In a post-MTV world, it’s easy to write off the music video as an eternally lost art. While that may be true in some ways, the dearth of greatness can also be attributed to the fact that some of the form’s greatest practitioners are currently hiding in plain sight—on the big screen. Some of Hollywood’s greatest directors came up through the music video pipeline, including newer names like Daniels, the filmmakers behind Everything Everywhere All At Once, and Ally Pankiw, the director responsible for MUNA and Phoebe Bridgers’ “Silk Chiffon” and The Beaches’ “Snake Tongue,” who just released her feature-length debut, I Used To Be Funny.
While Pankiw has a ways to go before she reaches the heights of some of the other names on this list, everyone had to start somewhere. It’s fascinating to trace the origins of each of these filmmaker’s unique styles through the videos they once created. Here’s a walk down memory lane for some of the prestigious company Pankiw may yet join, listed in alphabetical order.
Michael Bay
Before Michael Bay blew things up in Transformers and Armageddon, he was blowing things up in the video for Meat Loaf’s “I’d Do Anyting For Love (But I Won’t Do That),” a nearly eight-minute opus that’s as cinematic and story-rich as anything the director has premiered in a theater. (It even ends with a motorcycle ride into the sunset!) That’s not even meant as a dig at Bay—it’s a genuinely awesome video. In his time in the music video circuit, Bay also directed for Lionel Richie, Aerosmith, Vanilla Ice, Tina Turner, Styx, and more. His first full-length film, Bad Boys, premiered in 1995 (one year after Bay would make Meat Loaf’s “Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are” video).
Daniels
If you watch all of the music videos by Daniels—the Oscar-winning directorial duo comprised of college friends Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan—back to back, it feels almost like the experience of watching Michelle Yeoh universe jump in Everything Everywhere All At Once. These projects can largely be described as “cuckoo bananas,” but in the best way possible, just like EEAAO and their 2016 debut, Swiss Army Man. You can see the influence in the intimate angles of The Shins’ “Simple Song,” the zany “shooting clothes at naked hippies” concept of Joywave’s “Tongues,” the action movie choreography of Chromeo’s “When The Night Falls,” and the nostalgic imaginary of Manchester Orchestra’s “The Alien.” But nowhere is their aesthetic more apparent than in the video for DJ Snake and Lil Jon’s “Turn Down For What,” which currently has 1.1 billion views on YouTube and earned the duo a VMA in 2014.
David Fincher
Before Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross established themselves as unexpected film score aficionados in David Fincher’s The Social Network, Fincher similarly proved himself in videos for Nine Inch Nails (“Only”) and a whole score of others in one of music video history’s most unimpeachable runs. Starting with Rick Springfield’s “Bop ‘Til You Drop” in 1984, Fincher worked with everyone from Paula Abdul (“(It’s Just) The Way That You Love Me”; “Straight Up”; “Forever Your Girl”; “Cold Hearted”) and Madonna (“Express Yourself”; “Oh Father”; “Vogue”; “Bad Girl”) to Aerosmith (“Janie’s Got A Gun”), Michael Jackson (“Who Is It”), Billy Idol (“Cradle Of Love”; “L.A. Woman”), and more, all the way up to Justin Timberlake, whose “Suit And Tie” he directed in 2013. Many of these videos were shot in stylish black-and-white, which the director was able to utilize to stunning effect in 2020’s Mank.
Antoine Fuqua
Before Antoine Fuqua stepped behind the camera for major Hollywood action projects like the Equalizer franchise, The Magnificent Seven, Olympus Has Fallen, and Training Day, he lent his considerable talents to the music video world for nearly a decade. Fuqua worked with artists like Toni Braxton, Prince, Stevie Wonder, and eventually Coolio, for whom his “Gangsta’s Paradise” video went on to win Best Rap Video at the 1996 VMAs. He released his feature-length debut, The Replacement Killers, two years later.
Jonathan Glazer
Jonathan Glazer was paying homage to his biggest influence, Stanley Kubrick, right from the start. In successive videos for Massive Attack (“Karmacoma”), Blur (“The Universal”), and Jamiroquai (“Virtual Insanity”), Glazer references The Shining, A Clockwork Orange, and 2001: A Space Odyssey in turn, lending the world a massive preview of what was to come when he launched his mind-bending feature career in 2000 with Sexy Beast. But his most fruitful work by far came with his collaboration with Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, through which the stark contrasting colors, jarring light sources, and tense tableaus that would come to define his later films (like last year’s Oscar-winning The Zone Of Interest) would start to take form.
Michel Gondry
Michel Gondry has been perfecting the craft of music video direction for nearly four decades now, and it might still be the form he most excels at. And we really mean excels; his videos—of which there are nearly 90—are awesome, each one a mini movie in its own right. The themes of recursion, dreams, nostalgia, and memory, as well as the striking, off-kilter visuals that would populate the director’s feature works (Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, The Science Of Sleep, and more) are all present here, in forms that are just as effective as his big-screen projects. Throughout his music video career—which is still ongoing—Gondry has worked with The White Stripes, Björk, The Rolling Stones, Foo Fighters, Kylie Minogue, Radiohead, The Chemical Brothers, and many, many, more.
