You only get one chance to make a good first impression, and it’s particularly true in crime thriller cinema. The opening scene of any film allows it to establish the stakes, story, and setting, but it is also an opportunity to completely shatter or solidify audience expectations. This has been done in many different ways throughout the near-100-year history of crime cinema, taking the form of anything from action-packed crime scenes and high-octane police chases to meditative descents into a detective’s or a criminal’s psyche.
But it is little surprise that the very best opening scenes in crime thriller movies have been the ones that dared to do things a little differently, be it a juxtaposition in tone and text, an uncommonly brilliant piece of technical filmmaking, or even a simple conversation. Ranging from the dread-inducing openings of classical film noir to viscerally intense starts to modern masterpieces, these crime thrillers deliver some of the best first scenes ever shot.
8
‘Drive’ (2011)
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Image via FilmDistrict</figure>
It may be more of a sequence than one set scene, but Drive‘s opening is a compelling mixture of tension and style that immediately hooks viewers. It opens with Ryan Gosling‘s unnamed Driver stating his terms on the phone, the camera slowly panning across his dimly lit apartment. He picks up the getaway vehicle, then drives to the scene of a robbery to pick up the two thieves, navigate the police response, and drop them off safely and undetected.
Director Nicholas Winding Refn masterfully builds suspense through patience, precise sound design, and concentrated cinematography, with the camera’s perspective never leaving the inside of the car from the moment the heist begins. Drive immediately breaks away from action norms by avoiding bombastic, full-throttle carnage, instead extracting a sense of simmering suspense through The Driver’s clinical, chess-like strategy that favors stealth over speed. Basking in the gorgeous, noir-inspired visuals that define the movie’s aesthetic, Drive‘s opening is a masterclass in technical filmmaking and stylistic storytelling.
7
‘Vertigo’ (1958)
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Image via Paramount Pictures</figure>
1958’s Vertigo is one of the defining thrillers in Hollywood cinema, a gripping tale of obsession, desire, and mystique realized with some of the most innovative and impactful filmmaking of its era. It establishes its excellence from the opening scene, which sees San Francisco detective John “Scottie” Ferguson (James Stewart) and a uniform cop chase a criminal across rooftops. When Ferguson slips on a steep rooftop, his colleague attempts to help him, only to fall to his death.
It is an astonishing introduction to Ferguson’s trauma, which leads to him developing a debilitating fear of heights and retiring from the force to work as a private eye. However, it is also an unrelenting masterpiece of technical filmmaking. Perhaps its most notable achievement is its invention of the dolly-zoom, which brings a sense of disorienting terror to Ferguson’s POV shot as he looks down at the ground. Also bolstered by Bernard Herrmann‘s swirling, spiraling score, Vertigo‘s opening scene is a triumph of cinematic tension that then bleeds into what is one of the greatest opening credit sequences of all time.
6
‘No Country for Old Men’ (2007)
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Image via Miramax Films</figure>
In some ways, No Country for Old Men begins exactly how you’d expect from a neo-Western crime thriller: gorgeous shots of the American landscape, a growing sense of tension, Sheriff Bell’s (Tommy Lee Jones) poignant narration. In many ways, though, the movie is completely subversive. It refuses to offer exposition or explanation; it even refuses to use a score, instead opting to emphasize the sparse ambience of the desert, with gentle winds and the crunch of gravel under two men’s feet being all that breaks the silence.
This approach highlights the movie’s bleak tone and hostile setting. The Coen Brothers evoke suspense through a sense of numbness that is overlaid by Bell’s poetic meditation on how the nature of crime has changed. Cutting to a police station where arrested criminal Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) ruthlessly kills the cop who apprehended him, No Country for Old Men launches into its unflinching descent into violence, morality, fate, and changing times with astonishing conviction, making for one of the most compelling opening passages crime cinema has ever seen.
5
‘Sicario’ (2015)
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Image via Lionsgate</figure>
The annals of crime thriller cinema are filled with iconic, terrifying scenes that set the audience on edge and conjure a sense of sickening tension. Few, however, can rival the piercing impact of Sicario‘s first sequence. Plunging viewers into the brutal, unglamorous reality of cartel violence, it presents an FBI raid on a safe house in Arizona with the objective of rescuing hostages. After a rogue shot from a thug’s shotgun, the agents discover the newly plastered walls of the house are filled with corpses.
