Starts with a Suicide

A story starts off with someone attempting or committing suicide. And the rest of the story goes from there. If it's the main character, expect a Dead to Begin With story, often with an Ironic Hell or Mundane Afterlife. If it's a mystery story, such opener often implies the character was Driven to Suicide. The other possibility is a How We Got Here story.

See Also:

As a Death Trope, Spoilers ahead may be unmarked. Beware.

Examples of Starts with a Suicide include:

Anime and Manga

Pictured above: Serial Experiments Lain kicks off when middle schooler Chisa Yomode jumps off a building. It then follows up with the girl's internet conversation: "How does it feel to die?" "It really hurts :-)"
One of the Patlabor movies begins with a scientist committing suicide, which is eventually revealed to be the final step to set his plans in motion.
Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei. At least, he tries to. Until one of his students saves him.
One episode of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex starts with a montage of gynoids killing themselves.
- The 'Complex' part of the Second Season begins proper with the mass suicide of an Individual Eleven cell, who mutually decapitate each other on the roof of a skyscraper. Hideo Kuze, the initial protagonist, doesn't go through with it.
The Detective Conan Non-Serial Movie Phantom of Baker Street starts with the suicide of Hiroki.
- More than one case in the series begins with someone commiting suicide, and you just know that said death was caused when someone ruined that person's life. And obviously, whoever is to blame will become the Asshole Victim.
Subverted in Spiral: Suiri no Kizuna. It's a murder staged as a suicide -- or, in the anime, attempted murder staged as attempted suicide.
The first Kara no Kyoukai: movie starts with the latest of several suicides.
The Animatrix short Kid's Story bookends with the same (apparent) suicide, from there it's a How We Got Here story.

Comics

Hell and Back (A Sin City Love Story) starts with a attempted suicide.
One of the first X-Men stories after the end of John Byrne's run on the book involved the father of a supporting character. Bonus points in this case for being driven to it by "D'Spayre," the Anthropomorphic Personification of...well...take a wild guess.
X Factor opens up with Rictor on the roof about to jump. Madrox sends one of his dupes to convince him not to, with a little help from Wolfsbane yelling from the street, but the dupe pushes him off anyway. Don't worry. He's saved by Monet St. Croix.

Film

The Ninth Gate begins with Andrew Telfer's suicide
Constantine starts with the apparent suicide of Angela's twin sister.
Devil in Miss Jones—An otherwise saintly woman commits suicide and is therefore damned, but gets one last wish before she goes to hell for all eternity. It's a porno movie, so guess what that wish is.
The Hudsucker Proxy: Mr. Hudsucker leaves the building through an upper-storey window just as Tim Robbins's character is walking in.
The In Name Only I Robot movie.
The first Lethal Weapon, opens with a girl jumping off a high building.
Little Miss Sunshine starts with an attempted suicide
So does Amadeus.
The Omen
Ken Park begins with the suicide of Ken Park.
The plot of the Japanese mystery film School Day Of The Dead kicks off when a high school girl commits suicide.
Seven Pounds
Suicide Club opens with 54 schoolgirls committing mass suicide by jumping in front of an oncoming subway train. As you may have guessed from the movie's title, other people soon follow suit.
The Virgin Suicides A big family full of sisters commit mass suicide, starting with the youngest, and a group of boys become obsessed with them.
Wristcutters: A Love Story
The First Wives Club opens with Cynthia Swan suiciding after her husband leaves her for a woman several decades younger than she is. When three of her college friends meet at her funeral and find that they're all in similar situations, they form the titular club.
The Big Chill
The Hours begins this way.
The Thai film The Last Life in the Universe begins with a suicide attempt by Tadanobu Asano's character.
In the film inspired by Cirque Du Soleil's Alegria, the story starts with street performer Frac attempting suicide by lying down on train tracks. He's only stopped from going through with it when his abused urchin friend Momo lies down beside him with the same intent.
Girl on the Bridge starts with a woman about to jump off said bridge. A knife thrower looking for an assistant stops her...
Head starts off (and ENDS) with The Monkees' Micky Dolenz jumping off a bridge...which makes the whole film arguably his near-death hallucination.
The horror movie They begins with the public suicide of the protagonist's childhood friend.
Kick-Ass starts like this, although the suicide takes place at the chronological end of the movie.

Literature

The Virgin Suicides
Tunnel Vision, a YA problem novel by Fran Arrick.
On a Pale Horse
Agatha Christie
- The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
- Towards Zero.
Nerve by Dick Francis
The Winter Queen by Boris Akunin
Stephen King's IT.

Live-Action TV

Battlestar Galactica has, near the beginning of "Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part I", Gaius Baltar persuading Boomer to kill herself. She doesn't succeed, but it's the beginning of Break the Cutie for Boomer.
- The plot of Caprica is set off by a suicide bombing in the first few minutes that starts off the entire plot.
The narrator of Desperate Housewives commits suicide at the start of the series.
An episode in Season 5 of House starts out with one of the main characters doing this. For no reason. (It was actually because the actor decided to quit the show.)
An early episode of Law & Order has a cop's suicide start an investigation that eventually leads to uncovering the cop and many of his childhood friends had been sexually abused by the neighborhood priest. One of the victims was Detective Mike Logan.
- The 2009 episode Illegitimate begins with the perplexing case of a cop committing Suicide by Cop. The rest of the episode deals with the detectives tracing down why he did it.
The entire premise of Then Came Bronson is the title character riding around the country on the motorcycle purchased from the widow of his friend who killed himself.
The fourth season of Skins begins this way. We see the main characters partying in a club through the eyes of a new character, Sophia, as she climbs the floors of the club. She then proceeds to jump off the top one.

Video Games

Call Of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth begins and ends with the protagonist in an asylum attempting to hang himself in his cell. While it's not completely confirmed, apparently he succeeds.
Persona 3 apparently begins with Yukari attempting to commit suicide with a gun... but it doesn't take long for it to become clear that she's only trying to gather the courage needed to evoke her Persona. The gun doesn't even shoot bullets.
Tex Murphy: Overseer (which is a remake of the original Tex Murphy game, Mean Streets)
God of War starts off with Kratos stepping off of a cliff.

Western Animation

Justice League: The New Frontier opens with the writer of a children's book, whose sensitivity picks up on the emergence of the Centre. He tries to put everything down in a story, then, overwhelmed by despair at the coming catastrophe, picks up a gun and aims it straight at the viewer, since we see everything from his perspective. He then pulls the trigger, and the opening credits start to roll.