What was the first song? Does anyone know? It probably got created by accident, right? Like, some caveman banged a knick against a knack and went, “Uhhh?” and BAM, music was born.

Ever since “Uhhh?” burst onto the scene 2.5 million years ago, we’ve worked tirelessly to refine our species’ musical craft, and no medium reflects that as well as the movies… except for everything else.

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Of course, not all movie songs are winners, and that’s the beauty of making lists: put the losers in their place to exalt the better ones! Isn’t that the whole purpose of life?

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All lists need criteria, but with movie songs, it’s hard to establish something concrete. It might zig-zag a bit and won’t please everyone, but this is the way of the world.

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1. Be a good song. Obviously.

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2. Have a legitimate application in the movie. No “Hey, let’s score a hit real quick” end credits nonsense. You have to at least use music from the movie, be inspired by an iconic line, something...

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3. Be written for the movie. Many songs have iconic moments in movies, but they weren’t written for the movie or are covers. Those don't count. However, songs from movie musicals adapted from the stage are okay because those are direct adaptations.

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4. No “used in a movie but only became famous after someone else covered it decades later or it became a staple of something else” songs.

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5. If it’s just kind of tacked on there at the end, even if it’s a great song and accurately depicts the film’s themes, etc. it won’t make it on. It has to feel like it’s truly part of the movie in a more tangible way. Lots of leeway here, but it won’t be ignored, Dan!

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Sadly, these criteria mean many great songs had to be left off, and we must pay tribute to them before kicking off the countdown: someone play the “My Heart Will Go On” recorder cover!

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“Kiss from a Rose” - Seal, from Batman Forever (1995)

“Shake Ya Tailfeather” - Nelly, Diddy, and Murphy Lee, from Bad Boys II (2003)

“I Will Always Love You” - Whitney Houston, from The Bodyguard (1992)

“The Way You Look Tonight” - Fred Astaire, from Swing Time (1936)

“White Christmas” - Bing Crosby, from Holiday Inn (1942)

“Love Is All Around” - Wet Wet Wet, from Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)

“Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head” - BJ Thomas, from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)

“Love Love” - Take That, from X-Men: First Class (2011)

“Masterpiece” - Madonna, from W.E. (2011)

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75. “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” - The Andrews Sisters, from Buck Privates (1941)

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The Andrews Sisters’ signature close melodies have influenced countless singers over the generations, and their legacy arguably began here, with perhaps their most noteworthy hit. Buck Privates established Abbott and Costello as a bonafide comedy sensation, thanks partly to Laverne, Patty, and Maxene's vocal mastery over jazzy horns with some 40s American patriotism. Few acts could have pulled off such shameless propaganda with such charm.

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74. “The Living Proof” - Mary J. Blige, from The Help (2011)

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The Help’s controversial legacy is as well-earned as performative. It’s far from the most sincerely progressive or illuminating story, once again using a white character as the vessel through which oppressed black voices speak. Granted, the extent to which its stars and some of the public have attempted to rake it over the coals and speak it out of existence is mostly self-indulgent and vapid. All things, unfortunate or otherwise, have their time and place and serve their purpose. The first step in a journey will always pale in comparison to the last.

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Truthfully, part of this defense of the movie stems from Mary J. Blige’s delivery of “The Living Proof,” the song that plays over Viola Davis triumphantly walking away from the life she’s always known and into an uncertain but self-actualized future. Is it schmaltzy and perhaps dishonest? Yes. But the on-the-nose lyrics work for a movie this unapologetic, and Blige sings the absolute hell out of it.

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73. “Believe” - Josh Groban, from The Polar Express (2004)

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2000s crooner Josh Groban certainly became tiresome as your mom’s favorite singer and your dad’s least favorite boyishly handsome young white famous guy, but we can’t deny the pipes. Bellowing about growing out of the whimsical belief in the holiday spirit but recapturing our innocence on Christmas day, Groban delivered a powerful vocal that succeeded at both creating a lasting musical impression on late-stage millennials and resonating with their older selves over two decades later.

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72. “City of Stars” - Ryan Gosling, from La La Land (2016)

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Retrospectively, we can all admit that La La Land got overhyped at the time. It wasn’t terrible, but it was very much a movie where all the ingredients where there but the recipe didn’t quite come together. One exception, though it too got overhyped, is “City of Stars,” a simple piano ballad about the ups and downs of life and the search for success in Los Angeles. It's arguably too reserved for its good, but it's undoubtedly the best the movie offers.

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71. “Lift Me Up” - Rihanna, from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)

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Rihanna’s return to music came with more than a whimper than a bang. Sure, “Lift Me Up,” a moving tribute to departed Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman, shot to number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and scored an Oscar nod, but it wasn’t the super smash we expected.

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Still, although it feels a tad out of place musically and a bit tacked on as an end-credits bid for Oscar glory, Rihanna’s vocals and some stripped back production make “Lift Me Up” one of the more listenable songs in recent movie history. The film might not totally justify its inclusion, but it still feels like a proper way to send-off Boseman and a return to balladry form for Rihanna.

