Best opening/closing scenes in movies

[RedsBaron]

Hard to beat Patton for an opening scene.

I agree.
A closing scene I have always liked is the end of "Tombstone." After all of the gunplay and death, the movie ends with Kurt Russell (Wyatt Earp) and Dana Delany (Josephine) dancing in the snow, while Robert Mitchum narrates what their future would hold, closing with Mitchum describing Earp's funeral in 1929, with the final line: "Tom Mix wept."
Of course, "Casablanca" ends with maybe the best final line ever: "Louie, this may be the beginning of a beautiful friendship," a perfect end to a classic film.

[westofyou]

Closing scene - The Searchers - The door frames Wayne and firmly places him as an outsider. Pure magic



Opening scene?

Touch of Evil with Charleton Heston, Orson Wells nails it in this magnificent tracking shot in one single take

[Roy Tucker]

Best opening scenes that come to mind are Star Wars, The Lion King, 2001 A Space Odyssey, Jaws, and Up.

[marcshoe]

Has anyone mentioned Raiders of the Lost Ark's opening scene? Surely someone has by now.

[19braves77]

Opening sequence of opening scene of Apocalypse Now.

[Mutaman]

Closing scene - The Searchers - The door frames Wayne and firmly places him as an outsider. Pure magic



Opening scene?

Touch of Evil with Charleton Heston, Orson Wells nails it in this magnificent tracking shot in one single take

Obviously a man with outstanding taste. There are so few of us.

I think the Searchers is Ford's treatment of racism, a treatment he complicates for us by making the Duke, the All American dude, the racist. At the end, Ford excludes Ethan from the home and the community, punishing him for his racism. Like the Comanche whose eyes he shot out, Ethan will have to wander forever between the winds.

All modern American literature traces back to Huckleberry Finn. All modern American cinema traces back to The Searchers.

[RedTeamGo!]

How about the ending of The Usual Suspects?

[*BaseClogger*]

Love this topic!

My favorite movie scene ever is probably the end of Children of Men, with the cries of a newborn child momentarily stopping the fighting taking place in the streets (lets not forget about the tracking shot just beforehand). Not sure if that one counts as the last scene, as they still have to get on the boat and paddle out to sea.



When I think of classic closing scenes, my immediate thought was the ending to The Graduate.

Some posters have mentioned other Tarantino movies, but I think that first scene in Inglourious Basterds is the best of the bunch.

For comedies, how about the opening scene of Super Troopers?

[dougdirt]

For comedies, how about the opening scene of Super Troopers?

YES.

[RedsBaron]

Obviously a man with outstanding taste. There are so few of us.

I think the Searchers is Ford's treatment of racism, a treatment he complicates for us by making the Duke, the All American dude, the racist. At the end, Ford excludes Ethan from the home and the community, punishing him for his racism. Like the Comanche whose eyes he shot out, Ethan will have to wander forever between the winds.

All modern American literature traces back to Huckleberry Finn. All modern American cinema traces back to The Searchers.

I love The Searchers. Oh the film has a few flaws: I didn't find the intended humor in Martin's "marriage" to Look, and, while Natalie Wood was gorgeous it is a bit unlikely that after five years of living with Chief Scar Natalie's character would still have eyeliner and plenty of 20th Century makeup.
That said it is a great film that disproves the assertion that John Wayne could not act. Wayne may not have had a great range as an actor, but he was fantastic as Ethan Edwards.
There are a number of scenes in the film I love in addition to the closing scene. John Ford quietly hints at Ethan's relationship with his brother's wife, Martha, showing Martha silently brushing and cleaning Ethan's coat in a delicate tender manner, implying that they may have had an affair (could Debbie actually be Ethan's daughter?).
I love the scene where, with snow softly falling, Ethan and Martin give up, for a time, the search for Debbie.
John Wayne gives a haunting look that is half crazy and full of hate when he and Martin are brought to some other white girls rescued as Indian captives. Without a word he conveys what is going on inside Ethan and why Ethan wants to kill Debbie.
There is the scene where we as viewers expect Ethan to finally kill Debbie, as John Wayne has Natalie Wood cornered, helpless, only for Ethan to suddenly softly say "let's go home Debbie" as he picks her up in his arms.
As Mutaman noted, the film deals with racism, but Ethan's racist hatred of the Comanche is more of a tribal hatred as Ethan himself is a bit of an outcast. Just a terrific film.

[jojo]

Jaws. You knew they needed a bigger boat before you even knew they were going to need a boat.

[Chip R]

Closing scene - The Searchers - The door frames Wayne and firmly places him as an outsider. Pure magic

Speaking of closing scenes and doors, it's almost cliche but how Kay is seen through the door in The Godfather and then the door closes both literally and figuratively shutting her out.

Opening scene?

Touch of Evil with Charleton Heston, Orson Wells nails it in this magnificent tracking shot in one single take

Good one.

Going back to The Godfather, the opening scene was done by a computer driven lens which had previously only been used in commercials. A simple title card and the the first few notes of the iconic theme then it fades to black and we hear Bonasera begin to speak then his face fills the frame. The lens pulls back slowly until Bonasera is smaller and smaller in the background and the back of Vito's head begins to appear in the foreground and fills the left side of the frame while Bonasera appears almost across the room. After that in the next 4 minutes we understand what Vito does. Instead of murdering the rapists of Bonasera's daughter he has them beat down and he uses his influence with the politicians and judges to help Nazorine's daughter's boyfriend stay in the country. So he doesn't kill indiscriminately and if we in the audience were in Bonasera's or Nazorine's place, we would love someone like Vito to help us out.

