10 Greatest Opening Shots of the 21st Century

First impressions matter a great deal, which means that a movie's opening shot is every bit as important to kicking things off on the right foot as the opening scene as a whole. An opening shot that's visually memorable, symbolically meaningful, and/or completely recontextualized when re-watching the movie is one that's bound to go down in history as one of the best of all time.

The best opening shots of the 21st century haven't quite had enough time to become as iconic as the best of the 20th century, but with the years' passage, they're pretty much guaranteed to get there. From Hollywood blockbusters like The Dark Knight to international indie gems like Climax, there have been ten 21st-century films that have had particularly powerful opening shots with unparalleled amounts of staying power.

10 'The Dark Knight' (2008)

It was his Dark Knight trilogy that really cemented the great Christopher Nolan as what he almost undeniably is today: Hollywood's modern king of blockbusters. As such, it's no surprise that he delivered one of the most perfect thriller blockbusters ever made, which is also often hailed as the greatest comic book movie in history: The Dark Knight.

Typically, when you look at a masterful classic that people remember as fondly as this, it's difficult to point at a single thing as the main reason why it's so acclaimed. In the case of The Dark Knight, on the other hand, it's perfectly possible: It has to be Heath Ledger's Joker. The very first shot of the film introduces us to this villain by shrouding him in an aura of complete mystery, the visual of a thug holding a menacing clown mask having become one of the most iconic images of any Nolan film.

9 'Climax' (2018)

The Argentine auteur Gaspar Noé is mainly known for his work in France, his being one of the most important voices in all of the New French Extremity movement. One of his best-known works is the French-Belgian experimental gem Climax, one of the most perfect A24 horror movies ever. Chaotic, challenging, and proudly bizarre, it's definitely not fit for every cinephilic palate, which could be counted as one of its biggest strengths.

Another one of the movie's biggest strengths is its opening shot. It's an aerial shot of a bloodied woman struggling to drag herself through untouched snow, the camera slowly spinning to disorient the audience. It's a surreal, odd, and—yes—quite cold opening shot, a masterful subversion of the in media res-style opening that immediately hooks the audience's attention.

8 'Under the Skin' (2013)

To some, one of the best sci-fi thrillers of the last 50 years; to others, an abysmal work of hyper-pretentious arthouse genre filmmaking. There's one thing about Jonathan Glazer's Under the Skin that cannot be denied, however, and that's that it's impossible to watch it and feel indifferent toward it by the time the credits roll. It's definitely a love-it-or-hate-it kind of film, just like many of history's greatest movies.

The movie opens with a highly abstract sequence of a cosmic-looking circle, which gradually reveals itself to be the assembly of a humanoid alien's eyes. The whole shot is an eye-popping masterclass in visual storytelling, unsettling the audience right off the bat by forcing them to experience this world from a literally alien perspective. It's an opener every bit as surreal, mind-bending, and thematically complex as the entire movie that comes after it.

7 'Punch-Drunk Love' (2002)

After the incredibly dense emotional heaviness of Magnolia, Paul Thomas Anderson—one of the greatest filmmakers working today—wanted to slow down and deliver a far more compact romantic comedy. So, he channeled his intense fandom for Adam Sandler and made Punch-Drunk Love, which is still not only Sandler's best film, but even one of PTA's most enjoyable masterpieces.

It's also one of the most anxiety-inducing romance movies ever, though, largely because of how anxiety-prone its protagonist is. The film's opening shot introduces us to him perfectly, showing him hunched over his desk in the corner of an empty room. He gets off a call, stands up, walks outside, and we cut to the next shot. It's the sort of visual storytelling that PTA has always excelled at, perfectly highlighting Barry's isolation and the hollowness of his life.

6 'Gone Girl' (2014)

If there's any modern successor to Alfred Hitchcock currently working, an artist who could be reasonably called today's Master of Suspense, it would have to be David Fincher. The director has made several of the greatest thrillers of modern times throughout the 21st century, but few of his works demonstrate his talents better than the chilling Gone Girl, one of those mystery movies that are amazing from start to finish.

In this case, the "start" and the "finish" mirror each other in a way that's an absolute masterclass in how to make an opening shot match a closing shot in a thematically profound way. On first watch, the opening shot of Amy resting on Nick's lap and then quickly looking up at the camera seems simple enough. But on re-watch, it's a glance that takes on an entirely different meaning, making re-visits of this exceptional thriller pretty much obligatory.

