8 Movies Opening Night Crowds Gave an A+

CinemaScore asks opening night crowds for a grade. These eight got an A+, ranked here by movie.guru score. Turns out opening night has taste.

Number one is the heaviest movie here, and opening night still graded it A+.

1. 8
   The Fugitive (1993)9.3

   The best movie ever made from an old TV show.

   $368.9 million worldwide on a $44 million budget, and audiences rank it above 97% of notable movies. The dam jump still makes palms sweat, and the marshals' banter is half the fun.
2. 7
   Argo (2012)9.4

   A real rescue built on a fake movie. Hollywood's favorite story.

   $232.3 million worldwide on a $44.5 million budget. Alan Arkin and John Goodman steal every Hollywood scene, and Ben Affleck is a better director than leading man here.
3. 6
   The King's Speech (2010)9.5

   Speech lessons, somehow as tense as any thriller.

   $414.2 million worldwide on a $15 million budget. Colin Firth makes every stalled word feel like a cliffhanger, and Geoffrey Rush treats a future king like a stubborn student.
4. 5
   Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)9.6

   Still the template every adventure movie copies badly.

   $389.9 million worldwide on an $18 million budget, and a 9.5 Guru's Take. The map room scene, one beam of sunlight and zero dialogue, is the best scene nobody mentions.
5. 4
   Star Wars (1977)9.6

   An $11 million space western that rewired every summer since.

   $775.4 million worldwide, plus 1.59 million IMDb votes. Mark Hamill whines about power converters for a whole act, and you love him anyway.
6. 3
   The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)9.4

   The Rohirrim charge alone justifies all 201 minutes.

   $1.14 billion worldwide on a $94 million budget, and 9.0 on IMDb from 2.2 million votes. Andy Serkis makes Gollum scarier and sadder than most human actors manage.
7. 2
   E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)9.2

   The scariest thing in it is a ring of keys.

   $439.5 million domestic and 99% on Rotten Tomatoes. Peter Coyote plays a government man the credits call Keys, and that jangle is still the creepiest sound in it.
8. 1
   Schindler's List (1993)9.7

   It doesn't ask to be enjoyed. It asks to be remembered.

   Critics and audiences rank it above 99% of notable movies, and Guru's Take is a 9.6. Ralph Fiennes is chilling, Ben Kingsley is quietly devastating, and the black and white feels like testimony.

$310.87 says you just learned CinemaScore exists and already have opinions about it.

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