Worst to Best: Music Videos Set in Movie Worlds

From Madonna flirting with Austin Powers to Will Smith dancing with an alien, there's a long, sometimes dubious tradition of soundtrack videos that bring musical artists into the world of the films.

Since Christopher Cross’s 1981 video for “Arthur’s Theme (Best You Can Do),” music videos, movies, and soundtrack albums have enjoyed a kind of synergistic relationship. “Arthur’s Theme” set the pattern for many videos in the decades that followed, mixing shots of Cross lip-synching the song with clips from the movie. Some videos went even further via cameos from the cast. Billy Ocean’s video for “When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going,” for instance, finds him joined on stage by Jewel of the Nile stars Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner, and Danny DeVito and “Neutron Dance” casts the Pointer Sisters as ushers at a screening of Beverly Hills Cop. Some, however, go further still, drawing musicians into the world of the films for which they’re supplying the soundtrack. Examples of the trend, inescapable in the 1980s and ’90s (and especially in the peak year of 1985), range from the banal to the bizarre to the borderline sublime. You’ll find examples of each in this ranking of the subgenre’s most notable entries.

19. Adam Lambert “Time For Miracles”
From 2012 (2009)

While buildings burn and panicked crowds flee the apocalyptic events of this deeply morally suspect Roland Emmerich stinker, Adam Lambert stares earnestly into the camera, assuring those watching that “he ain’t givin’ up on us.” It’s awful, awful stuff visually, conceptually, and musically. 

18. Paul McCartney “Spies Like Us”
From Spies Like Us (1985)

Joined by Spies Like Us stars Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd, McCartney finds himself in the thick of ’80s Cold War intrigue, though the action is largely limited to the threesome trading disguises as they fake performing the song in the studio. As the fairly dreadful song draws to a close, all three recreate the cover to Abbey Road.

17. Red Hot Chili Peppers “Love Roller Coaster”
From Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (1996)

Animated in a style that kind of looks like the characters in Mike Judge’s MTV series and its spin-off movie, the Chili Peppers ride a heart-adorned rollercoaster while performing an Ohio Players funk classic. About as much thought seems to have been placed into the clip’s execution as its conception.

16. Goo Goo Dolls “I’m Awake Now”
From Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)

The Goo Goo Dolls fall asleep watching a Nightmare on Elm Street movie and awaken in an old theater that’s, frankly, not particularly creepy. A few shots (that notably do not show Elm Street star Robert Englund’s face) suggest Freddy might be stalking them. Everyone looks kind of bored then, eventually, they wake up. It’s a pale imitation of a winning concept that a previous Elm Street soundtrack song had already executed much better. (See below.)

15. U2 “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me”
From Batman Forever (1995)

The rooftops of Gotham City serve as a tour stop for U2’s Zoo TV tour in this awkward melding of two high-concept universes. A cartoon version of the band featuring two of Bono’s tour personae—“The Fly” and “MacPhisto”—performs the song between clips from the film until a late-developing narrative in which Bono is run over by Elvis while reading C.S. Lewis kicks in. It’s no better or worse than the movie it’s promoting, but at least it’s shorter.

14. Huey Lewis “Power of Love” 
From Back to the Future (1985)

The extended version of this Back to the Future hit’s video opens with Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) pulling up outside a club, desperate, for some reason, to attend a Huey Lewis and the News concert. After that promising opening, however, the clip becomes a standard faux-live performance, with Doc nowhere to be seen in the enthusiastic crowd after he makes his entrance. (The DeLorean does have a final cameo, however.)

13. ZZ Top, “Doubleback”
From Back to the Future Part III (1990)

ZZ Top makes a cameo in Back to the Future Part III, but rather than extending that moment, the video for “Doubleback” finds the band, filmed in black-and-white, interacting unconvincingly with color footage from the film. It’s pretty bad, though a finale in which a group of sexy women save the day that calls back to the band’s “Legs” videos certainly stays on brand.

12. Madonna “Beautiful Stranger”
From Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999)

“Someone is seducing our top agents,” Michael York’s Basil Exposition warns Austin Powers (Mike Myers) in the opening moments of this track from the Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me soundtrack. “We’ve already lost 007 and 008.” “Well Basil,” Powers replies, “this looks like a case for Double ‘Oh Behave!’” In the clip that follows, Powers attends a Madonna concert and begins fantasizing being seduced by the singer, who licks and presses her body to him while he drives his Shaguar. It’s a single joke run into the ground, fitting for an Austin Powers sequel.

11. U2, “Elevation (Tomb Raider Mix)”
From Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001)

A video that looks like it might have cost as much as the movie that spawned it opens with Bono receiving a phone call that The Edge has been kidnapped and will not be returned unless Bono surrenders “the key.” This doesn’t really square with the rest of the video, which pretty convincingly inserts The Edge into scenes from Tomb Raider that make him look like a sidekick to Angelina Jolie’s Lara Croft. Ultimately, however, it’s not Croft but Bono’s ability to freeze time, levitate objects, and harness the power of the wind that saves the day. Is there anything he can’t do?

10. Cyndi Lauper “Goonies R Good Enough” (Parts One and Two)
From The Goonies (1985)

Divided into two halves—one released before The Goonies arrived in theaters and one after—Cyndi Lauper’s “Goonies R Good Enough” videos cross over the Richard Donner film awhile continuing Lauper’s puzzling association with professional wrestling. Lauper plays the proprietor of a financially imperiled gas station that doubles as the site of an impromptu brawl between The Iron Sheik, Freddie Blassie and others. Fortunately, like the heroes of the film, Lauper finds a treasure map. Shen then joins the film’s cast for a treasure hunt and the day is saved—but only after a pirate battle; cameos from Steven Spielberg, the Bangles, the octopus that didn’t make the final cut of the movie, and Lauper’s mom; and the deus ex machina arrival of Andre the Giant. The video gets points for ambition but it feels endless and it’s far from Lauper’s finest moment musically.