F. Gary Gray
It’s no wonder F. Gary Gray went on to direct one of the greatest rap movies of all time. Before releasing Straight Outta Compton, Gray got his bona fides directing music videos for some of rap and R&B’s biggest names. Starting off insanely strong with Ice Cube’s “It Was A Good Day” in 1992, Gray went on to direct videos for Usher, Coolio, OutKast, Queen Latifah, Whitney Houston, TLC, and more. He continued his incredibly fruitful collaboration with Ice Cube throughout, however. Not only did Gray go on to direct the rapper/actor/producer’s “Natural Born Killaz” video with Dr. Dre in 1994, but he also featured him in one of the two starring roles (alongside Chris Tucker) in his 1995 directorial debut, the buddy stoner comedy Friday. This eventually led full-circle to the 2015 release of Straight Outta Compton, a biographical film about N.W.A. which sees Cube’s son, O’Shea Jackson Jr., play him.
Spike Jonze
Spike Jonze is easily one of the most iconic music video directors of all time. Unlike some other names on this list, he may be as well-known for his shortform work (including short films We Were Once A Fairytale and Scenes From The Suburbs, which he directed in collaboration with Kanye West and Arcade Fire in turn) as his feature-length films, even though his playful projects like Being John Malkovich, Adaptation., and Her have gone on to win multiple awards. There’s no real consensus on what video defines the pinnacle of Jonze’s music video career, but some contenders include the Christopher Walken-starring “Weapon Of Choice” for Fatboy Slim, Kanye West and Paul McCartney’s “Only One” (shot on Jonze’s iPhone!), The Pharcyde’s “Drop,” Daft Punk’s “Da Funk,” Björk’s “It’s Oh So Quiet,” Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage,” and of course, Weezer’s Happy Days-themed “Buddy Holly.”
Francis Lawrence
Millennial teens owe Francis Lawrence so much. These days, the filmmaker is best known as the director of the Hunger Games franchise (and its recent prequel, The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes), but before he took a trip to District 12, he spent almost twice as many years pumping out videos for some of the biggest names in pop. All before his first feature, Constantine, in 2005, Lawrence directed major music videos for a staggering list of artists, including Janet Jackson, The Black Eyed Peas, Justin Timberlake, Jennifer Lopez, Avril Lavigne, OK Go, Pink, Shakira, Britney Spears, Destiny’s Child, Backstreet Boys, Green Day, Jay-Z, and many, many more. However, his inarguable crowning achievement in the format came in 2009, four years after his directorial debut, with the Grammy and VMA winning video for Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance.” You don’t have to squint to see the early glimmers of Panem couture in that one.
Zack Snyder
When will the #ReleaseTheSnyderCut crowd clamor for the full-length version of ZZ Top’s “World Of Swirl”? While Zack Snyder’s music video career wasn’t nearly as prolific as some other members of this list, the DC and Rebel Moon director cut his teeth in the format for six years before releasing his breakout debut, Dawn Of The Dead, in 2004. In that time he worked with artists such as Lizzy Borden, Morrissey, Soul Asylum, and Rod Stewart.
Tarsem
Tarsem Singh—known professionally as Tarsem—is the weird, beautiful brain behind 2006’s The Fall, a singular and divisive masterpiece of color, costuming, and vision. Unfortunately, the film is almost impossible to find online, and buying a DVD will set you back a good $70 (at least) on eBay. But never fear! You can experience something very close to the vibes of the film in miniature through R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion” video, which Tarsem directed and won a Grammy for in 1992. Over the course of his music video career, he also worked with En Vogue, Suzanne Vega, Lou Reed, Vanessa Paradis, Deep Forest, and in 2020, Lady Gaga for her “911” short film, which is the closet thing to The Fall since, well, The Fall.
Marc Webb
The two sides of Marc Webb’s extensive music video career are almost as mismatched as the central couple in his directorial debut, 500 Days Of Summer. On one hand, he’s worked with pretty much every emo band that made up the early 2000s scene, including My Chemical Romance, AFI, Good Charlotte, Brand New, Yellowcard, The Used, Coheed And Cambria, Jimmy Eat World, and Green Day. But in between those projects, he also somehow found time to work with Hilary Duff, Ashlee Simpson, Fergie, Aly & AJ, Daniel Powter (making use of 500 Days Of Summer’s iconic split-screen!), Gavin DeGraw, and more. You can see how well he’s able to marry these two modes, however, in the video for My Chemical Romance’s “I’m Not Okay (I Promise),” which channels both hardcore aesthetics and John Hughes all at once.
