6 Best DC Movie Opening Shots, Ranked for Their Unforgettable First Moments

The Batman’s grim misdirection

The Batman does not begin with Robert Pattinson reflecting on his second year as a vigilante. Instead, viewers see through the eyes of a masked figure stalking a family in Gotham on Halloween night.

A boy in a red ninja costume briefly suggests that the scene may involve Bruce Wayne. The stalker is revealed as the Riddler, played by Paul Dano, targeting the mayor. He kills the mayor and covers his face with tape, establishing a slow-burn horror tone and a city consumed by crime and corruption.

Watchmen’s murder mystery

Watchmen opens in an alternate-history 1985, as the Comedian, played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, is attacked in his New York apartment. A powerful intruder overwhelms him in a slow-motion fight set to Nat King Cole’s “Unforgettable.” The apartment is wrecked, and blood lands on a yellow smiley-face pin. The attacker throws Blake through a window, sending him to the pavement and setting the film’s murder mystery in motion.

Superman starts after defeat

Superman begins in Antarctic snow with on-screen text tracing the new DCU and Clark’s story. It marks the arrival of the first metahumans three centuries earlier, Clark’s arrival on Earth three decades earlier, his public reveal three years earlier, and an attack by the Hammer of Boravia three hours earlier.

The final marker says Superman lost a battle three minutes before. He then crashes into the snow, bloodied, and whistles for Krypto as the Superman theme swells. Opening with the aftermath puts the loss and its stakes up front.