9. Will Smith “Wild Wild West”
From Wild Wild West (1999)

Blurring the lines between movie and reality even more than most of the videos on this list, Smith’s Wild Wild West theme finds him alternating between rapping about his Wild Wild West character, Jim West, then rapping as West. The movie he’s describing sounds a lot cooler than the movie would turn out to be in reality, which might help explain why the song took on a life of its own. That aside, the video turns into a pretty impressive full-on musical number by the end. Maybe the movie should have done the same.

8. Harold Faltermeyer “Axel F”
From Beverly Hills Cop (1984)

Dressed in a trenchcoat and dark glasses, Beverly Hills Cop score composer Harold Faltermeyer is following the clues of some sort of mystery as this video opens. But, by the end, Faltermeyer’s black-and-white noir image has merged with that of the film via shots that drop him into the Beverly Hills Cop action, including a couple of moments in which he runs “alongside” Eddie Murphy and Judge Reinhold. (Forrest Gump or Zelig or even the “Elevation” video this is not.) The look on Faltermeyer’s face suggests he knows just how silly it looks.

7. Prince “Batdance”
From Batman (1989)

Prince never interacts directly with scenes from Tim Burton’s 1989 film Batman, but the track is filled with dialogue snippets and the video seems to be set in a parallel universe to the film. It’s one in which dancers in Batman and Joker costumes (interrupted at one point by a cadre of Vicki Vales) battle for the soul of a Batman/Joker hybrid being played by Prince. It’s not clear who wins, but as awkward as the marriage between Prince and the movie was both behind the scenes and within the movie, the video ends up channeling the spirit of Batman pretty well. 

6. Ray Parker Jr. “Ghostbusters”
From Ghostbusters (1984)

A spectral Ray Parker Jr. terrorizes a scantily clad woman in her neon home while singing the theme song to the 1984 comedy until she takes his advice and calls the Ghostbusters. At that point, the two become friends and Parker joins the Ghostbusters as they dance in the street. Occasionally, celebrities like John Candy, Peter Falk and Teri Garr show up to advise viewers to call the Ghostbusters. Conceptually, it’s all a bit muddy but it’s fun nonetheless.  

5. Duran Duran “A View to a Kill”
From A View to a Kill (1985)

Members of Duran Duran wander around the Eiffel Tower, the setting for one of the more memorable scenes in Roger Moore’s final outing as James Bond, occasionally joining in on the action. Thanks to a tricked-out Walkman, Simon LeBon is able to blow up a helicopter and a blimp while Andy Taylor uses a weaponized accordion to attack Nick Rhodes. This raises the question: were members of Duran Duran on opposite sides of the Cold War? The video offers no answers, only an ending that suggests all members of the band are killed when the Tower explodes (sort of).

4. Will Smith “Men in Black”
From Men in Black (1997)

Each episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air opened with a Will Smith song explaining the premise of the show and with this 1997 blockbuster, Smith ported that approach over to movies. Smith only did this twice—though Demi Adejuyigbe spun comic gold out of it several times over—and both efforts produced memorable videos. But only one has Smith dancing with an alien. Advantage: “Men in Black.”

3. Motorhead “Hellraiser”
From: Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth (1992)

Awesome as it is, this clip might rank even higher if it didn’t end in an anticlimax. The video accompanying a song Motörhead recorded for Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth builds to a poker game between two icons: the Hellraiser series’ primary Cenobite Pinhead and Motörhead frontman Lemmy Kilmister. The tension builds until Lemmy wins the hand by playing the Joker (alongside the ace of spades, of course) and then the two just go their separate ways. Still, you don’t get a meeting of icons like this in most other videos. Or any video, really.

2. Badly Drawn Boy “Something to Talk About” 
Badly Drawn Boy “Silent Sigh”
From About a Boy (2002)

A bunch of fine songs by Damon Michael Gough, who performs under the stage name Badly Drawn Boy, provide the soundtrack to Paul and Chris Weitz’s adaptation of Nick Hornby’s About a Boy. Gough apparently enjoyed the experience so much he decided to linger in the world of the film a little longer in two separate but related videos. “Something to Talk About” creates an elaborate backstory to the scene in which young Marcus (Nicholas Hoult) accidentally kills a duck with a loaf of bread. A handful of scenes set over the course of Gough’s life reveal the duck to be a demonic creature who’s tormented the singer since childhood. Driven to the brink of madness by the duck’s latest assault—which has left his car covered in duck poop—Gough chases it to the lake where the duck has its fateful encounter and then celebrates its death. But wait, there’s more: fast-forwarding 2000 years into the future, “Silent Sigh” depicts an alien extracting the duck’s corpse from the frozen wasteland Earth has become, extracting its memories, and uncovering the tragic reason the duck hated Gough. (To paraphrase a quote from another movie, you never meet any duck who thinks they’re a bad person.) Combined, they’re the most ambitious video/movie crossover clips ever created. And they might be the best were it not for…

1. The Fat Boys, “Are You Ready for Freddy”
From A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master

As this video from A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master opens, Fat Boy Mark Morales learns he’s inherited a house from his Uncle Frederick. But there’s a catch: to claim his inheritance, Morales (and the rest of the Fat Boys, apparently) have to spend one night in the house. As they trade verses about Elm Street movies, Robert Englund shows up in full Freddy costume to rap along as he chases the Boys from one room to the next. (“You see my name is Freddy, and I’m here to say / I’ll wrap you up and take you away.”) The video fully commits to the bit in a way that makes others look pretty half-assed. It’s the peak all such videos try to reach.