A Ranking Of The 100 Best Musical Moment In Films Since 2000
I adore movies. And while I love them for their beautiful stories and incredible acting, and magnificent imagery, the thing that riles me up the most is a fantastic musical moment. Someone bursts into song. A shopping montage begins while a pop diva belts in the background. A whole room full of people launch into a choreographed dance. These moments of joy (and sometimes sadness) push the film to new heights and make us feel something even deeper, because, after all, our emotions are so intertwined with music.
2022 brought us so many incredible movie music moments from Lydia Tár conducting Mahler to Lady Gaga crooning "Hold My Hand" over the closing credits of Top Gun. And recently, both the explosive dance number, "Naatu Naatu," from RRR, and the grocery store sequence from White Noise made their way onto YouTube for the world's viewing pleasure. And so with all these brilliant bits of movie music floating around in my brain, I decided to do a BIG FAT ranking of the greatest musical moments from movies. That seemed like a big undertaking, however, and I haven't seen that many films from the 1950s, so I opted to limit it to only films that have been released since 2000.
And so I began by scouring the internet and my memories and lists of films for the eligible contenders and came up with a list of well over 300 scenes that could have made the cut, but alas, that was way too many, and I trimmed it to a manageable (barely) 100. I know you want to dive right into this, but first I'm going to quickly explain the ground rules.
1. As I said, only films that premiered since 2000 are eligible, so if one of you starts blowing up the comments with "Where is The Sound of Music?" or "Why didn't this idiot include the dance sequence from The Pink Panther where the woman in an artful turtleneck performs in the ski lodge?" you need to read this closer.
2. I decided, in order to narrow the scope, NOT to include scenes that rely on the film's score alone. Singing, dancing, musical montages, and great soundtrack moments are all eligible, but scenes that are just great because they utilize the film's score don't count.
3. I selected only one song from each movie. This list would have quickly become a Dreamgirls playlist otherwise and you wouldn't want that.
And with that out of the way, BUCKLE UP, EVERYONE! I have spent months putting together this list for you, and you better enjoy it! Without any further ado, the 100 greatest musical moments from films since 2000.