The best war movies have opening scenes that pull viewers in and won’t let go, letting the audience know it is a masterpiece from the start. War movies have long been a significant part of Hollywood history, with films depicting everything from the World Wars to Vietnam, the Civil War, and, more recently, Afghanistan and Iraq.

The best war movies offer diverse perspectives on the war, with some focusing on the soldiers’ lives as they train and fight in battles, while others provide a look at the horrors of war in general. This also determines how the movies open, as the best war movie openings look at soldiers or battles, sometimes in horrifying ways.

Full Metal Jacket (1987)

Full Metal Jacket doesn’t open with a look at the war. That is because Stanley Kubrick’s entire focus here is on how war destroys the men who fight in it, and oftentimes the destruction comes from within. The opening here shows the recruits arriving at basic training and getting browbeaten by their drill instructor.

This entire scene is uneasy to watch, especially in today’s society, as Drill Instructor Gunnery Sergeant Hartman (R. Lee Ermey) uses offensive and derogatory language to demean every recruit. His goal is to beat them into loyal soldiers, but he ends up driving several of them to their deaths.

This is what Kubrick is showing in the movie, as it shows how this one moment that opens the film molds the soldiers into either animalistic killing machines, or, in the case of Private Leonard, to the decision to die by suicide. This scene sets the table, and it was clear from the start that this was going to be a war movie masterpiece.

1917 (2019)

The opening scene of 1917 was brilliantly sH๏τ and effectively set the stage for what fans could expect from the war movie. The main selling point of the movie was that cinematographer Roger Deakins wanted 1917 to appear as if it were all accomplished in one continuous sH๏τ. That began with the movie’s opening.

Directed by Sam Mendes, the opening sH๏τ of 1917 showed Lance Corporal Schofield leaning against a tree with his eyes closed​​​​​​. The scene is peaceful, but then he is sent on his mission, and he never stops running until the movie ends, where he ironically is once again leaning against a tree, now exhausted.

Tying the movie’s opening and closing scenes together in a similar sH๏τ was a nice bookend to the film. However, seeing the peaceful moment that led to the war battles, which never stop, was a brilliant way to open this war movie.

Hacksaw Ridge (2016)

Hacksaw Ridge was an intense war movie that starred Andrew Garfield as a combat medic who refuses to pick up a weapon of any kind. This made him the first conscientious objector to be awarded the Medal of Honor thanks to his actions at the Battle of Okinawa.

The movie opens with ᴅᴇᴀᴅ soldiers lying all over a battlefield, followed by explosions and more soldiers dying as they push on. It is a horrific look at war and sets things up for a story that is about soldiers dying in the name of war, which was a brilliant way to open a story about a conscientious objector.

Seeing these people dying in explosions and soldiers running while on fire shows why this combat medic was so interested in avoiding the horrors of war and helping others. Hacksaw Ridge had a masterful opening that showed why war is hell, and it takes viewers into the eyes of a medic in the war.

Paths Of Glory (1957)

Paths of Glory featured an opening scene that included a battle that later influenced movies like Saving Private Ryan. The opening of this Stanley Kubrick movie saw soldiers ordered into a suicide mission by a commander who was ill-equipped for his role. When it failed, he blamed his soldiers.

Paths of Glory is almost more of a courtroom drama and an anti-war film as Kirk Douglas plays the soldier ordered to represent the soldiers not accused of cowardice, which would result in their execution. Their fates were determined before the court battle began, and this opening scene set that up perfectly.

The opening was also brilliant because it was a juxtaposition of what the film would present. It looked like an intense war movie, set in the trenches, and then it evolved into an equally intense anti-war drama. However, without this masterful opening, the fate of these men would weigh so heavily on the viewers.

Dunkirk (2017)

Dunkirk contains one of the greatest opening scenes in war movie history. This should come as no surprise from a movie directed by Christopher Nolan. He focuses on a British private named Tommy who is dodging enemy fire on the streets in Dunkirk, before he is ordered to retreat to the beach.