[Mutaman]

I love The Searchers. Oh the film has a few flaws: I didn't find the intended humor in Martin's "marriage" to Look, and, while Natalie Wood was gorgeous it is a bit unlikely that after five years of living with Chief Scar Natalie's character would still have eyeliner and plenty of 20th Century makeup.
That said it is a great film that disproves the assertion that John Wayne could not act. Wayne may not have had a great range as an actor, but he was fantastic as Ethan Edwards.
There are a number of scenes in the film I love in addition to the closing scene. John Ford quietly hints at Ethan's relationship with his brother's wife, Martha, showing Martha silently brushing and cleaning Ethan's coat in a delicate tender manner, implying that they may have had an affair (could Debbie actually be Ethan's daughter?).
I love the scene where, with snow softly falling, Ethan and Martin give up, for a time, the search for Debbie.
John Wayne gives a haunting look that is half crazy and full of hate when he and Martin are brought to some other white girls rescued as Indian captives. Without a word he conveys what is going on inside Ethan and why Ethan wants to kill Debbie.
There is the scene where we as viewers expect Ethan to finally kill Debbie, as John Wayne has Natalie Wood cornered, helpless, only for Ethan to suddenly softly say "let's go home Debbie" as he picks her up in his arms.
As Mutaman noted, the film deals with racism, but Ethan's racist hatred of the Comanche is more of a tribal hatred as Ethan himself is a bit of an outcast. Just a terrific film.

Good insight. You raise things to think about.
Martin's "marriage" to Look is interesting. This is the one "flaw" that critics of the Searchers always raise. But is it as it appears?
On one hand it could be Ford's dated cornball humor, which here is both misogynistic and bigoted. On the other hand, the treatment of Look is totally out of character for Martin Pauly. And we know Ford was no misogynist, his films are full of strong female characters, and the Seachers itself represents the victory of feminized views of civilization- loving, conciliatory, inclusive- over Scar's and Ethan's brutal never ending war. Remember, how the "marriage" scene takes place in the movie- its from bitter and angry Laurie's reading of Martin's letter to her. Did the scene with Look "really" happen? Or is it Ford showing us how Laurie imagined that it happened? And is the marriage scene a setup for what comes later- Look being brutally murdered by the 7th cavalry. At that point Look isn't a joke any more and is this Ford making us the audience fell guilty for having previously laughed at her? I want to give Ford the benefit of the doubt.

Not sure what the difference is between racism and "tribal hatred". Ethan wants to kill his beautiful niece, the daughter of the woman he loves, because she has been violated by the brutal subhuman Comanche, a fate worse than death. Pretty sure that meets the definition of racism.
Finally, maybe Ford intentionally made Natalie Wood look as beautiful as possible (not too tough a job) because only a real nut case full of hate would want to kill this gorgeous woman, and that's what Ford wanted to convey.

[RedsBaron]

Good insight. You raise things to think about.
Martin's "marriage" to Look is interesting. This is the one "flaw" that critics of the Searchers always raise. But is it as it appears?
On one hand it could be Ford's dated cornball humor, which here is both misogynistic and bigoted. On the other hand, the treatment of Look is totally out of character for Martin Pauly. And we know Ford was no misogynist, his films are full of strong female characters, and the Seachers itself represents the victory of feminized views of civilization- loving, conciliatory, inclusive- over Scar's and Ethan's brutal never ending war. Remember, how the "marriage" scene takes place in the movie- its from bitter and angry Laurie's reading of Martin's letter to her. Did the scene with Look "really" happen? Or is it Ford showing us how Laurie imagined that it happened? And is the marriage scene a setup for what comes later- Look being brutally murdered by the 7th cavalry. At that point Look isn't a joke any more and is this Ford making us the audience fell guilty for having previously laughed at her? I want to give Ford the benefit of the doubt.

Not sure what the difference is between racism and "tribal hatred". Ethan wants to kill his beautiful niece, the daughter of the woman he loves, because she has been violated by the brutal subhuman Comanche, a fate worse than death. Pretty sure that meets the definition of racism.
Finally, maybe Ford intentionally made Natalie Wood look as beautiful as possible (not too tough a job) because only a real nut case full of hate would want to kill this gorgeous woman, and that's what Ford wanted to convey.

Good points. I hadn't considered the possibility you raise regarding Look.
My comment about tribal hatred rather than racial hatred was intended to mean that Ethan isn't exactly filled for love of the white race either. While we catch glimpses of his tender side there is a basic bitterness and disappointment throughout his character. In some ways I think Ethan had more in common with Scar than he did with most of the white settlers.
Some critics have written that John Ford should have included a scene in the movie between Scar and Debbie showing that Debbie preferred to remain with the Comanche and explaining why.
Perhaps Ford did make Natalie Wood look as beautiful as possible, and I would not exactly complain about that. I suspect it was also just part of that era of film making, where even though the movie supposedly takes place in the 1860s or 1970s the actors have haircuts that were in fashion in the 1950s.

[RedsBaron]

The pre-title sequences in James Bond movies have become so long that I am not sure they qualify as an opening scene, but some of them have been the highlight of the film. An early favorite of mine was in "Goldfinger," which conveys both the toughness of Bond and the humor of the film.
My favorite is "The Spy Who Loved Me." O.K., why would anyone go skiing with a parachute strapped to his back? No matter, the scene where Bond skis off a mountain, only to deploy a Union Jack parachute, was terrific.