20 Best Music Videos of All Time, Ranked (original) (raw)
Michael Jackson from Thriller, Madonna from Like a Prayer, and Peter Gabriel from Sledgehammer music videos
Image by Federico Napoli
Published Sep 10, 2024, 5:00 PM EDT
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Relatively speaking, the music video as an art form is a fairly recent thing, at least in the way music videos are currently understood and defined. At its core, a music video intends to complement a song, usually a single, as a way of promoting said song and/or adding to said song’s message or narrative. Some artists opt to simply record themselves performing (or mime performing) the song, while others get a little more out-there and creative.
Music videos that fall into the latter camp are celebrated below, all signifying the potential music videos have to take a rad song and make it better. These examples are all from the start of the 1980s onwards, that decade being the time that music videos kind of came into their own, which can be at least partly attributed to the rise of MTV. The following music videos are worth celebrating because of their daringness, influential qualities, choreography, or cinematic/visual appeal; the best of the best might even do all of the above.
20 "Scream," Michael and Janet Jackson (1995)
Directed by Mark Romanek
Image via Satellite Films
Nowadays, hearing the words “Scream” and “1990s” together is likely to conjure images of a certain slasher series that began in 1996, but famed siblings Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson beat that Scream with their “Scream” one year earlier. The song itself is a passionate and appropriately aggressive one at times, referencing the media and the way famous people are treated. Michael himself (without Janet) had done something similar a few years earlier with the also bluntly titled song “Leave Me Alone.”
As for the music video for “Scream,” it has an unsettlingly quiet opening and some striking black-and-white imagery, alongside some anime visuals for good measure. It effectively conveys a feeling of isolation and maybe even madness, but beyond all the thematic stuff, it’s also got some strong dance choreography (as one would expect), and it pops visually throughout.
19 "Money for Nothing," Dire Straits (1985)
Directed by Steve Barron
Now, the music video for “Money For Nothing” doesn’t use the full-length version of the song, which is the superior one to listen to. But the video still stands at a decently lengthy 4 minutes and 38 seconds, and kind of overshadows the song, really. It used very early 3D computer animation to striking effect, with animated characters inhabiting a world where the actual Dire Straits band still play on television. It was all done a decade before Pixar also revolutionized things by making a feature-length film with computer animation.
It was successful on MTV, and the lyrics – as well as the video – reference/feature the word “MTV,” which is all interesting to think about. Further, the video does help the song, in some ways, with an animated character speaking the lyrics sung by Dire Straits' frontman Mark Knopfler. He sings some pretty heinous stuff by today’s standards, but the video makes it clearer that he’s effectively playing a character when he says such things. But, in the end, it’s technologically innovative and stunningly meta for a video of its age, so “Money For Nothing” deserves its legendary status as a music video.
18 "Hungry Like the Wolf," Duran Duran (1982)
Directed by Russell Mulcahy
Image via MGMM STUDIOS
This is not meant to sound like a criticism, purely an observation: Duran Duran might be the most 1980s-sounding band of them all, perhaps in a similar way to how no feature film feels as forcefully 1980s in aesthetic as Brian De Palma’s Scarface. So it makes sense that Duran Duran was also tied to MTV, using the channel to have their music videos increase their popularity.
“Hungry Like the Wolf” might be their best video, or at least their most well-known. It’s all shot and edited in a way that feels like it probably influenced – for better or worse – so many of the 1980s videos that now might be considered (charmingly) cheesy. The song itself is bombastic, adventurous, broad, and unwaveringly sexual, and such qualities are also found in the song’s music video. So… success?
17 "Weapon of Choice," Fatboy Slim featuring Bootsy Collins (2001)
Directed by Spike Jonze
It’s hard to talk about classic music videos without bringing up at least one attached to Fatboy Slim. The best of these would have to be “Weapon of Choice,” a song that featured vocals from Bootsy Collins, and had two big names attached to its music video. Most noticeably, it starred a dancing Christopher Walken, and was directed by Spike Jonze, a director of numerous music videos and a handful of beloved feature films, including Being John Malkovich and Her.
The music video for “Weapon of Choice” is strange and funny, featuring Walken dancing around a hotel lobby and doing increasingly superhuman things. It escalates well and Christopher Walken’s dance moves, once seen, prove absolutely impossible to forget. It’s a video with a strange vibe, style, and tone, but it all works exceedingly well, and matches the music flawlessly.
16 "Chandelier," Sia (2014)
Directed by Sia and Daniel Askill
close up of Maddie Ziegler wearing a wig in the Chandelier music video
Image via Anayawaka Productions
Before "Chandelier" took the world by storm (both as a song and a music video), Sia was probably most closely associated with the song “Breathe Me,” which was used to devastating effect in the greatest television finale of all time. “Chandelier” was almost just as powerful; since the video was published on YouTube in May 2014, it’s amassed a ridiculous 2.7 billion views.
Lyrically, “Chandelier” is dark, focusing on addiction as well as the use of substances as a means to escape tedium and negative feelings. On the surface, the music video is straightforward, following a young girl (played by Maddie Ziegler) with the appearance of Sia doing an interpretive dance around an abandoned apartment. There’s something unsettling about it all, though, with such visuals bringing out the darker undertones to the song, all done in a way that might risk being pretentious, though it never quite crosses the line into pretentiousness.
15 "November Rain," Guns N' Roses (1992)
Directed by Andy Morahan
As mentioned earlier, some of the more straightforward music videos out there focus on showing an artist or band simply playing the song in question, whether on a stage or in some other interesting environment. “November Rain,” by Guns N' Roses, kind of does this, but it’s a long song, reaching about nine minutes in length. It’s safe to say that it has adequate room to push things further music video-wise, and it seizes the opportunity.
It's a big, bold ballad of a song, and the music video matches the drama and potentially silly grandeur of it all, adding a story alongside what looks like concert footage. The band plays, the juxtaposition of a wedding and a funeral happens and feels suitably ham-fisted, and then Slash also plays his guitar solos in a Western-looking setting with ridiculously epic camerawork capturing it all. Released in the early 1990s, it feels like an attempt to go bigger and crazier than any of the bombastic music videos of the 1980s had, and if that was the case, then Guns N’ Roses pulled it off.
14 "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)," Eurhythmics (1983)
Directed by Chris Ashbrook
“Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” is the kind of near-perfect synth-pop song that’s easy to take for granted. Even if you’ve never actively sought to listen to it, it’s the sort of thing you’ve probably heard a handful of times at the very least. It’s also so catchy that just a few listens is enough for the Eurhythmics song to bury itself deep within your brain. Simple, striking, punchy pop.
And yet it gets even better if you listen to the song while watching its music video. This music video can be placed alongside Duran Duran’s “Hungry Like the Wolf” as one that, in hindsight, comes across as hugely influential (so far as editing and visuals, broadly speaking, are concerned). The song is already seductively sinister alongside being catchy, but the imagery of the video only accentuates such qualities. It could be about dictators, Cold War paranoia, assassinations, the music business, or cows. Or all of the above. There’s imagery that’s somehow both pointed and random, and the surrealness of it all is intoxicating.
13 "Ashes to Ashes," David Bowie (1980)
Directed by David Bowie and David Mallet
A closeup of David Bowie with red lipstick on and a line painted on his face in the music video Ashes to Ashes.
Image via RCA Records
David Bowie was ahead of the curve in so many ways, seemingly throughout his entire career. He was even ahead of his own death, crafting Blackstar as what now can be appreciated as a final artistic statement; something that explores death, legacy, and any number of other things. With Bowie, things are never simple enough to present just one interpretation, which is something the 2022 documentary Moonage Daydream spent 140 minutes coming to terms with.
So, it shouldn’t be surprising that Bowie also seemed to see the future when it came to music videos, with “Ashes to Ashes” predating some of those other early 1980s music videos that helped define the form. The imagery is so unusual that it still feels otherworldly and unlike anything else, with references to addiction and isolation accentuated by the visuals present in the video. It’s an impactful song with an astoundingly forward-thinking music video, and one of many essential things David Bowie did during his impressive career as a musician, artist, and actor.
12 "The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)," Missy Elliott (1997)
Directed by Hype Williams
Missy Elliott
Image via Elektra Records
Supa Dupa Fly was Missy Elliott’s first solo album, and “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)” was the lead single from that album. Both song and video were ways for Elliott to establish herself as a solo artist, beyond being known for belonging to the collective known as Swing Mob. Notably, the song also became the first hip-hop track to be transmitted into space.
The music video is strange in how it’s presented, and doesn’t feel like something from the 1990s. The distorted visuals and use of fisheye lenses feel daring in a more modern way, and the blow-up suit Elliott wears at one point is also iconic. “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)” has a music video that lives on, and was more recently crowned the best hip-hop video of all time by Rolling Stone.
11 "Bad Romance," Lady Gaga (2009)
Directed by Francis Lawrence
Lady Gaga and dancers in all white outfits with tall, pointy hats in the music video for Bad Romance.
Image via Lady Gaga/UMG Recordings, Inc.
Lady Gaga’s rise to fame was momentous in its speed and intensity. Her music was undeniably pop, but retained a novel quality and kind of became the sound of the late 2000s and early 2010s. Hit after hit was pumped out so much that you can’t really point to a single song of Lady Gaga’s as being “the” star-making one, but “Bad Romance” – and its kind of bonkers music video – was surely a large contributor.
The video has what could be a twisted sense of humor, alongside various eccentric fashion choices and some imagery that feels borderline horror at times. It’s campy, twisted, sexual, sinister, and oddly fun, but never quite goes too far into full-on unpleasant territory (even though the visuals are more challenging than the relatively easy catchiness of the song).