolutely not. 

What makes this all doubly disappointing is the opening to Spectre is one of the best in series history. Set in a fictional Día de los Muertos parade, Bond seamlessly moves through a crowd of people, shedding and acquiring disguises as he goes, all whilst the camera never leaves him. Quite simply, it’s genius, and deserved to be attached to a much better film.

The Way Of The Gun (Christopher McQuarrie, 2000)

Long before he took on the Mission: Impossible franchise, Christopher McQuarrie made the heist movie The Way of the Gun. The film opens with its main characters, two thieves played by Ryan Phillippe and Benicio Del Toro. They get into it with a couple outside of a dive bar, resulting in a mass brawl that sees a huge mob kick the everloving you-know-what out of our ‘heroes’. 

This is quite something to watch, shocking and brutal whilst also establishing the two leads. The rest of the film doesn’t live up to this, meandering along at a fairly un-entrhalling pace, but there were hints at the future greatness McQuarrie would achieve.

Braddock: Missing In Action III (Aaron Norris, 1988)

Chuck Norris initially wasn’t interested in a third outing as the no-nonsense Colonel James Braddock but changed his mind when he got the chance to write the script. Chucky should have trusted his gut, as the film achieved nothing new and just reminded people of how good the first two were. 

There was still some of that Norris magic knocking around, though. The opening takes place during the Fall of Saigon, as Braddock drives through crowded streets with explosions going off on all sides. He arrives at a hospital and seemingly finds the charred body of his wife, which sets in motion the rest of the movie.

Moonraker (Lewis Gilbert, 1979)

The fourth appearance of the continuously camp Roger Moore as the superspy technically has two great openings. The actual first scene sees two wrong’uns steal a space shuttle off the back of a plane. As for the first appearance of Jimmy, that sees him steal a guy’s parachute in mid-air to save his own skin! How cool is that?

Alas, that’s pretty much it for great Moonraker moments. The plot is absolutely ridiculous, even for Moore-era Bond, and the acting and stunts are just too goofy for most people’s tastes. Still, when it comes to kicking things off with a bang, you’ll struggle to find much better in 007’s oeuvre.

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