My pick is Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 masterpiece, 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Also Sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss will forever be one of cinema’s greatest opening themes. And combined with the opening credits of the movie with the sun rising slowly over the Earth was absolutely groundbreaking and legendary. It is truly one of the greatest opening credits sequences of all time.
Mission Impossible, and like 90% of the James Bond films. What can I say? I have a type.
Goldfinger
I just saw Deadpool Wolverine last week, and must say Bye Bye Bye aged pretty well 😎
Drive
Song is Kavinsky - Nightcall
I could list a bunch of movies but it’s easier to say anything scored by John Williams. Superman, Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jaws. I never caught Close Encounters of the Third Kind but I’ll go out on a limb and say it’s good just on faith.
He scored some other things, but that’s what I remember off the top of my head.
Plup fiction’s intro was captivating.
And the beginning being the ending…chef’s kiss.
Terminator 2: Judgment day
To this day, whenever I’m alone in an elevator I drum out the percussion part of the theme: dun-dun dun dun-dun…
The overture for Star Trek the motion picture. That’s right. It had an overture.
Hunt for the Red October
John Powell’s opening for How to Train your Dragon deserves a shoutout for including every major Leitmotiv of the movie.
I’ll let someone smarter go into 18 minutes of more detail here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4UUJQH7GLms
- The Italian Job (1969)
- The Magnificent Seven (1960)
- Ennio Morricone’s music for the Man With No Name series
There can be only one: Highlander
One I didn’t see mentioned yet: reservoir dogs.
All of these are good answers, but the movie with the best opening theme is obviously Alan Partridge - Alpha Papa.
There’s no fog!