The best movie needle drops are a sort of alchemy; the perfect song and the perfect film sequence, meshing to create an audio-visual experience greater than the sum of its parts. Think of when “Misirlou” hits in Pulp Fiction, or the use of Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together” in Pulp Fiction, or “You Never Can Tell” in the dance scene from Pulp Fiction…well, look, Quentin Tarantino is pretty great at the whole “combining moving images with music” thing. (He’s listed below, but—twist!—not for Pulp Fiction.)
Not that it’s just Tarantino. Edgar Wright has proven similarly adept with music in his movies, as have many of the American greats, from Martin Scorsese (with special thanks to The Rolling Stones) to David Fincher (whose The Killer might as well be a jukebox musical scored by The Smiths). Auteurs aside, some movies are memorable pretty much just for their musical moments. But nonetheless, when a great needle drop hits, it’s pure frisson: these are the scenes that’ll stick with you for years, with help from Spotify, because you’ll never stop spinning the tracks. Here, then, are ten of our favorite movie needle drops of all time.
10. Queen, “Don’t Stop Me Now,” in Shaun of the Dead
Edgar Wright is a modern master of the needle-drop; with 2017’s Baby Driver, he essentially made an 113-minute music video containing dozens of music cues from Bob & Earl’s “Harlem Shuffle” to Queen’s “Brighton Rock.” But two decades before an iPod-pilled Ansel Elgort grabbed the steering wheel, Wright revealed his knack for scoring a scene with popular music in his directorial debut, 2004’s Shaun of the Dead. The greatest example arrives in its hilariously catastrophic climax, when the zombie hordes turn up at The Winchester’s bolted doors; out of nowhere, the jukebox comes to life and lines up Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now”, their anthemic ode to sexed-up hedonism. In the meantime, John the zombified barman emerges from the shadows, and other bloodthirsty ghouls crash through the windows, making for a very silly—and funny—contrast. The scene features some timeless moments of musicalized slapstick: Shaun (Simon Pegg), Ed (Nick Frost) and Liz (Kate Ashfield) smashing John with pool cues on-beat; David (Dylan Moran) frantically flicking random switches on the fuse board, creating a light show for the assembled undead; and, of course, “David, kill the Queen!”
9. The Mamas & the Papas, “California Dreamin’,” in Chungking Express