The beginning of a movie is one of the most crucial moments in the whole film. It’s the audience’s introduction to the film, but it’s also what typically lays the groundwork for the setting, tone, and themes. While many genres have iconic openings, the fantasy genre does it best. Audiences learn about characters, hear backstories overlaid with images, or see sweeping outdoor scenes to establish a sense of the world.
At the beginning of every movie, there is a camera shot called the opening shot. The opening shot is the first uninterrupted scene you see, meaning it is the first bit of footage shown without transitions. Some movies don’t rely on the opening shot being too significant, instead opting for multiple camera angles to fulfill their opening scene. But other movies, specifically those in fantasy, take more care with their opening shots, proving that attention to detail in even the first frame can be vital to the storytelling.
Ferngully: The Last Rainforest Reveals the Past While Setting Up the Future
A unique take on the classic storybook opening sequence, where the setting and background of the story are set up through literal storytelling and the images on a page, Ferngully does this by using cave paintings and drawings instead. Starting with handprints and leading into animal depictions, then humans and fairies, this one continuous shot has a voice-over talking about the past and detailing when humans and fairies interacted before they were driven apart by Hexxus, a spirit of hatred, fire, and poison in the form of a painted volcano.
Fairies are painted to have stopped and trapped him, and then the narrator is shown, and it’s revealed she’s telling this story to another fairy who is meant to take over from her. From this, the audience knows the backstory of the villain, the fairies, their relationship with humans, and has an introduction to the main character and her mentor. This then sets up the idea that humans and fairies will likely interact again, and Hexxus might come back – all of which does happen in this 1992 film.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Highlights Darker Themes
As the fourth movie in the Harry Potter series, released in 2005, the opening shot for this movie didn’t need to establish as much as the first movie would have had to. Instead, the shot used carefully chosen imagery to show that this Harry Potter movie was a more mature one (matching the growing protagonists), taking a turn towards darker themes and more morbid visuals.
The shot starts with stacked skulls and bones, almost artfully arranged. The camera moves down and shows a snake appearing from the bones, moving along a grassy night scene until it reaches a tombstone with a large statue of an avenging angel with a skull instead of a face. As the camera moves up to the title appearing in the cloudy sky, little details come back to the viewer – the snake is Nagini, and the tomb carried the name “Riddle,” foreshadowing that Voldemort would once again be at the core of this film.
Atlantis: The Lost Empire Has an Explosive Start
A very short opening shot, this one packs a serious punch in only a matter of seconds. Atlantis: The Lost Empire takes the idea of the mythical city of Atlantis and expands it into an animated romp where explorers go looking for the city using a journal as a map, find the city, and then reveal their true intentions. So, there is drama, lots of action, and the exploration of a land thought lost to time, while all still being based on a city from Plato’s works.
To reflect this, the 2001 movie opens with Plato’s words talking about Atlantis and what happened to it, then immediately moves to the opening shot of what looks like a calm stretch of ocean. Soon, a blast of all-consuming light comes and goes within the blink of an eye, and strange flying ships move fast towards the unmoving camera. In the background, a wave starts to get bigger and bigger, and the audience realizes that whatever the light was, it caused an explosive force large enough to cause a natural disaster. After this shot, the city gets destroyed. But the audience already knows this will happen with Plato’s words and the opening shot alone.
Stardust Gets Philosophical
Stardust is a movie that shows that there’s another world, a fantasy one, just behind a wall in England, one where stars can come to life and witches prowl the land. Its opening shot shows that setting up a movie doesn’t have to be complicated. One can simply tell the audience what is going on, in addition to highlighting questions that appear later in the 2007 film – all accompanied by visuals that help strengthen the voice-over.
The scene starts with footage of the night sky and a voice-over with a calm voice talking about philosophy and then moves into how it relates to the story and setting. During this, the camera moves from the stars to the moon, and then seems to back up into a telescope in one continuous shot. The man viewing the night sky is in a large laboratory with other men, and the camera moves to the letter that exposes the fact that this world is, in fact, a fantasy world.
The Nightmare Before Christmas Is Peak Tim Burton
This 1993 Tim Burton movie is best known for the question of whether or not it’s a Halloween or Christmas movie. But, in either case, it is clear that the tale following Jack Skellington and his journey to discover that he is, in fact, happy with being the Pumpkin King, will remain beloved by audiences for generations to come.
The reason for this is that the stop-motion animation is extremely well-done, the worldbuilding is fascinating, and the music is wonderfully catchy. The opening shot of The Nightmare Before Christmas reflects all of this as a voice-over gives an introduction to the idea that there are other lands beyond the human one, all while a camera circles a forest of dead trees with a focus on a ring of trees depicting holiday symbols on each one. The jack-o’-lantern one opens, and attempts to remain as a continuous shot moving through the pumpkin and into a different world depicted in song as “the town of Halloween” with vivid imagery to accompany it.
