You can definitely start a three-act story with an in media res opening. A story having three acts is more about the number of plot points and their location. Here's a good primer on the three-act structure.

However, should you start a story with an in media res opening?

You'd be surprised how fast you get from the first word to the inciting event (that should happen about 1/8th into the story).

The 50 or so pages up to the inciting event (in a 100k-word novel) are needed to establish characters, conflict, and setting.

Skipping this part and doing an in media res opening risks turning into "a car accident you read about in the news" as opposed to "a call about a close family member that has been in a car accident".

Before you know the characters them being in danger doesn't really concern you.

If you check out in media res openings in TV-shows etc (e.g. the classic main character in dire straits followed by an "X hours earlier") this usually only happens after we've gotten to know the characters, rarely in the first episodes or even the first season of a TV show.

Maybe you need to work on the tension?

Yes, you need to introduce characters, conflict, setting, etc... but if you don't do that to the hiss of a burning fuse it can become boring, unsatisfying or feeling like nothing is happening.

You don't need lots of conflict, but you do need the potential for conflict. Something that promises to become problematic soon...

Some examples; two people planning to win the same competition, incompatible personalities probably being forced to cooperate, especially to save their lives, I've talked about the Bear on the Beach technique before (placing a hidden threat to the characters in parallel with the main story, e.g. a robbery/kidnapping/murder being planned while the characters are living their lives as if they wouldn't soon be totally overturned), or a threat from the world the character is living in, e.g. a character living in a world where they have annual "games" where people kill each other and today is the day they select two contestants from each district...

Since the inciting event is (should be) the moment when the conflict becomes personal to the main character, nothing prevents you from starting to show the conflict before this moment, just more like a rumble in a sky with gathering dark clouds as opposed to a bolt hitting the main character's house and setting it on fire.

Another important aspect is to make all your introductions as actions (as opposed to telling). Imagine your character riding in his car and coming to an accident site. Does he stop to help, or does he drive by? What is he thinking about the accident? If he does stop, does he choose to save some people before other people? This will tell the reader about the character by his actions instead of using narration.

You should also make sure all your introductions are interesting... exploit your characters quirks or unusual sides to make the introduction original.

I think, once the conflict starts rolling, eccentric quirks and originality are much less important. They may even become obstacles to showing the conflict, but in the beginning, we need to meet interesting, unusual people presented in an interesting unusual way and at the same time feel the potential for conflict gathering in the air.

Update: Your intuition is right though. You do not have to do all presentation in the first act. Rather the opposite; do as little as you can get away with, while still having an emotional bond between reader and characters once the conflict starts getting personal.

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