Entertainment
10 Greatest Sci-Fi Opening Shots of All Time
You don’t have to start an amazing sci-fi movie with an absolutely amazing or technically dazzling shot, as something like Jurassic Park shows. That movie has a great opening scene, but the first shot of the movie isn’t particularly memorable. It’s some trees rustling. It’s fine. But it’s “shoot her!” and the rest of the scene – especially the way it teases and doesn’t clearly show any dinosaurs – that makes it a great opening.
So, the following examples are all here just because of the opening shots. Some of these only last a few seconds, while others last a couple of minutes. They all convey some kind of information right away in a visually striking or otherwise thought-provoking way, and sure, they’re usually part of great opening scenes. But what really matters are great opening shots from sci-fi movies, and below are some of the very best of all time.
10
‘Akira’ (1988)
One of the best anime films of all time, Akira is about the dystopian world of… well, 2019. But an alternate 2019, seeing as Akira starts with a shot of the Tokyo of 1988 being blown up with an atomic bomb. It’s also not the only cyberpunk movie of the 1980s that has a memorable opening shot and a 2019 setting (more on that other movie about “blades” and “running” in a bit).
It’s funny that Akira did accurately predict the Olympics being held in Tokyo in 2020, even if technically, the “2020” Olympics got held in 2021, because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Sticking with that opening shot, though, it’s a memorable image and an important one for setting the scene, explaining why Tokyo becomes Neo-Tokyo, and also foreshadowing more widespread destruction that eventually happens much later in the film.
9
‘Back to the Future’ (1985)
There’s a lot going on during the opening scene of Back to the Future, and much of it’s conveyed within one shot that shows a variety of things in a single room. There is a cut at one point, from a can of dog food being opened to the contents of that can being dropped into a bowl (and some of it getting on the floor), but even then, there’s about two minutes’ worth of information conveyed in the single shot before that cut.
Plenty of things shown here feel a little odd, at first, but they’re all set-ups that eventually get great payoffs, and they do ultimately help Back to the Future feel as satisfying and crowd-pleasing as it ultimately does. The lack of music during this opening shot has always felt like a bit of an odd creative choice, but the visuals here do a lot, and there’s definite creativity in how much is shown and coordinated in a single opening shot.
8
‘Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith’ (2005)
It’s worth including more than one Star Wars movie here, since they typically start memorably. If you count the opening crawl as part of any opening shot, they’re always iconic, with the main theme and the serial-style yellow text always feeling exciting and setting the mood well, even if the movie to follow is less than great. Thankfully, most of Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith is pretty great, and the opening shot is especially memorable.
Now, it’s not the very best part of the whole movie, and though it’s presented as one long take, that is easier to do when everything’s computer-generated, compared to, say, the intricacies of doing a massive battle scene initially presented as one long unbroken take lasting more than a minute. It’s still exciting and quite spectacular, in any event, being enough of a wow moment to potentially stop you from realizing the battle Obi-Wan and Anakin dramatically swoop into should be visible sooner.
7
‘Children of Men’ (2006)
This is a slightly tricky example, because there is one long shot that makes up the first scene in Children of Men, but a cut to a TV screen people are watching does technically interrupt it. Technically, the third shot of the movie is the one that feels the most impactful and memorable, though it could be the second shot if they did film the whole thing in one take, but then inserted the brief cut to the screen to better showcase what the people in that shot are seeing.
If you can only count the first shot as the one shot, it still conveys a good deal of information, and that sense of “maybe the first and third shots are still the one shot” means Children of Men can still sneak in here. It’s a dark, distressing, and undeniably intense way to kick off a dark, sometimes distressing, and ultimately very intense movie.
6
‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ (2015)
Compared to much of the movie that follows, the opening shot of Mad Max: Fury Road is rather calm, at least visually. It’s a still and not frenetic shot (the frenetic stuff comes a bit later, and lasts for almost the whole film), only having some chaos on the audio side of things, as Max delivers some voiceover narration that speaks to how psychologically wrecked he is, and then the viewer temporarily hears the voices in his head.
And then his madness (he is “Mad” Max, after all) is further illustrated when he steps on a lizard and then eats it, all with his back to the camera. Also, the lizard has two heads. The shot is notable for lasting more than a few seconds, compared to all the rapid editing that follows, and it’s a perfect calm (relatively speaking) before the storm sort of moment. It’s also beautiful to look at, with the vivid colors and landscape recalling the sorts of visuals you’d more expect to see in an old-school Western.
