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

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.

Though it wasn’t until 2003 that moviegoers got a taste of the clean-cut, folk music stylings of the Folksmen, the band’s origins go back nearly 20 years earlier. Like a bizarro version of Spinal Tap, the fictional folk trio is comprised of Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer. They made their debut (in 1984) on Saturday Night Live, and in the decades that followed, the fake band put on many real performances — things even got meta on a few occasions when they served as the opening act for the Tap. Though it may seem unfair to single the Folksmen out amidst the other entertaining acts featured in Guest’s A Mighty Wind (namely: The New Main Street Singers and Mitch & Mickey), this trio has the seniority.

This indie film (and its namesake band) began life on the New York stage, and like any worthwhile musical, the movie’s narrative progresses through song. But Hedwig and the Angry Inch is about as far away from Singin’ in the Rain as you can get. The film operates more like a rock opera, which is part of what allows Hedwig and her band to pivot from hard-rock tunes to moving ballads without losing a step, go-go boots and all. Since becoming a movie, Hedwig has once again returned to the stage, this time on Broadway, with marquee names like Neil Patrick Harris taking over the lead. But nothing compares to John Cameron Mitchell’s original, especially when you see him front the band in the closest thing the movie has to a title song. Six inches forward, five inches back … .

In real life, a 15-year-old Cameron Crowe had the opportunity to interview Poco for Rolling Stone. In the director’s most personal movie, the 15-year-old in question is a wide-eyed kid named William Miller and the band is Stillwater (which was, in fact, a real band in the 1970s, but that’s just a coincidence). What makes the band (featuring Billy Crudup and Jason Lee, in primo Seventies duds) such a standout in the landscape of fictional rock groups is not so much their music; it’s the depths to which music, on a holistic level, drives the members’ every decision. In the end, the movie stands as more of a testament to an era in music than one particular band, and Stillwater is the embodiment of that age of rockers — the good, the bad and the Golden God-like.

Introduced to television audiences on Saturday Night Live some 40 years ago, Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi’s black-suited soul men were initially a lark. But they proved popular enough that they recorded a full album, Briefcase Full of Blues, then made the leap to the big screen with John Landis’ iconic 1980 comedy. And the rest is history, with the duo do a few shows as Jake and Elwood Blues and assembling a dream-team band (featuring members of Booker T and the MGs, the Bar-Kays and Blood, Sweat and Tears) to back them up. That’s when they weren’t trading licks, of course, with Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles. Belushi’s death in 1982 didn’t stop Aykroyd from resurrecting the brothers occasionally, but really, it’s the original siblings on a mission from God  — the guys making that Stax-style revue swing — that have earned a prime placement on this list.

Spinal Tap didn’t invent the concept of the parody band — but for many, they’re the still standard to which all others are held. While comedy-inclined audiences loved the band for their bitingly funny song titles and lyrics — “My baby fits me like a flesh tuxedo / I love to sink her with my pink torpedo” — dozens of famous musicians have been frank about just how accurately the movie depicts the life of a career musician. (Metallica’s Lars Ulrich famously classified the flick as a horror film and swore that “Every single functioning band out there has sat and looked at that movie and cringed.”) But look beyond its humor, its accuracy and the fact that the miniature version of Stonehenge is in danger of being crushed by a little person, and the fact remains that the band’s actually good. Really good. Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer have recorded and played live in character for so long as the metal trio that you sometimes forget they started life as a fictional band. Still, all these years later, their songs remain the same, the jokes are still funny — and in terms of fake movie bands, they still go to 11.