by Timothy Edward Jones

Created on: February 18, 2007   Last Updated: May 09, 2007

The opening line of a movie sets the entire tone of the story. I've heard great ones and terrible ones. Let's take a look at some of the truly great opening lines of some of the best pictures ever made.

"We were somewhere outside of Barstow when the drugs finally hit." - Johnny Depp, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

This line set the tone for this drug-adled tale from the book turned movie by Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. Depp masterfully delivered this opening line and made the entire movie a believable take on Thompson's book by the same name.

"Saigon. I was only in Saigon." - Martin Sheen, Apocolypse Now.

Sheen's deep voice ached in dispair at the relaization that he was only in Saigon and not in the deep jungles of wartorn Vietnam. He was waiting for a mission in a third-rate Saigon hotel room awaiting his orders. Sheen's character, Captain Willard, was an assasin for the Army and a broken man. He lost it all .... His wife and his mind. And the only thing he could count on was the war.

These two opening movie lines have always stuck with me and I never tire of hearing them.

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