Great Musical Movie Scenes 

11 Aug 2014

Kim at Midnight Snark made a great post highlighting some of her favorite musical movie scenes. While driving home this weekend, it got me thinking about what would be on my list. This is probably too off-the-cuff, but they’re the scenes that stuck out in my head.

Magnolia - Wise Up

Paul Thomas Anderson has a ton of great musical scenes in his movies (damn near every scene in Boogie Nights), but I don’t think anything is more amazing than the “Wise Up” montage from Magnolia. It’s just thematically and tonally perfect. Touching and sad and perfect.

I need to go watch Magnolia again.

(I also could have included the “Sister Christian” scene from Boogie Nights, but I’ve decided to only include one scene per director.)

Almost Famous - Tiny Dancer

Speaking of directors with amazing musical scenes, Cameron Crowe pretty much always has at least one phenomenal musical scene per movie. This had every chance of being cheesy, but the movie and character completely earn this cathartic sing-along.

(And man, Kate Hudson kills it in this movie. She needs to find herself a new Cameron Crowe movie.)

(Oh, and yeah, could have included Say Anything here. Man, Cameron Crowe probably has two ridiculously iconic scenes on his own.)

Office Space - Still

PC Load Letter, what the fuck does that mean?

Step-Brothers - Sweet Child O’Mine

Adam Scott and Kathryn Hahn just crush it. Still hard to pick between this and “Boats ’n Hoes”. Also, you’ve heard of my a cappella obsession, right?

The Blues Brothers - Rawhide

I love this movie so, so much. The music is amazing, and winning over the bar that loves both types of music—country and western— with “Rawhide” and then “Stand By Your Man” is perfect.

Bringing the whip into play, genius.

I could go on for another 30 clips. I think it might be more fun to do this with TV scenes. I can think of a million.