Movies with Unforgettable Opening Scenes: Essential Films

A wheelchair-bound photographer becomes obsessed with watching his neighbors from his apartment window and grows suspicious that one of them may have committed murder.

When a car bomb explodes at the U.S./Mexico border, Mexican drug enforcement agent Miguel Vargas teams up with American police captain Hank Quinlan to investigate. As Vargas begins to suspect corruption and evidence planting, he and his new bride find themselves in danger.

Three unlikely allies—a quiet loner, a ruthless hitman, and a Mexican bandit—compete and collaborate in their quest to find a buried fortune of $200,000 in gold during the American Civil War.

A mysterious alien artifact discovered on the moon leads humanity on an epic journey through space, guided by the advanced AI computer HAL 9000. Stanley Kubrick's groundbreaking sci-fi epic explores evolution, technology, and humanity's place in the universe.

A mysterious woman arrives in a dusty frontier town as railroad expansion threatens to transform the American West, setting off a epic tale of revenge and survival involving outlaws, gunfighters, and land barons.

The aging patriarch of an organized crime dynasty transfers control of his clandestine empire to his reluctant son. A saga of family loyalty, power, and the violent world of the Italian-American mafia.

Archaeologist Indiana Jones races against the Nazis to find the legendary Ark of the Covenant in this thrilling adventure classic.

In a dystopian 2019 Los Angeles, a blade runner is called out of retirement to hunt down four escaped replicants who have come to Earth searching for their creator.

A childless couple consisting of an ex-con and an ex-cop decide to steal one of a family's quintuplets, leading to unexpected complications in their lives.

A paranoid Hollywood studio executive receives anonymous death threats from a disgruntled screenwriter whose script he rejected, leading him into a dangerous game of trying to identify his would-be killer among the countless writers he's dismissed.

A tough Hong Kong cop teams up with an undercover officer infiltrating a gun smuggling ring to bring down the criminal organization. This action-packed thriller showcases intense gunfights and excessive force as the unlikely partners pursue justice.

A former mountain ranger haunted by a tragic climbing accident is reluctantly drawn back into action when he's called to rescue stranded climbers, only to discover they're actually dangerous criminals searching for stolen money in the treacherous peaks.

A master thief and his crew pull off elaborate heists across Los Angeles while being relentlessly pursued by a determined detective. The two men develop a mutual respect despite being on opposite sides of the law in this cat-and-mouse thriller.

Two criminal brothers on the run take a family hostage and seek refuge at a remote Mexican bar, only to discover they've stumbled into a vampire nest.

A teenage girl and her friends are stalked by a masked killer who uses horror movie tropes as part of a deadly game, one year after her mother's murder.

A radio astronomer receives the first extraterrestrial radio signal ever detected on Earth, leading to a global race to decode the message and decide humanity's response. She faces challenging choices between her scientific beliefs and the complex realities of first contact.

Following the D-Day landings, a group of U.S. Rangers led by Captain John Miller embark on a dangerous mission to locate and rescue a paratrooper whose three brothers have been killed in combat.

A computer hacker discovers that reality as he knows it is actually a simulated world controlled by machines, and joins a rebellion to free humanity from this digital prison.

A salvage crew discovers a passenger ship that has been missing since 1962 floating in the Bering Sea. When they attempt to claim the vessel, they become trapped aboard and discover the ship harbors a deadly supernatural presence.

A group of survivors barricade themselves in a shopping mall as they struggle to stay alive during a zombie apocalypse that has overrun the world.

A globetrotting arms dealer navigates deadly war zones while staying one step ahead of Interpol agents, business rivals, and dangerous dictators. As his illegal weapons empire grows, he must ultimately confront his own moral conscience.

James Bond embarks on his first mission as a 00 agent, tasked with defeating Le Chiffre, a financier of international terrorism, in a high-stakes poker game in Montenegro to prevent him from securing his grip on the terrorist market.

When a hunter stumbles upon a drug deal gone wrong and takes the money, he becomes the target of a relentless killer in this tense cat-and-mouse thriller set in the Texas desert.

Six months after a deadly rage virus devastated the British Isles, American forces return believing the threat has passed, only to discover the infection is far from over.

A 78-year-old man fulfills his lifelong dream of adventure when he ties thousands of balloons to his house and embarks on an unexpected journey with an enthusiastic young Boy Scout.

In Nazi-occupied France during World War II, a group of Jewish-American soldiers known as "The Basterds" wage a brutal guerrilla campaign against the Third Reich. Their mission intersects with a French-Jewish theater owner's own plans for revenge in this alternate history war film.

A skilled Hollywood stuntman who moonlights as a getaway driver becomes entangled in a dangerous heist when he tries to help his neighbor and her family. When the job goes wrong, he must protect them from vengeful criminals while navigating the violent underworld of Los Angeles.

A darkly comedic anthology film exploring how ordinary people reach their breaking point when pushed too far by life's injustices. Six interconnected stories showcase explosive moments of revenge and rage in modern Argentina.

After his fiancée is murdered, Mitch Rapp trains under a Cold War veteran to become a lethal counterterrorism operative. Together, they must investigate a series of mysterious attacks threatening national security.

In the small town of Derry, Maine, a group of outcast children known as The Losers Club must confront their fears and face off against an ancient evil that manifests as the terrifying clown Pennywise.

Thirty years after the original film, a new blade runner discovers a dangerous secret that could destabilize society and leads him on a quest to find the missing Rick Deckard.

A family must live in complete silence to avoid deadly creatures that hunt using sound.

A secret agent must master the art of time inversion to prevent a global catastrophe in Christopher Nolan's mind-bending espionage thriller.