Back to the Future is not the only sci-fi movie Robert Zemeckis directed that has a great – and admirably ambitious – opening shot, since he also did Contact. Back to the Future is the better movie overall, but Contact has an even more exceptional opening shot, and one you can also potentially compare to the opening shot of Revenge of the Sith, what with this being a lengthy shot of space done with advanced special effects.
It still looks good when watched today, and the way it drives home the size of space right at the start of the movie… is undeniably impressive.
For the time, this was the longest single shot done with digital FX, lasting about three minutes and flying through space, showing Earth, then the solar system, then the Milky Way galaxy, and then countless other galaxies in the whole universe. It still looks good when watched today, and the way it drives home the size of space right at the start of the movie (with that proving important for the narrative, eventually) in such a way is undeniably impressive. There are plenty of other inventive uses of special effects throughout Contact, but that’s to be expected, when Zemeckis is in the director’s chair, since he’s always seemed drawn – sometimes to a fault – toward showing viewers things they might not have ever seen before.
4
‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ (1968)
Stanley Kubrick was an all-time great director in general, but especially when it came to memorably opening and closing his movies. Regarding 2001: A Space Odyssey, it might technically have a bolder ending shot, but the opening shot also does a great deal in terms of delivering spectacle right away. There’s the moon, and then the Earth is seen over the moon, and then the sun rises slowly over the Earth.
Call it simple if you want, but it is awe-inspiring in motion, especially with the music swelling alongside the visuals so perfectly. It’s only a small taste of things to come, regarding just how impressive the special effects later in the film end up being, but this opening shot of 2001: A Space Odyssey does convey, remarkably well, that you’re in for something grand and ambitious.
3
‘Blade Runner’ (1982)
Like Akira, Blade Runner is set in 2019, and it also opens with a pretty stunning shot of a city (no atomic bomb going off here, though). This is purely to set the stage for the movie’s setting and also the overall feel, with the information you get from the opening minute or two, regarding the plot and the overall conflict, coming from some opening text that isn’t necessarily the first shot.
Well, opening text maybe is, but by that logic, the final shot of most movies is just the end credits: text against a black screen (which is what you get most of the time). So, the opening shot of Blade Runner, for present purposes, is that dreary-looking – yet also visually stunning – cityscape, which creates a great first impression, not to mention a fitting one, considering the moody and atmospheric sci-fi film that follows.
2
‘A Clockwork Orange’ (1971)
The opening shot of A Clockwork Orange technically isn’t as awe-inspiring as the opening shot from the previously mentioned Kubrick film here, 2001: A Space Odyssey, but it might be even better. It’s a long shot that slowly pulls back, showcasing the Korova Milk Bar with an initial focus on Alex, the film’s protagonist, but all throughout, he doesn’t stop staring directly into the camera.
He’s not the only character to do one of those “Kubrick stares,” but this might be the best of all the Kubrick stares, especially thanks to the voiceover, which gets you into the head of Alex, even if that’s not a place you necessarily want to be. He lays out what he’s about to do, who he’s with, and then you also see the kind of place he likes to frequent. You get introduced to the slang used throughout, and then the music used in this opening shot is also instantly striking, not to mention uniquely eerie.
1
‘Star Wars’ (1977)
For as cool and maximalist as the opening battle in Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith was, it’s still Star Wars (1977) that has the most iconic opening shot. It’s also very easy to put at #1 here, as it might well be the best opening shot from any movie, regardless of genre, doing a great deal to perfectly establish the conflict that’ll play out across the film right away, not to mention also doing the same by way of establishing the most significant conflict of the entire series.
After the opening crawl, there is a small ship with the good guys on it, and then an absolutely massive spacecraft with the bad guys on it, pursuing the first ship, with the shot framed in a way that really emphasizes the immense size of the second ship, setting the Rebels up as instant underdogs. The only film made up until that point that made space look as impressive was 2001: A Space Odyssey, and that was also going for a very different thing overall. The opening shot in Star Wars makes the film get off to a speedy and exciting start, with the music and sound design also doing so much for the overall spectacle offered here.
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