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Movies by Opening Scene

Name these movies based on a description of their opening scene.
Quiz by Quizmaster
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Last updated: September 21, 2018
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First submittedMay 28, 2013
Times taken76,716
Average score55.6%
Rating4.36
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Opening Scene
Movie
Treasure hunters explore a deep sea wreck, looking for a valuable necklace
Titanic
A naked, musclebound man materializes in a back alley
The Terminator
Clown-faced bank robbers kill each other until only one remains
The Dark Knight
A woman is home alone and answers the phone. The callers says
"Do you like scary movies?"
Scream
Early hominids find a black monolith and figure out how to use weapons
2001: A Space
Odyssey
Two cartoon characters fall in love, grow old, and the wife dies
Up
A gigantic spaceship flies over the camera, lasers firing
Star Wars
A girl decides to go skinny dipping in the ocean
Jaws
Eight men sit at a diner while one interprets the lyrics of Madonna's "Like a Virgin"
Reservoir Dogs
Two American fighter planes encounter MiGs in the Indian Ocean
Top Gun
Two finger-snapping street gangs engage in dance combat
West Side Story
Teenage boy gets across town on his skateboard by grabbing onto moving vehicles
Back to the Future
A feather floats over town and lands on the shoe of a clean-cut man sitting on a bench
Forrest Gump
A man runs an experiment into psychic learning where he electrically shocks
one of his subjects and flirts with the other
Ghostbusters
A man asks a local big-shot to kill the men who beat his daughter
The Godfather
A man awakens from a coma and stumbles out of the hospital into eerily empty streets
28 Days Later
Two fish have lots of eggs until a barracuda kills the mother and all the eggs except one
Finding Nemo
A polaroid picture of a dead man becomes undeveloped and then
goes back inside the camera
Memento
+8
Level 82
Jun 9, 2013
missed Jaws and Godfather.. saw both but just didn't click. Reservoir Dogs took me a while because I couldn't think of the title but that's obviously the beginning of a Tarantino movie.
+6
Level 65
Aug 19, 2013
I thought the exact same thing about the Reservoir Dogs clue. I couldn't think of the answer but also expected it to be a Tarantino move. It reminded me of the mindless dialog at the beginning of pulp fiction, about the royale with cheese.
+3
Level 31
May 30, 2014
"You know what they put on French fries in Holland instead of ketchup?"

"What?"

"Mayonnaise."

"Goddamn!"

+2
Level 23
May 12, 2020
That's why Tarantino is a masterful director. He uses real dialogue and makes it interesting.
+1
Level 82
May 14, 2020
I thought the same about Jaws and Godfather
+1
Level 78
Jun 9, 2013
Very good quiz! Some answers I knew by the first words, others were hard. Only missed Ghostbusters.
+9
Level 82
Jun 10, 2013
Wasn't the opening scene in Ghostbusters in the library? Then the title song... then the scene with Venkman torturing/flirting with his two students...
+1
Level 77
Mar 8, 2014
yes
+1
Level 67
Jul 1, 2021
Yes, with the catalog cards that start launching themselves into the air.
+1
Level 87
Apr 14, 2023
Nearly ten years later and this hasn't been fixed yet. Where you at Quizmaster?
+1
Level 68
Jun 10, 2013
Good quiz.. can't believe I missed Forrest Gump!
+2
Level 66
Dec 12, 2013
memento, reservoir dogs, and 28 days later. awesome opening scenes, awesome movies.
+1
Level 76
Jan 15, 2016
Got everything except Ghostbusters. Even now I can't remember how it began.

It would be cool to see more of these quizzes, perhaps with the difficulty ramped up a bit.

+8
Level 50
Mar 15, 2017
Because this isnt the opening scene to Ghostbusters. The opener is the librarian putting books away while getting harassed by the ghost. Then it cuts to Venkman showing the cards to students for his experiment.
+1
Level 77
Jan 15, 2016
4 of those has gotten a Best Picture Oscar. I am taking that quiz too much lately. Also.. isn't that the plot of West Side Story, not just the opening scene?
+1
Level 58
Jan 15, 2016
Of the nine films I got, I've only seen three^^
+1
Level 62
Jan 15, 2016
For the Top Gun question, it should be over the Indian Ocean, not in it.
+1
Level 75
Oct 25, 2016
I thought the implication in Godfather was that the daughter had been raped?
+5
Level 67
Jul 1, 2021
I think we're meant to assume they tried to coerce sex from her, and when she rejected them, they beat her. Amerigo says "she kept her honor, so they beat her like an animal," which I always interpreted to mean that they beat her because they did not succeed in violating her.
+4
Level 76
Aug 6, 2017
The scene described for 28 Days Later is actually the second scene in the film. The first scene - 28 days earlier - starts with anti-vivisectionists breaking into a laboratory for animal tests to free chimpanzees, which turn out to be highly aggressive due to a virus...
+3
Level 49
Feb 8, 2019
Ghostbusters and Back to the Future are incorrect also.

How this made it to a featured quiz is beyond me, its not even fact-checked.

+1
Level 71
Feb 2, 2018
I've only seen 5 of these movies but the one that intrigues me is the thought of MiG aircraft in the Indian Ocean, flying submarines?
+1
Level 37
Feb 7, 2019
haha no, just russians or chinese i think. but top gun is a great movie, you should watch it
+1
Level 75
Feb 7, 2019
I've seen all except Reservoir Dogs, Memento, and 28 Days Later. The first two appear on this site frequently so I should have gotten them even though I haven't seen them, but I think this is the first time I've seen 28 Days in a quiz here.
+1
Level 82
Feb 7, 2019
You should watch Memento, ander. I think you would like it.
+12
Level 49
Feb 8, 2019
Several of these are wrong

The opening scene of Back to the Future features all Doc Brown's clocks, a pile of unopened dog food and Marty comes in, turns the amp up full and blows the speaker.

In the opening scene of Ghostbusters an elderly librarian encounters a ghost in the basement of the New York Public Library.

Its a good premise but its not right.

+1
Level 51
Apr 16, 2023
Mandala effect
+5
Level 72
Jul 10, 2019
Muscle bound pretty much always equals Arnold on Jetpunk! After that, randomly guessing some of his movies should give a freebie. :)
+1
Level 37
Jul 21, 2019
Got the six I've seen. Kept thinking that Reservoir Dogs was Pulp Fiction.
+1
Level 89
Jul 1, 2021
Pulp Fiction's opening is Tim Roth and Amanda Plummer talking about robbing convenience stores and then deciding to rob the diner they're currently eating at.
+2
Level 62
Jul 1, 2021
I successfully got all the ones I’ve seen, and had no idea on any of the others.

2/18 😔

+2
Level 68
Jul 1, 2021
There there
+1
Level 46
Jul 2, 2021
samee 2/18
+1
Level 67
Jul 1, 2021
Funny I always assumed it was a shark that killed Nemo's mom Coral and ate the eggs I guess because I haven't seen it in years and clownfish are small so the barracuda may have looked larger in relation
+2
Level 46
Jul 2, 2021
i thought it was a swordfish
+1
Level 67
Mar 13, 2023
Just missed Ghostbusters and 28 Days