Wicked Ties Together The Past and the Present in One Shot
This movie and the opening shot pose an interesting question. If one had never seen The Wizard of Oz, read the book Wicked, seen the musical Wicked, or heard anything about Wicked or The Wizard of Oz at all, would the opening shot be as effective as it is? The answer is, who knows? But also, it’s rather unlikely that anyone going into this movie is completely unaware. The 2024 movie opens with the same scene from The Wizard of Oz when the Witch is last shown, melting into a puddle, and moves from the old story into the new one seamlessly.
The camera slowly moves over the splintering remains of a room where a haphazard bucket lies on its side next to a puddle that slightly smolders on the edges and has propaganda posters caught in it, with the famous black hat sitting in front of the window. Throughout this, a voice-over mainly consisting of Glinda talks about the death of the Wicked Witch, and the monkeys move past the hat and break through the window, soaring over Oz as a horse escapes the castle, and Dorothy and her crew walk along the yellow brick road, ending with the Emerald City in the background.
Coraline Gives Viewers an Early Clue
Although this is a short opening shot, it is crucial to the 2009 stop-motion animated film in many ways. Coraline is the story of a little girl who moves with her family to a house that seems to contain an entrance into a whole different world that mimics her own, but is “better” in many ways. However, the opening shot of the film signals to the audience that not everything is to be believed, so they’re able to be more conscious of little details.
The opening shot is that of a cloth doll with buttons for eyes, slowly flying from the sky and through a window into the waiting hands of an unseen creature. This creature seems to be a woman, as the pleasant-sounding humming showcases, but all the audience can see are her hands, which are made entirely of silver metal in the shape of needles. She carefully grasps the doll and opens something that reveals multiple needles and scissors, placing the doll on the table with them. The shot breaks then, and the scene continues to show her remaking the doll, but the opening shot already establishes that something otherworldly is happening, establishes a haunting tone, and that a doll with buttons for eyes is involved.
Nosferatu Leaves the Audience Haunted
A perfect example of what can be accomplished when a director understands how important the opening shot is, Nosferatu perfectly showcases the extreme gothic imagery that the audience will see for the rest of the film, as well as the constant worry that hangs in the shadows of what is to come. As a 2024 remake of an older Nosferatu movie, fans already have a sense of what might happen, but that’s where cinematography and excellent acting skills can come in to engage the audience.
The scene opens with Ellen fervently praying at her bedside. She looks panicked and haunted, asking for help from a divine source. A deep voice answers her, and as if in a trance, she follows it to her open window. A shadow is seen on the curtains, telling Ellen she is not of this world as a force suspends her in the air. This long, continuous opening shot perfectly sets up how the audience is meant to see Ellen versus how the world sees her, as well as foreshadowing what is to come.
Pan’s Labyrinth Shows the Whole Movie in One Scene
This famous fantasy movie has been impressing viewers since 2006, following a little girl called Ophelia who is drawn into a world of fantasy as a way to escape her reality. Given that Pan’s Labyrinth was made by Guillermo del Toro, audiences knew they were in for a treat for the eyes, but nobody could have expected how deeply the movie would resonate with audiences across the world.
The opening scene is the perfect amalgamation of the entire film, but the viewer doesn’t quite know that, only thinking that the start of the fairytale is giving them the setting. What they can see is a little girl lying on the ground, bleeding. As the camera moves, a voice-over explaining the start of a fairytale begins, and it’s clear that the blood is moving backwards from her nose, showcasing that reality in this movie has been bent. The camera then continues into her eye and is meant to symbolize a continuous shot, although technically it’s not, and shows a castle of stone with a little girl running through it, up some stairs, and into a light above that ends the moment.
The Green Knight Is Symbolic and Gorgeous
The Green Knight was released in 2021 and is a loose adaptation of “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” an Arthurian poem from the 14th century. The opening shot of the movie has a haunting voice-over that explains this background information a bit, clarifying that the story will not be about the more famous king, but instead a different adventure. During this, a camera slowly zooms in on Gawain sitting on a throne as he stares directly into the camera. As the shot gets closer, a crown sinks on his head and bursts into flames while he remains unmoving.
This underrated fantasy movie is known for its surrealist imagery, imaginative cinematography, and unusual story structure. As such, it only makes sense that its opening shot would be just as impressive visually and dark thematically as the rest of the movie, symbolizing a tale that will subvert expectations.