A facile and efficient one-pot synthesis of highly substitutedpyridin-2(1
H)-ones was developed via Vilsmeier-Haackreactions of readily available enaminones, 2-arylamino-3-acetyl-5,6-dihydro-4
H-pyrans, and a mechanism involvingsequential ring-opening, haloformylation, and intramolecularnucleophilic cyclization reactions is proposed.