The first scene between Hans Landa and a French dairy farmer is one of the most suffocating exchanges Tarantino has ever written. The rest of the film is entertaining and packed with great moments, but it's looser and more uneven, never again reaching the same level of pure sustained tension. Christoph Waltz is incredible throughout, but that opening scene is the one that makes it clear you're watching something special. | © Universal Studios
The opening credits do more world-building in a few minutes than most superhero movies manage in their entire runtime, walking you through a whole alternate history in a way that feels effortless. What follows is a long, self-serious adaptation that gets so caught up in being faithful to the source material that it forgets to be a compelling movie on its own terms. Zack Snyder clearly understood what made Watchmen iconic; he just struggled to translate that understanding past the first few minutes. | © Warner Bros. Pictures
The opening scene on the abandoned, rain-soaked Isla Nublar is exactly what a Jurassic sequel should feel like. Then the film shifts into a convoluted rescue mission and eventually into a haunted-house movie involving a cloned child, and the whole thing loses the plot in almost every sense. It's a rare case where the franchise magic shows up just long enough to remind you how far the rest of the movie falls short. | © Universal Studios
The opening getaway sequence is a near-perfect piece of filmmaking: cool, quiet, and unbearably tense, with Ryan Gosling's Driver outsmarting his pursuers through patience and precision rather than flashy speed. The rest of the film is excellent in its own right, but it pivots hard into brutal violence and slow-burn romance that splits audiences right down the middle. Those first ten minutes promise a sleek, minimalist thriller, and what you get instead is something far more uneven and divisive. | © FilmDistrict
The Omaha Beach landing sequence is arguably the most brutal and unflinching depiction of war ever put on screen, a 27-minute gut punch that left audiences shaken in a way few films ever have. What follows is still a well-made and deeply respectful war film, but it inevitably settles into a more conventional narrative that operates by familiar Hollywood rules. Nothing in the remaining two hours hits with the same raw, unrelenting force as those opening minutes. | © Paramount Pictures
The first half of this movie is a tense, dialogue-driven crime thriller with George Clooney and Quentin Tarantino at their most magnetic, and the opening convenience store scene drops you straight into that world with zero warm-up. Then the film literally turns into a vampire movie halfway through, and while that shift is intentional, it's hard not to feel like the grounded, menacing version of this story was always the more interesting one. The opening sets up a film that never actually gets made. | © Miramax Films
The opening heist sequence, set to Bellbottoms by The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, is one of the most purely enjoyable action scenes of the last decade: perfectly choreographed, endlessly rewatchable, and a total statement of intent from Edgar Wright. The rest of the film is still good, but it spends most of its runtime chasing that same high without ever quite catching it. Once the story leans harder into romance and drama in the third act, the effortless energy of those first few minutes starts to feel like a distant memory. | © Sony Pictures Releasing
The movie opens with a bravura slow-motion explosion sequence that takes the bullet-time trick from The Matrix and cranks it up, and for about two minutes it feels like a genuinely stylish thriller. Then John Travolta starts monologuing and the film reveals itself to be a deeply silly heist movie that mistakes attitude for substance. There's some fun to be had along the way, but nothing comes close to matching the pure technical showmanship of that first shot. | © Warner Bros. Pictures
The opening scene is a masterclass in pure panic, a safe house gets overrun and what unfolds is one of the most stressful sequences in modern horror, all controlled chaos and impossible choices. Then Danny Boyle handed off the director's chair, and the difference is jarring once the rest of the film kicks in. It plays out like a perfectly competent but utterly forgettable zombie movie that happens to have an all-timer of an opening attached to it. | © 20th Century Studios
The movie opens in Mexico City during Día de los Muertos, and Sam Mendes pulls off a long tracking shot that follows Bond through the crowds and into the chaos with a kind of effortless cool that the rest of the film never recaptures. What follows is a bloated, overly complicated spy story that fumbles its villain reveal and wastes a strong cast. For a franchise built on strong openings, Spectre is a frustrating case of a great first impression leading nowhere worth going. | © Sony Pictures Releasing
The opening sequence, showing young Logan and Victor discovering their powers and then racing through decades of war together, is a genuinely great piece of X-Men storytelling compressed into just a few minutes. After that, the movie falls apart fast: bad writing, worse CGI, and a string of poor decisions that squander what should have been a slam-dunk premise. Hugh Jackman deserved a much better solo debut, and it took years and two more films before Wolverine finally got one. | © 20th Century Studios
That opening scene on the hijacked CIA plane does everything right. Bane takes control of the situation immediately, and every line he delivers makes it clear this villain means business. The rest of the film has plenty of ambition but is weighed down by a bloated runtime and a third act that strains credibility even by comic-book standards. It's still a decent movie, but nothing after those opening minutes carries the same electricity. | © Warner Bros. Pictures
Christian Bale's introduction as Gorr is the best thing in the entire movie. Watching him lose his daughter and then discover that the gods he worshipped never cared is genuinely moving and sets up a villain with real menace. The problem is that the film almost immediately abandons that darker tone in favor of jokes and color overload that completely undercut Gorr's threat. Bale deserved a better movie around him, and that opening scene is a constant reminder of what could have been. | © Walt Disney Studios
The movie kicks off with one of the most entertaining sequences in the whole franchise: Dom and his crew pulling off a highway fuel tanker heist that's pure, unfiltered chaos in the best way. Then Letty dies, the tone shifts, and the film settles into a much more generic revenge story that can't match the energy of those first few minutes. Fast Five is where the series finally figured out what it wanted to be, but this one at least gave fans a send-off worth remembering before getting there. | © Universal Pictures
The opening scene of Ethan Hunt free-climbing a sheer rock face, no ropes, no net, is genuinely thrilling and sets up a movie that never comes close to delivering on that promise. What follows is a bloated, style-over-substance action film that many consider the low point of the entire franchise. The first scene raises the bar so high that the rest of the movie spends two hours tripping over it. | © Paramount Pictures
Some movies front-load all their best ideas into the opening scene and spend the rest of their runtime coasting on that early goodwill. These 15 films all had incredible starts, and then, for one reason or another, never quite lived up to them.
