25 Greatest Movie Bands, From ‘Sing Street’ to Spinal Tap

Like an 1980s pop version of the Commitments, the title band in the latest from Irish filmmaker John Carney (Once) channels much of what there was to love about the decade — from the omnipresence of Duran Duran to an ever-changing lineup of pouffy-hair icons. It’s the early MTV era as seen through the eyes of Conor, a misfit Dublin teen who decides to form a band for the oldest of reasons: to impress a girl. Despite his hormonally charged reasons, he and his classmates manage to produce some catchy tunes — complete with state-of-the-art D.I.Y. music videos, of course.The fact that the prom clip for “Drive It Like You Stole It” wasn’t actually a Buzz Bin clip back in the day feels like a crime.

Really, the band should be known as Marty McFly and the Starlighters, as it’s Michael J. Fox’s time-traveling teen who gives the Starlighters’ lead singer, — Marvin Berry, fictional cousin to Chuck — a lesson in “oldies” mixed with some Eddie Van Halen-style electric guitar pyrotechnics. Which means that, in addition to forcing his parents to fall for each other and ensuring his own existence, Marty technically pioneered rock & roll music, too. (We’ll leave the plutonium and Libyan terrorists out of it.)

Mark Wahlberg was no stranger to standing in front of a stadium full of music fans by the time he took on the role of Chris “Izzy” Cole, a superfan-turned-lead singer of Eighties metal band Steel Dragon. Though the movie, based on the story of Tim “Ripper” Owens — a Judas Priest superfan who briefly replaced Rob Halford as lead singer — pretty much tanked, it at least got the music right; in addition to Walhberg and Dominic West (yes, seeing The Wire‘s McNulty with a full-on metalhead ‘do is a sight to behold), the bulk of the band is filled out with actual musicians, including (ex-Dokken-er) Jeff Pilson, Jason Bonham (son of John), and Black Label Society’s Zakk Wylde. Feel the vibrations.

It may not seem like there’s much room for a cool alt-rock group amidst all the wizardry, Quidditch, and other made-up things that Muggles will never understand in the world of Hogwarts. Then along came the Weird Sisters. In the fourth installment of the book series-turned-film franchise, an impressive all-star Britpop band showed up – featuring Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker on lead vocals and members of Radiohead, All Seeing I, and Add N to (X) — to show those little wizards kids how to “Do the Hippograff.” Imagine the Harry Potter version of the African Anteater Ritual, and you’re halfway there.

Three years after Mark Robson turned Jacqueline Susann’s trash-lit Valley of the Dolls into a box office hit, sexploitation legend Russ Meyer and soon-to-be Pulitzer Prize-winner Roger Ebert teamed up to create a psychedelic sequel that followed the sex, drugs, and rock and roll-fueled lifestyle of an all-girl power trio. Though they were as badass as their namesake — a leader of the temperance movement who toted around a hatchet — they weren’t nearly as conservative. Ebert himself, who was surprised that it ever got made in the first place, once explained that in Meyer’s mind, the film “should simultaneously be a satire, a serious melodrama, a rock musical, a comedy, a violent exploitation picture, a skin flick and a moralistic expose (so soon after the Sharon Tate murders) of what the opening crawl called ‘the oft-times nightmarish world of Show Business.'”

Filmmaker Jeremie Saulnier put his film’s fake band — consisting of Callum Turner, Peaky Blinders‘ Joe Cole, Arrested Development‘s Alia Shawkat and the late Anton Yelchin — through a punk-rock boot camp prior to shooting this modern exploitation-movie classic, and man, does it show. Watch this gnarly hardcore quartet tear through the Dead Kennedy’s “Nazi Punks Fuck Off” with abandon — made all the more impressive by the fact that they’re doing the number for a room full of white-supremacist skinheads.

Cameron Crowe has long had his finger on the pulse of the music scene, and never was that more evident than his Gen X rom-com that practically predicted the cultural impact of the Seattle grunge scene. Though much is made of the film’s soundtrack — which became a hit months before the movie was even released — the movie’s true rock stars are Citizen Dick, Matt Dillon’s up-and-coming grunge group, which features Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder, Stone Gossard, and Jeff Ament (who were still known as Mookie Blaylock at the time). That the group’s big hit would be a riff on Mudhoney’s era-defining single, here renamed “Touch Me, I’m Dick” only ups the bona fides.

In a way, you almost have to feel bad for John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band. The Rhode Island-based rockers were still just finding their way in the business when they were approached about creating the soundtrack for a musical mystery about the rise and fall of a formerly famous band named Eddie and the Cruisers. Though the movie took its time in gaining a cult following (almost a year after the film’s release, thanks to multiple HBO viewings), the soundtrack immediately became a huge hit. But fans of the film thought of the music as Eddie’s — not John’s. To this day, it remains the (real) band’s biggest hit.

Had Tom Hanks taken a different path in life, he may very well have become a successful music producer. In 1996, he released one of cinema’s great earworms onto an unsuspecting public with the title track from That Thing You Do!, courtesy of the movie’s fake British Invasion-style band the Wonders. (Also known as the “Oneders,” the movie’s cheekiest in-joke regarding its one-hit-wonder group.) Seriously, who knew Steve Zahn looked that good playing in a Sixties pop band?

While it’s Scott Pilgrim’s love life that drives the narrative in Edgar Wright’s adaptation of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s graphic novel series, it’s his band — Sex Bob-Omb — that gets taken along for the ride, as much of the film’s action moves from one (sometimes literal) battle of the bands to the next. How good is this Le Tigre-meets-the-White-Stripes-meets-the-Buzzcocks power trio? Cartoon lightning bolts shout out as they play. That’s good!

