It's not often a movie director does a music video, which is part of the reason why David Lynch directing Nine Inch Nails "Came Back Haunted" is such big news. And the varying reaction is also part of the reason why it rarely happens.
Audiences tend to have serious expectations from a moonlighting movies director — in Lynch's case I can guess that people were expecting something like his most popular work, and not something that clearly fits in the lineage of his shorts and artfilms. But it's understandable: You want Wes Anderson to be Wes Anderson if/when he ever does a video. You want The Coen Brothers to do what you love about their work.
But the problem is it's often not possible. There's not the time, or the money, or even the creative freedom. That's why it's far more likely they do commercials before they do music videos — they might not offer the bigger pallette, freedoms and publicity of a music video, but they at least provide the resources for these big screen directors to execute their big ideas. In fact, both directors mentioned above do commercials, for everything from The Gap to Hyundai, and many others do as well.
Which brings us to this list of movie directors who have made music videos.
Of course there's a catch: We didn't include anyone who started or was primarily known for music videos at some point. That rules out many greats: David Fincher, Michael Bay, Mark Romanek, Joseph Kahn, McG, Spike Jonze and so many more. And these are just the five that Doug Stern and I could come up with on a Summer Friday... there's many more, so feel free to chime in.
Top 5 Videos By Movie Directors [read on]
5. Martin Scorsese for Michael Jackson "Bad" — Wanna know what's bad ass? Having Scorsese direct a video based off a Richard Price script. And although Scorses has done lots of longform music work, this is his only true video.
4. Spike Lee for Public Enemy "Fight The Power" — Spike Lee has directed a few videos, from Fishbone to Michael Jackson to Naughty By Nature, but if you had to pick one... this is it.
3. Ron Howard for Michael Sembello "Gravity" — And you thought Ron Howard's cameo in that Jamie Foxx was the weirdest thing ever? Nope. It's this bizarre video supporting the Cocoon soundtrack.
2. Gus Van Sant for Red Hot Chili Peppers "Under The Bridge" — Could there be a better choice for this breakthrough song than the director of Drugstore Cowboy? (Van Sant did another RHCP video, plus several others)
1. John Landis for Michael Jackson "Thriller" — Did you think #1 could be anything else?