It is a sequence of faultless suspense, with the deep, dull drum beat and ominous string crescendos of Jóhann Jóhannsson‘s score instilling cold dread in viewers. Roger Deakins‘ clinical, concise cinematography and the use of protagonist Kate Macer (Emily Blunt) as an audience surrogate further increase the tension. We share Kate’s confusion, shock, and mounting horror as she is confronted with a world of evil and violence she can’t initially understand. Ending with a frightful explosion as agents realize the house is booby-trapped, Denis Villeneuve opens Sicario with a sequence of stomach-churning intensity.
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‘Double Indemnity’ (1944)
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Image via Paramount Pictures</figure>
Insurance salesman Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) staggers into his office in the middle of the night, removes his coat to display a gunshot wound, lights a cigarette one-handed, then starts recording a confession of a fraudulent claim scheme he himself was involved in. He confesses to murder, to conspiracy, and he even confesses: “I killed him for money and a woman. I didn’t get the money, and I didn’t get the woman.”
Film noir is no stranger to fatalistic doom—the idea is basically the thematic backbone of the genre—but few movies capture it with the same immediacy and impact as Double Indemnity. Framing the deadly con as Neff’s confession after the fact imbues this classic with a resigned sense of damnation. Audiences know Neff’s ploy is going to go bad, but how and when becomes the tantalizing question. Only compounded by Billy Wilder‘s impeccable use of high-contrast lighting and deft shot selection, as well as the dry, cynical wit of his and Raymond Chandler‘s dialogue, Double Indemnity is the epitome of hard-boiled noir tragedy.
3
‘Pulp Fiction’ (1994)
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Image via Miramax Films</figure>
Few filmmakers are as proficient at engrossing audiences as Quentin Tarantino. From the unrelenting suspense of Inglourious Basterds to the playful ’60s Western TV promo in Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood, his movies make an instant impression, but few do it quite like Pulp Fiction. The 1994 crime classic begins with a couple conversing over breakfast about the growing risks they face making a living as armed robbers before deciding to switch to holding up restaurants, starting with that very diner.
A sweet, romantic kiss cascades into an eruption of violence and profanity, then Dick Dale‘s “Misirlou” ushers in the opening credits. Viewers are instantly engrossed, with Tarantino’s trademark dialogue and the magnetic performances of Tim Roth and Amanda Plummer working in tandem to conjure one of the most hypnotic and energizing opening scenes of all time. That the movie returns to and recontextualizes the sequence in its final scene only makes it even better.
2
‘M’ (1931)
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Image via Vereinigte Star-Film GmbH</figure>
Children play in the street while a mother readies the table for supper, a young girl bounces her ball against a wall, and then the shadow of a man nears her, covering the poster declaring a reward for anyone who has information that brings an at-large child killer to justice. The man—who we soon learn is Hans Beckert (Peter Lorre)—walks with the child and buys her a balloon. It cuts to the mother, who speaks briefly with a visitor before calling her daughter in for dinner, but her calls go unanswered.
The way Fritz Lang starts M doesn’t feature any violence, conflict, or visual displays of criminal wrongdoing, and yet it’s one of the most haunting opening sequences in cinematic history. Beckert’s predatory evil is presented through what isn’t shown, while the way it plays out so invisibly and quickly is truly chilling. M marked Lang’s first departure from silent cinema, but the strength of visual storytelling silent movies demand is on full display in a magnetically eerie opening scene to what remains one of the genre’s greatest ever movies.
1
‘Touch of Evil’ (1958)
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Image via Universal Pictures</figure>
Crime thriller cinema is littered with outstanding opening scenes, but in terms of craft, tension, and impact, it is impossible to look beyond 1958’s Touch of Evil as being a definitive standout. Directed by Orson Welles, the gritty film noir classic opens with a three-and-a-half-minute long shot that sees a time bomb planted in the boot of a car before the owners return to their vehicle and start driving through the busy streets of the U.S.-Mexico border town.
The one-take approach works on so many levels. It introduces viewers to the nightlife and style of the setting, immerses them in a frenetic soundscape that shifts seamlessly between conversations and car radios, and evokes an unbearable sense of suspense, accentuating the ticking clock on the inevitable explosion. It is most engrossing as an incredible feat of large-scale choreography and precise camerawork, but Touch of Evil‘s opening sequence also establishes the film’s sense of moral decay and cultural friction. It is high stakes, style, and storytelling done to perfection, and it marks one of the most arresting and awe-inspiring openings to any movie ever made.
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