Todd Haynes’ tribute to the glam rock scene of the 1970s gives the Ziggy Stardust-ish Brian Slade/Maxwell Demon (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) and his Iggy-like friend Curt Wild (Ewan McGregor) top billing. But it’s the Venus in Furs, Demon’s backup band, who make the movie’s soundtrack. In reality, the band — which has a penchant for Roxy Music covers — is a bit of a British supergroup that counts Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood, Suede’s Bernard Butler, and even Roxy Music’s Andy Mackay among its members. It’s a glam slam, to say the least.

Give it up for MC Gusto, Stabmaster Arson and Dead Mike — the trio behind Chris Rock and writer Nelson George’s hilarious mockumentary about gangsta rap, public handwringing over crime-pays rhymes and a host of Clinton-era hip-hop fads. Everyone from MC Hammer to X-Clan gets ribbed here, and while the titular group is a nice amalgamation of the age’s alpha male rap star — a little bit of Naughty by Nature and Ultramagnetic MCs here, a whole lot of N.W.A there — they also know how to rock a stage on their own. Not anybody can get the crowd moving to a classic like “Sweat From My Balls,” people.  

More than a decade before Inside Llewyn Davis, Joel and Ethan Coen made music the star of one of their period films — specifically, the old-timey music that colors this Great Depression-era tale of escaped convicts who accidentally strike it big on the bluegrass scene. George Clooney, John Turturro, and Tim Blake Nelson may not have had the pipes to pull off the singing on their own, but their commitment to the art form is commendable — and the soundtrack featuring their rendition of the Americana standard “Man of Constant Sorrow” helped lead to a renewed interest in the genre.

There are many things to love about Stephen Frears’ adaption of Nick Hornby’s novel of the same name (with a quick location switcheroo from London to Chicago). At the top of that list: Jack Black’s impressive cover of Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On” with the band formerly known as Sonic Death Monkey, soon-to-be-known as Kathleen Turner Overdrive, and currently known as Barry Jive and the Uptown Five. The fact that the comedian was doing double duty in the metal-comedy duo Tenacious D hadn’t quite reached the mainstream at that point — so when the funny man suddenly busted out a soulful rendition and proved he had some serious pipes? You could see people in the audience swoon.

Three years after Glee brought some long overdue respect to the instrument-less art form, Anna Kendrick and Rebel Wilson helped turn what could have been a quickly forgotten musical comedy about competitive melody-making into a worldwide hit that is still the third highest-grossing musical comedy of all-time (its 2015 sequel currently holds the top position). When it comes to vocal breakdowns, you simply can’t mess with the Bellas. And though a riff-off is the only way to determine which one of Pitch Perfect‘s most popular a capella ensembles reigns supreme, it’s hard to mention one without the other — so give it up as well for the Treblemakers, the Bellas’ all-male counterpart. 

First things first: In the 1960s, there really was a folk duo known as Jim and Jean, who were romantically involved and married for a time. Though they’re a likely source of inspiration for Justin Timberlake and Carey Mulligan’s folk duo (not to mention Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara’s Mitch & Mickey from A Mighty Wind), the Coen brothers’ duo are not that Jim and Jean. But hearing them perform together, it would have worked — especially since Mulligan has the era’s gorgeous, female-songbird trilling down pat. And that Timberlake guy isn’t too bad, either.

The Tenacious D rocker Jack Black never seems more in his element — even onscreen — than when he’s given a microphone and left to his own devices. Which is exactly what he does in Richard Linklater’s School of Rock, where he cons his way into a job as a substitute teacher and sets about giving his students an education in the history of music, eventually turning them into the academically named band of the title. Whereas Black, if left to his own devices, could have taken the film to a much more adult sense of humor, the fact that he’s constrained by a PG-13 rating is part of the charm (and made the movie a family-friendly hit). if you wanna be the teacher’s pet … baby, you just better forget it.

Sure, the Muppets may be best known for sentimental tunes like “Bein’ Green” and “The Rainbow Connection,” but don’t count them out when it comes to finding a harder sound. Kermit gets the headlines, yet the true musical geniuses in Jim Henson’s furry puppet playland are Dr. Teeth, Animal, Floyd Pepper, Janice, and Zoot – a.k.a. the Electric Mayhem. And not only do they bring the Seventies boogie-funk with the best of them; they’re also great at dropping exposition in key moments of the story, per above. These cats could have toured with Leon Russell or April Wine back in the day. Can you picture that?

When it comes to Irish music, Bono and bodhráns might be the first images that come to mind. But director Alan Parker decided to give the country a bit more soul when he adapted the 1987 book about a wayward group of Dubliners forming into a first-class R&B band. They face the inevitable challenges — equipment issues, uncomfortable romances, band member rivalries — but it’s the music that matters. Parker’s decision to record all of the vocals live on set helped give the movie a sense of authenticity, as did the casting of singer Andrew Strong, just 16 years old at the time, as the band’s lead vocalist. And yes, that’s the Frames/future Once star Glen Hansard on guitar.

All things considered, Figrin D’an and the Modal Nodes (a.k.a. the Cantina Band) were just a blip in the Star Wars universe. Yet this baldheaded gathering of Bliths somehow managed to make their presence known — even when their repetitive little ditty faded into the background of the Mos Eisley Cantina. Perhaps it’s the oddly anachronistic, ragtime-like beat that plays in stark contrast to the sinister dealings that are happening right in front of them. Or that the tune comes courtesy of composer John Williams, in prime intergalactic-lounge mode. But it says something that your ear remains trained to it, even when Han Solo going on and on about making the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs.