40 Best Needle Drops in Movies of All Time

When The Fast & the Furious was still a glint in the eyes of a wee Vin Diesel, George Lucas was showing how you soundtrack a drag race. The slow-rolling cool of this Stax soul classic, with its effortless swagger, is a sonic shortcut to American Graffiti‘s early ’60s nostalgia (“Where were you in ’62?”), a world of hot rods, diner pit stops and backseat romance. The soundtrack to Lucas’ ode to post-war Americana features nonstop pop and rock hits of the era, starting with Bill Haley & His Comets’ “Rock Around the Clock” and ending with The Beach Boys’ “All Summer Long.” Securing the rights to all these songs reportedly cost so much that it left no room for a traditional score (Elvis Presley is notably absent because he was too expensive).

Thomas Vinterberg’s bittersweet, Oscar-winning ode to alcoholism ends with a moment of 200-proof joy as Mads Mikkelsen gets plastered and channels his inner Fred Astaire in an Old Hollywood dance sequence as corny as it is transcendent. Blasting over the top is this Danish pop-rap track, which, suitably enough, has become the country’s go-to party tune for New Year’s celebrations nationwide.

The opening sequence of Apocalypse Now remains American cinema’s definitive master class in the poetic marriage of music and image. Helicopter blades thump rhythmically across the frame as the camera holds on a hazy tableau of tropical foliage. Doors guitarist Robby Krieger’s shamanistic guitar line then wends its way into the scene like the onset of an acid trip, and in the precise moment that Jim Morrison’s haunting baritone abruptly intones, “This is the end, beau-ti-ful friend …”, the jungle explodes into all-consuming napalm hellfire. The surreal, mournful atmosphere of the song perfectly establishes the ecstatic truth Apocalypse Now is seeking: This is not just a war film, but a journey into whatever comes after existential despair and derangement.

Claire Denis’ Beau Travail ends with one of cinema’s most transcendent codas: Disgraced Legionnaire Galoup (Denis Lavant), after being broken and brutalized by his military training, finally cuts loose, alone on the dance floor, gyrating to Corona’s Europop hit. After 90 minutes of mounting tension, Denis gives Galoup, and the audience, a euphoric release, as his coiled limbs practically explode and his body finally speaks.

As comedic needle drops go, nobody fucks with the Jesus. The Coen brothers are masters of music deployed for ironic effect, and this one remains an all-timer. The scene makes for two hilarious needle drops in one. The slow opening guitar of the Gipsy Kings’ flamenco cover of “Hotel California” — by The Eagles, the band Jeff Bridges’ the Dude famously hates — introduces us to John Turturro’s Jesus Quintana, hair-netted, purple-jumpsuitted and strutting to the lane to tap his bowling ball with the tip of his tongue in a revolting ritual of swagger and concentration. Of course, he bowls a perfect strike, and just as the pins explode, the Gipsy Kings’ cover kicks into high gear and Jesus breaks into a loose-limbed victory jig. The Dude intones as the scene winds down, “Fucking Quintana, that creep can roll, man.”

Orbison’s dreamy ballad, featuring “the candy-colored clown” that obsesses psycho Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper), is at the nightmarish heart of David Lynch’s early masterpiece. Lynch uses repetitive drops, from Dean Stockwell’s terrifying lip-synch to Dorothy Vallens’ (Isabella Rossellini) desperate night club performance, to blur the line between beauty and horror, linking the characters in their shared obsession with controlling the object of their desires. “In dreams, you’re mine, all the time.”

Paul Thomas Anderson proved himself a graduate of the Martin Scorsese school of incongruous needle drops with the “coke deal gone bad” scene from Boogie Nights. A speedo-wearing Alfred Molina, freebased off his tits, sings along to Night Ranger’s kitschy power ballad. But the top 40 mood is cut with rising menace (those exploding firecrackers don’t help). All that’s needed is a tempo change — to Rick Springfield’s “Jessie’s Girl” — to trigger violent chaos.

Even more than Timothée Chalamet softly sobbing to Sufjan Stevens over the film’s closing credits, this period-appropriate New Wave anthem succinctly captures the tortured feeling of repressed love at the heart of Luca Guadagnino’s romantic masterpiece. You can almost taste the longing as Chalamet’s Elio, alone on the sidelines, watches Oliver (Armie Hammer) dad dance his white socks off.

When Martin Scorsese turns a Rolling Stones classic on its head, you can be sure he knows what he’s doing. In Casino, he uses Devo’s jittery New Wave cover of “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” to electrify the montage showing Ace Rothstein’s empire beginning its violent collapse. It’s almost an inside joke: Scorsese’s films so famously feature Rolling Stones songs (in fact, Casino uses the Stones’ original “Satisfaction” elsewhere, and “Gimme Shelter” is featured in no less than three Scorsese films: Goodfellas, Casino and The Departed) that dropping Devo’s robotic 1978 cover highlights how off-kilter everything has become. A needle drop that generates real cinematic tension while also winking at the audience’s expectations — all while Nicky Santoro and company careen off the rails in Vegas.

Alfonso Cuarón’s dystopian masterpiece is packed with striking music cues, but none is as evocative as King Crimson’s prog-rock opus. The 1969 song plays in one of the film’s rare moments of respite — when Theo (Clive Owen) visits a sanctuary of art (the “Ark of the Arts”) amid a future of global infertility and unrest. As Theo glides through the broken city and enters his wealthy cousin’s secluded hideaway, the mellotron-rich strains of King Crimson fill the air, lending the scene a singular atmosphere of eerie, elegiac grandeur.

Wong Kar-wai’s vividly alive anthology rom-com is a film practically built on pop-song repetition. The Mamas and the Papas “California Dreamin’” haunts the film’s first half beautifully, but the movie’s most whimsical and infectious musical motif is “Dreams,” both the original Cranberries hit and the Cantonese version recorded by Chungking Express‘ star, Faye Wong. As Wong, in her adorable pixie cut, falls helplessly for Tony Leung’s impossibly handsome beat cop, it’s all there in the jangle of “Dreams’” guitar and the hopeful longing of the lyrics (“Oh my life is changing every day, in every possible way …”). Impatient, giddy young love set amid Hong Kong’s relentless hustle and flow.

As far as ’90s teen nostalgia needle drops go, this one is hard to beat. Clueless opens with an unforgettable blast of pure pop-punk bliss as The Muffs’ “Kids in America” plays over a montage tour of Cher Horowitz’s (Alicia Silverstone) ultra-fabulous Beverly Hills high school life — friends, pool parties, outfits! The movie’s lovable tone is instantly established — a soft satire/celebration of privileged teen superficiality, but with a heart of gold.

Echo and the Bunnymen’s “The Killing Moon” sets the tone with one of recent cinema’s great suburban alienation openings, as a young Jake Gyllenhaal hops on his road bike to glide through the quiet hills of upper-middle-class 1980s America. But it’s Gary Jules and Michael Andrews’ delicate, haunting cover of Tears for Fears’ “Mad World” that delivers the film’s most poignant moment: a devastating closing montage as Donnie’s family and community awaken to the emotional aftershocks of his sacrifice — a feels-filled fantasy for angst-ridden teenage boys everywhere (“The dreams in which I’m dying are the best I’ve ever had …”).

Spike Lee’s magnum opus taps the energy and righteous fury of Public Enemy’s Black Power rap anthem. From the opening credits, as Rosie Perez pops, locks, boxes and boogies to Chuck D.’s call to arms, to the film’s climax, when Radio Raheem’s boombox, playing “Fight the Power” on a loop, meets the business end of Sal’s baseball bat. Both summer jam and war cry, it’s a five-minute, 23-second distillation of Lee’s vision, mood and message.

The F&F franchise is known for its roof-thumping original tracks, but for his stand-alone sequel, Justin Lin picked this Atari Teenage Riot track to rev up the opening race sequence, when our fish out of water hero Sean (Lucas Black) takes on Tokyo’s drift racers. The digital hardcore hits your body as hard as Sean’s Nissan Silvia hits the wall, ATR’s glitchy rage perfectly channeling the film’s raw velocity.

Picking The Pixies’ alt-rock classic to close a film about a man with dissociative identity disorder is the most obvious of needle drops. David Fincher pulls it off perfectly. “You met me at a very strange time in my life,” Edward Norton’s character, his face half-blown off, mutters to Marla, as drums burst and the skyline collapses in front of them. Black Francis’ lyrics evoke the film’s themes of disconnect and disorientation as Fincher’s visuals illustrate the ecstasy/horror of destruction and new beginnings.

Noah Baumbach’s Frances Ha delivers pure joy in its most famous sequence: Greta Gerwig’s title character dashing and dancing through Manhattan to David Bowie’s anthem “Modern Love.” The scene is a direct homage to a 1986 French film (Leos Carax’s Mauvais Sang), in which a similar sprint to the same song occurs. But even if you didn’t catch the cinephile reference, the moment has become an exhilarating and indelible sequence for a whole new generation of film lovers. It’s a needle drop that feels simultaneously spontaneous and cleverly choreographed, much like Frances herself.

Jordan Peele opens Get Out with Childish Gambino’s woozy throwback hit “Redbone,” using its “stay woke” refrain as a sly thematic warning. The song plays over the film’s opening scene, establishing a funky yet slightly eerie tone as protagonist Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) gets ready for a trip with his girlfriend (Allison Williams), effectively urging him — and the audience — not to get caught sleeping. No such luck.

The whole ethos of Jim Jarmusch’s Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai is essentially a Wu-Tang Clan needle drop in the form of an offbeat indie movie (with a few references to Seijun Suzuki and Jean-Pierre Melville thrown in for film buffs). Directly inspired by Wu-Tang’s founding vision of a Staten Island hip-hop brotherhood bound by martial arts philosophy, the film follows Forest Whitaker as Ghost Dog, a hit man for the New Jersey mafia who lives by the ancient warrior code of the samurai. The film’s animating spirit, undoubtedly, is the soundtrack composed and assembled by RZA — the first effort in what would become a distinguished screen career for the visionary Wu-Tang ringleader (culminating in scores for Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill: Volume 1 & 2). Head-bumping moments abound in the picture, but when Whitaker slips a CD into his stereo while assembling his pistol in anticipation of battle, and Fast Shadow’s beat kicks Method Man’s flow into relentless motion, the scene transcends to a higher plane: a Ouroboros of impossibly cool musical and movie influences, stalking the streets in a hoodie and trench coat.

Céline Sciamma hadn’t licensed rights to Rihanna’s glittering anthem when she shot this scene, in which her Black teen protagonists, in their best shoplifted clothes, dance and lip-synch in front of the mirrors in their hotel room. But the pop star quickly gave her approval once she saw the clip, which shows the power of music to transcend circumstance and reframes joy as resistance.

Arguably, the single best use of the needle drop in cinema history. By contrasting the soaring beauty of the piano interlude to Derek and the Dominos’ power ballad with a montage of corpses, creatively whacked by Jimmy Conway (Robert De Niro) as he cleans shop following the Lufthansa heist, Scorsese transitions the film from hopeful Kennedy-era nostalgia to a dark, ultra-violent future.

Without the achingly authentic music of the late, great Elliott Smith, it’s quite possible that much of Good Will Hunting would have felt like a contrivance (How do you like them apples, Matt and Ben?). Throughout the movie, it’s Smith’s contributions that lend the story its realest undercurrents of delicate, introspective warmth. In a masterstroke, Gus Van Sant convinced Smith to write an original song for the ending, which resulted in “Miss Misery,” Will’s bittersweet sendoff as he drives into the unknown in search of his love (“I had to go see about a girl …”). The song also earned Smith an Oscar nomination, creating one of the most incongruously poignant musical moments in the awards show’s history: a craggy and palpably nervous Smith, alone onstage with his guitar and fragile voice, performing for all of Hollywood’s glitterati.

The rare use of an end-credit needle drop that reframes an entire film. What could have been a triumphant romantic climax — Benjamin rescues Elaine at the altar and the couple run off together — is turned existential thanks to the strains of Simon & Garfunkel’s plaintive ballad playing over the long shot of Katharine Ross, in her wedding gown, slowly realizing what she’s done, while a dead-eyed Dustin Hoffman stares off into the middle distance.

The mashup as cinematic mission statement. La Haine, Mathieu Kassovitz’s visceral portrait of French inner-city youth, takes flight in this rooftop DJ scene fusing Édith Piaf’s classic chanson “Non, je ne regrette rien” with KRS-One’s scorching boom-bap rap “Sound of da Police.” In the fleeting but unforgettable sequence, a DJ (played by Cut Killer) scratches Piaf’s 1960 ballad together with KRS-One’s protest anthem and blasts it out his window. The camera starts in the room alongside him, before pulling out, taking flight through the window and soaring over the banlieues, as if riding the hybrid musical energy that encapsulates all of the rage, identity and contradictions of the world below.

Rom-com maestro Richard Curtis deploys The Beach Boys’ 1966 masterpiece just as his sprawling ensemble cast finds resolution in a succession of emotional reunions inside Heathrow Airport’s arrivals hall. Brian Wilson’s shimmering harmonies and that joyful French horn melody do the heavy lifting as the characters’ scenes dissolve into footage of actual public embraces between loved ones of all varieties, elevating the movie’s sentimentality into something genuinely moving (some might even argue the ending is rescued from schmaltz via Wilson’s pop genius).

As Neo chooses to “wake up” from the simulated reality of the Matrix and accept his destiny as “the one” to lead the revolt against the machines, RATM’s explosive track detonates over the end credits. It’s an on-the-nose drop from the Wachowskis that lands perfectly, with a guitar riff of hard-rock rebellion and Zack de la Rocha’s voice spitting pure prophecy.

Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight is a master class in emotional restraint, and nowhere is that more evident than the diner reunion between Chiron and Kevin (Trevante Rhodes and André Holland). When Kevin puts Barbara Lewis’ 1963 R&B ballad on the jukebox, the lyrics do what words can’t: reconnect two men who once shared a fleeting moment of tenderness. As Lewis sings, “It seems like a mighty long time,” the space between them collapses, and the film opens its heart.

Sometimes a needle drop simply charms your socks off. Case in point: Napoleon Dynamite’s opening credits, set to The White Stripes’ “We’re Going to Be Friends.” Jack and Meg White’s now-timeless acoustic ditty plays as we see a series of quirky, nostalgia-steeped still-life shots — student ID cards, tater tots on a plate, a “liger” drawing — all creatively arranged to show the film’s credits. The song’s lyrics about school friendship and its childlike melody instantly establish the film’s sincere, offbeat approach to cringe humor. Director Jared Hess loved it so much he mailed an early cut to the band to request approval. (Of course, they said yes — making Napoleon Dynamite the first film to feature a White Stripes song, long before it became Conan O’Brien’s podcast theme song.) The result is one of the most endearing credit sequences of the 2000s.

The essence of Mike Judge’s enduring cult classic Office Space resides in its hilarious juxtaposition of gangsta rap and the nebbish world of white-collar malaise. The move simultaneously highlights the farcical nature of the protagonists’ “struggle,” while also transforming their mundane devotion to slacking off into something akin to a triumphant act of rebellion, perfectly capturing the film’s sarcastic but deeply relatable spirit.

Near the climax of Celine Song’s subtle romantic drama, Nora’s childhood soulmate, Hae Sung, and her husband, Arthur, share a charged, awkward moment while waiting for the check in a late night New York bar. Playing softly — but unmistakably — in the background is John Cale’s elegiac ballad “You Know More Than I Know.” The song perfectly captures the complicated emotions and quiet realities between these two very different but decent men, each of whom knows a profound part of Nora that the other will never fully access. The effect is subtle yet powerful — a needle drop that articulates unspoken understanding and gentle sorrow, laying the emotional groundwork for the devastating goodbye still to come.

No one does the upbeat-music-paired-with-shocking-violence combo better than Tarantino. And nowhere better than in his debut, playing Stealers Wheel’s “Dylanesque, pop, bubble-gum favorite” over an ear-cutting torture scene, heightening both the humor and the horror. As suave psychopathic Mr. Blonde, its peak performance from the late, great Michael Madsen, showing off both his razor work and his soft shoe.

Name a song more synonymous with a movie than “Eye of the Tiger” and Rocky III. Ironically, the rock anthem wasn’t Sylvester Stallone’s first choice. After failing to secure the rights to Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust,” Sly turned to the then-little-known band Survivor and asked them to write “something street, something with a pulse.” The band lifted lyrics straight from the script — zeroing in on Apollo Creed’s warning that Rocky had lost the “eye of the tiger” — and timed their power-chord blasts to match the punches onscreen. It’s now impossible to imagine the movie training montage without it.

From the very start, Wes Anderson’s inimitable aesthetic has leaned heavily on impeccably curated soundtracks (think back to the masterful use of The Rolling Stones’ “2000 Man” at the climax of his first feature, Bottle Rocket). His filmography is littered with dozens of music cues that hit with all of the arresting poignancy of unruly teenage emotion — which happens to be his most enduring theme. But The Royal Tenenbaums arguably contains his magnum opus of musical moments: the use of Nico’s “These Days” during Richie and Margot’s reunion. In this achingly tender scene, Richie Tenenbaum (Luke Wilson), fresh off a failed tennis career and an emotional breakdown, watches his adopted sister Margot (Gwyneth Paltrow) step off a Green Line bus in slow motion. As she approaches — fur coat, heavy eyeliner, cigarette in hand — Nico’s voice floats in: “I’ve been out walking … These days I seem to think a lot about the things that I forgot to do …” The effect is mesmerizing — a lifetime of unspoken feeling distilled into a prolonged moment of eye contact.

Taylor’s musically sweet, lyrically devastating ballad is the perfect encapsulation of Sidney Lumet’s elegy to ’60s idealism. Playing over the Pope family as they wash up after dinner, dancing and singing along, the song is both balm and burden. Anti-war activists on the run from the FBI, the Popes know how fleeting this moment of domestic bliss will be.

Sirât is by far the newest title on this list — it premiered to acclaim at the Cannes Film Festival in May and has yet to receive a wide release — but its status as a future cult classic already feels assured. How can a film — in story and setting — possibly capture the sublime grandeur of the most austere and intense techno? Sirât is a feature-length answer to that question. French producer Kangding Ray’s “Amber Decay” sets the tone and the stakes early, as a booming analog sound system is assembled and a piratical rave takes shape deep in the Moroccan desert. As Ray’s ambient anthem echoes off the cliffs, a father and young boy stumble through the writhing dancers, searching for a daughter and sister who has gone missing. Is this a vision of hell or the last refuge of broken bodies and minds straining to feel alive? Before long, filmmaker Oliver Laxe makes clear it’s both: The whole broken world is a rave, and we’re all just clinging to the music.

Danny Boyle cues could fill an entire list of epic needle drops, with at least a dozen from Trainspotting alone. But the single best is Underworld’s club anthem, its pounding four to the floor beat, and Karl Hyde’s self-loathing chant (“Lager lager lager”) playing over the film’s final scene, when Renton (Ewan McGregor) chooses life by betraying his junkie mates, stealing their cash and making off into the London streets.

Martha Coolidge set the standard for the romantic dating montage with this pure slice of ’80s delight. Modern English’s New Romantic ballad, playing over scenes of courtship between Deborah Foreman’s eponymous Valley Girl, in all her pink-sweatered, feathered lock glory, and Randy, the spiky punk bad boy, played by Nicolas Cage in his first leading role, is a synth-laced distillation of teenage longing.

Wayne and Garth and the boys headbang to Queen’s magnum opus in a beat-up AMC Pacer. A glorious comedy set piece balanced on the edge between mocking parody and heartfelt tribute, it revived Freddy Mercury for a new generation. Suburban metalheads around the world finally felt seen.

Norwegian director Joachim Trier’s 2021 breakout is packed with offbeat and nostalgic needle drops, but his use of Harry Nilsson’s soft rock ballad is particularly poignant. As Julie (Renate Reinsve) leaves longtime lover Aksel for new beau Eivind, Nilsson’s bittersweet lyrics suggest she feels the loss of the old relationship more than the joy of the new. The happy times with Eivind may prove just as fleeting.

David Fincher’s magisterial police procedural opens on a serene Fourth of July night in 1969. A young couple sits in a car, flirting and killing time, as Donovan’s psychedelic folk-rock single “Hurdy Gurdy Man” plays quietly over the radio. But when sudden, unspeakable violence descends upon them, the volume picks up, and a bone-chilling dissonance takes hold between the song’s mellow haze and the Zodiac Killer’s brutality. Bad men are out there, lurking … By the time the Hurdy Gurdy Man’s ominous drone returns for the film’s finale, it has been fully transformed into an anthem of dread. Mood-setting at its most masterful.