Best opening/closing scenes in movies

[KittyDuran]

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.

They can be viewed the same way as other "serial" movies like the Pink Panther and Harry Potter. They blur the line between opening credits/movie and last scene/ending credits. The Bond movies are great with the closing scenes esp the ones with the sexual innuendo. Then you also have the Marvel extras tacked on after the closing credits.

[RedTeamGo!]

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).

One of the best scenes of any movie I have ever seen. So incredibly powerful.

I love "Children of Men" and believe it deserves a lot more attention, another excellently filmed scene is the one where they are driving through the woods and get attacked.

[George Anderson]

Two Paul Newman movies.

Opening and the ending scene to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

Also one of the last movies Newman made called Nobodys Fool had an ending that was very simple but very good Imo.

[Rojo]

I love "Children of Men" and believe it deserves a lot more attention, another excellently filmed scene is the one where they are driving through the woods and get attacked.

Or when they escape the farm house by running with the car as they try to get it going. Probably my favorite movies of the past 10 years (or so).

[Rojo]

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

The Imperial Cruiser going on and on and on and on. Right off the bat you knew what the good guys were up against.

[Rojo]

Biased -- love every frame of this movie. Withnail and I, with an assist from Shakespeare.

[Ohayou]

I'm going all in!

Opening:

8 1/2
A History of Violence
Antichrist
Apocalypse Now
Black Christmas
Blow Out
Blue Velvet
Casino Royale
Citizen Kane
Dawn of the Dead
Drive
Europa
Faster, *****cat Kill! Kill!
Goldeneye
Goodfellas
I Am Cuba
Jaws
JFK
Magnolia
Manhattan
Mean Streets
Melancholia
Once Upon a Time in the West
Persona
Raging Bull
Raising Arizona
Rebecca
Scream
Sunset Blvd.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
The Matrix
The Naked Kiss
The Player
The Royal Tenenbaums
The Social Network
The Wolf of Wall Street
Touch of Evil
Vertigo
Werckmeister Harmonies
Wings of Desire

Closing:

2001: A Space Odyssey
A Clockwork Orange
All Quiet on the Western Front
Angel Heart
Beneath the Planet of the Apes
Blow-Up
Brazil
Brief Encounter
Burn After Reading
Casablanca
Chinatown
City Lights
Come and See
Dead Man
Don't Look Now
Dr. Strangelove
Heat
Kiss Me Deadly
La Haine
Memories of Murder
Midnight Cowboy
Mulholland Dr.
Mysterious Skin
Oldboy
Paris, Texas
Planet of the Apes
Pulp Fiction
Ratcatcher
Shutter Island
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
The Bridge on the River Kwai
The Godfather
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
The Graduate
The Night of the Living Dead
The Searchers
The Thing
There Will Be Blood
Three Colors: Blue
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me

The bolded movies are my 10 favorite opening/closing scenes. Twas gonna think of 50 for each, but I got wore out. A few of these movies, like The Searchers or 2001, I think have some of the best openings AND endings, but I wanted to include as many movies as possible, so I didn't bother naming them to both lists.

[Roy Tucker]

End of North by Northwest....

[RedsBaron]

I just realized that I haven't mentioned the closing scene of Field of Dreams. I still get a tingle and sometimes tear up when Kevin Costner asks his dad if he wants to have a catch.

[Mutaman]

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.

Actually there is that kind of a scene: When Ethan and Marty camp out after first meeting Scar, Debbie appears in a great shot on a distant sand dune and runs down to warn them to leave. When Marty tries to convince her to leave with them, Debbie refuses. She says "These are my people...Go. Go, Martin, please!"

I think Ford got across very strongly that Debbie had been integrated into the Comanche tribe and she did not want to leave them.

[Mutaman]

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.

Wayne sure did a lot of heavy lifting in a lot of great movies. I think he was simply a natural. My own top ten:

1. Searchers
2. Red River
3. Stagecoach
4. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
5. The Quiet Man
6. They Were Expendable
7. The Shootist
8. Rio Bravo
9. True Grit
10. Sands of Iwo Jima
11. She Wore a Yellow Ribbon

[vaticanplum]

Biased -- love every frame of this movie. Withnail and I, with an assist from Shakespeare.

That might be my favorite movie. We've talked about this before, haven't we?

And yes, wonderful, devastating closing scene.

[marcshoe]

A couple of closing scenes from Australian movies that were out around the time I lived there:

Breaker Morant, for some reason without the final seconds (of the prisoners being shot and falling backward in their chairs). I saw this one on the flight over.



Peter Weir's Gallipoli, with a very young Mel Gibson running, trying to get the orders to stop his friend's suicide charge in time. Again, missing the final seconds.



Both excellent, affecting, relatively unknown (anti) war movies. I remember Reagan saying that Breaker Morant was one of his favorite movies. Both are worth searching out.

[757690]

^^^

My brother came back from a trip to Australia in the 80's with these two movies. I watched them on VHS tapes back to back and I was mesmerized. Amazingly powerful films.

Breaker Morant might be the best anti-war movie of all time.

[Rojo]

That might be my favorite movie. We've talked about this before, haven't we?

And yes, wonderful, devastating closing scene.

Maybe. I remember that somebody on here loved it. I guess that's you. Funny, cuz it's like a chick-flick.....for dudes. That was my 20's, lot's of drinking and drugs and "nor women neither"