This scene sets up a devastating story of soldiers always on their heels, trying to stay alive, all while the enemy seems to be anywhere and everywhere. The propaganda leaflets flying around the streets are also an interesting touch, as they also show the horrors of the war these soldiers find themselves in.

The opening Dunkirk scene is an evacuation, and that alone demonstrates Nolan’s masterful control of this narrative, setting up what would become a gripping tale of survival and solidarity among the soldiers during this dire time in history.

All Quiet On The Western Front (2022)

The 2022 Netflix release, All Quiet on the Western Front, wasn’t the first time this brilliant German novel was turned into a film. The war movie follows the Germans fighting in World War I, specifically focusing on one young soldier as he attempts to stay alive in a war that becomes increasingly senseless as the film progresses.

The film opens with the young soldier fighting in the trenches and making his way across the battlefield. He dodges enemy fire and eventually even uses a trench shovel to strike an enemy. However, what really made this masterful was that it was followed by a school teaching German kids about patriotism.

This was a perfect way to show how senseless the war is, and then juxtapose it with the ideals being hammered into children’s minds when they are young and impressionable. It shows why young men like this rushed into the war before realizing they were misled all along.

Inglorious Basterds (2009)

Inglourious Basterds has one of the best opening scenes of any movie, whether it is a war film or otherwise. The best thing about the scene is that it is a Quentin Tarantino masterpiece, one that allows one masterful actor to sit down and deliver dialogue, all while the camera movement enables the scene to grow in intensity.

Christoph Waltz delivers the monologue, all while escaped Jewish refugees are hiding under the floorboards in the man’s house. This all led to an intense moment, where they were all slaughtered by the Nazis, and one little girl escaped. This girl later exacts her revenge.

Just seeing a Nazi killer sitting and having a quiet conversation with a man before ordering a mᴀss execution shows how evil these people really were, and it sets up a story where the audience excitedly awaits them to get what was coming to them.

Black Hawk Down (2001)

The opening scene of Black Hawk Down was just the start of a movie that was non-stop action, and it never slowed down from this one intense moment. This first scene showed the Black Hawk chopper heading around a village. It was a quick scene that showed who had the advantage here.

The people on the ground, and the citizens cowering in fear from the insurgent groups on the ground, were shown, and the enemy soldiers showed they had no fear of the soldiers in the helicopter above them. It also showed their ground-to-air missiles. This was a nice setup for what happened later when the chopper was sH๏τ down.

The entire movie is a rescue mission, and this first scene showed that the soldiers, even with mᴀssive firepower themselves, were no match for the militants on the ground, ready to die for their cause.

Apocalypse Now (1979)

Apocalypse Now opened with one of the most iconic opening scenes in war movie history. That is because the scene was very quiet, with a look at trees surrounding the opening of a jungle. However, smoke began to rise and when the Doors song The End began playing over the opening, the explosions ripped through the trees.

The entire scene opened with no explanation, and only showed complete destruction by the American forces pushing their way into Vietnam. It slowly faded to Martin Sheen’s Willard lying down and looking up, and it almost seemed more like a music video than a movie opening.

The entire scene was a masterfully edited and sH๏τ piece by master filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, and it really showed what audiences had to look forward to. Things only got worse, and even more bizarre, from this point. However, the opening remains perfection.

Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Saving Private Ryan has one of the most intense and disturbing openings of any war movie in history. The Steven Spielberg masterpiece showed Allied troops landing in Normandy during D-Day. The heroes here were sent on a mission to bring home a soldier named Private Ryan, but the opening was much more.

Bullets ripped through the boats as they approached Normandy. Bullets tore through the water and killed soldiers in mᴀssive numbers as they just attempted to reach the beach, and it was one of the most horrific, yet action-packed depictions of war put to film.

This scene deserves to be studied by anyone ever wanting to show war battles in a movie. It was relentless and non-stop, and it showed how these battles don’t care who someone is, because one bullet will end a man’s life instantly, and that is the theme that carried through this groundbreaking war movie.