5 'Mad Max: Fury Road' (2015)

With 1979's Mad Max, George Miller revolutionized both the Australian film industry and low-budget action filmmaking. After three decades away from the franchise, he made a triumphant return with Mad Max: Fury Road, which is still a strong contender for the title of best action movie of the 21st century. Visually striking, perfectly paced, full of delightful over-the-top set pieces, and bolstered by an unexpectedly fantastic script, it's an absolute masterclass in genre filmmaking.

It's also a masterclass in how to open such a frenetic action extravaganza, all thanks to one of the most perfect opening shots of the 21st century. Standing in stark contrast to the adrenaline-fueled mayhem of the rest of the opening scene (and of the entirety of the film itself), the opening shot slowly booms down as Max watches the sun-baked desert horizon. A lizard approaches him, he steps on it, and then picks it up to take a bite. Visually striking and instantly atmospheric, the this fantastic opener is accompanied by Tom Hardy's gripping narration.

4 'Melancholia' (2011)

Danish auteur Lars von Trier has always been well-known for making some of the most depressing dramas in the modern history of cinema, but seeing as it's directly inspired by the director's own experiences with severe depression, Melancholia in particular is one of his saddest. It's nevertheless one of his most essential masterpieces, however, largely thanks to what's easily the greatest performance of Kirsten Dunst's career.

Visually poetic and anchored by Dunst's potently sad expression, the opening shot of Melancholia plays no small factor in making it one of the heaviest movies of the last 15 years. It's the start of a surreal, apocalyptic overture, showing dead birds raining behind the protagonist's head. It's a symbolically fascinating and downright flawless way of establishing the tone, atmosphere, and thematic core of the film.

3 'Mulholland Drive' (2001)

David Lynch was perhaps the most important and groundbreaking surrealist filmmaker since Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí introduced the artistic movement to cinema, and no masterpiece better demonstrates that than Mulholland Drive. It's far and away one of the best movies of 2001, a mind-bending masterpiece that powerfully critiques the Hollywood Dream and the fragility of identity.

The movie's opening shot is every bit as delectably bizarre and confusing as one would expect virtually any Lynch opening shot to be. It's an odd-looking collage of couples enthusiastically dancing the jitterbug on a purple background, when a ghostly superimposed image of our smiling protagonist appears on top of the image. It's a hypnotic, dreamlike opening that instantly establishes the story's core theme, the line between reality and fantasy getting blurred as the allure of the Hollywood dream starts giving way to a nightmare.

2 'Roma' (2018)

There are very few currently-working filmmakers better at crafting unforgettable opening shots than Alfonso Cuarón. After 17 years away from the Mexican film industry, the auteur returned to his home country to direct Roma, a semi-autobiographical drama that he also served as the writer, producer, editor, and cinematographer on. It's one of the most groundbreaking movies of the last 10 years.

It's astonishing just how many of the best opening shots in movie history also serve as the background for the opening title sequence, and Roma is an example of one such opening. We see soapy water being splashed on a black-and-white stone-tiled floor, to be scrubbed by protagonist Cleo. The floor's surface transforms into a shimmering mirror, revealing a perfect reflection of the sky above Mexico City as a plane flies overhead. It's a profoundly moving merging of Heaven and Earth, of the grand and the mundane, of progress and the domestic. It's an opening shot as thematically dense as it is visually striking.

1 'Gravity' (2013)

As phenomenal as the opening shot of Roma is, there's no beating the single most impressive opening shot of not just Cuarón's career, but the entirety of 21st-century cinema thus far: the opening of Gravity. It's one of the best original sci-fi movies of the 21st century, one that's far heavier on the "sci" than the "fi." This balance works perfectly, making Gravity one of the most suspenseful and gripping disaster thrillers in history.

Cuarón and DP Emmanuel Lubeski are both big fans and absolute masters of unbroken shots, and Gravity's opening is a stunning 13-minute-long shot of Earth viewed from space, joined by Matt and Ryan servicing the Hubble Telescope, their tranquility shattered by a wave of high-speed debris. Aside from being one of the biggest achievements in the history of visual effects, this whole opening shot and sequence is a masterclass in building tension, character, and atmosphere purely through visuals.