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70. “Chim Chim Cher-ee” - Dick van Dyke, Julie Andrews, Karen Dotrice, and Matthew Garber, from Mary Poppins (1964)

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No matter your station, regardless of occupation, irrespective of your presentation, you have a little “Chim Chiminey” in you. It’s true: Dick van Dyke says so. Sure, he’s a chimney sweep, face black as coal come day’s end and marching joyously to an inevitable case of black lung, but he’s happy. Our choices (and how we make the most of what we have) define our lives and how much happiness we derive from them, and everyone has something to offer. No song has ever relayed that message with such addictive cutesiness as “Chim Chim Cher-ee.”

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69. “All for Love” - Bryan Adams, Rod Stewart, and Sting - The Three Musketeers (1993)

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Despite being a classic 90s power ballad, “All for Love” suffers on this list: its use of the Musketeers theme is a bit of a stretch, and although it certainly incorporates Michael Kamen’s original score well (since, ya know, he co-wrote it), it feels a bit like a cheap grab for a big hit, which it was… and was.

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Still, with that detraction aside, we have an all-time great love ballad featuring three of the most iconic male singers ever collaborating (and blending seamlessly). It’s fairly contrived but is among the best of its genre.

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68. “Live That Way Forever” - Richard Reed Parry & Laurel Spengelmeyer, from The Iron Claw (2023)

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The Iron Claw was one of the great surprises of 2023. If going in blind, it’s one of the most emotionally devastating movies you’ll ever see, a cascade of never-ending tragedy, all handled with the tact to avoid histrionics but the earnestness to land a massive gut punch. Wrapping it up is “Live That Way Forever,” a lament on lost brotherhood and the determination to push through life’s trials. With a salt-of-the-earth production and rousing vocals, it’s safe to say this song got criminally unrecognized by the Academy.

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67. “Do Re Mi” - Julie Andrews and the von Trapp children, from The Sound of Music (1965)

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The Sound of Music’s first half is a film for the ages, taking full advantage of its Austrian backdrop and showing Julie Andrews at the top of her game. “Do Re Mi” is the perfect encapsulation of this genius: it’s upbeat, whimsical, and one of the rare musical songs that actually serves a purpose within the narrative. If the Von Trapp children’s bond to Maria is to justify the film’s dramatic weight, songs like “Do Re Mi” must exist.

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All together now! Doe, a deer: a female deer…

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66. “Fight the Power” - Public Enemy, from Do the Right Thing (1989)

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It’s always best to get the hot takes out of the way first: “Fight the Power” is a better message than it is a rap song, and for that, it doesn’t fall as high as it would on most lists. It’s a fantastic rallying cry and refreshingly unapologetic even 36 years later, a perfect accompaniment to Lee’s similarly unrelenting style. It’s one of those songs everyone needs to hear more than they want to, but Do the Ring Thing couldn’t have found a better musical mate if it’d searched for 1,000 years, and Chuck D’s merciless roast of white cultural icon John Wayne remains a high point in music history.

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65. “When Christmas Comes to Town” - Matthew Hall & Meagan Moore, from The Polar Express (2004)

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Okay, so it’s probably a little too schmaltzy, even for a song about a poor boy from the wrong side of the tracks who’s never known the joys of Christmas. Still, if ever there was a song to act as a beautiful overture from pure-hearted children to a peer in desperate need of companionship (and a dose of holiday spirit), this is it, thanks to a pair of very earnest vocal showings.

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P.S. Does anyone put up their Christmas tree with their friends? Like, is that a thing?

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64. “Love Me Like You Do” - Ellie Goulding, from Fifty Shades of Grey (2015)

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Here’s where the criteria come into play: “Love Me Like You Do” is a colossal pop song, and got robbed of a Best Original Song nod in favor of The Weeknd’s far inferior (but more Oscar-friendly) “Earned It.” The lyrics are very faux-BDSM, much like the novel on which its film is based. It all fits.

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Unfortunately, it doesn’t have that special something as a movie song. It doesn’t sound organic, more like a producer knew the movie was hot garbage and called in a favor to land a massive hit to lend the movie some gravitas. It worked; “Love Me Like You Do” was one of the biggest songs of the 2010s, but have you heard it used in the movie? Rough….

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63. “How Far I’ll Go” - Auliʻi Cravalho, from Moana (2016)

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This is a situation where personal preference goes a long way. Many appreciate the more theatrical qualities of many Disney vocals, but the exaggerated enunciation and general melodrama could use some fine-tuning, especially since Cravalho doesn’t have the range to register the song’s more emotional highs the way Alessia Cara does in the soundtrack version. Lyrically, the song is pure Disney genius, and finds itself accessible to even the most jaded adults: who among us hasn’t stood at the edge of the water without really knowing why? Tack on that it drills itself into your consciousness and refuses to evacuate, split the difference and place it here.

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62. “Dosti” - Vedala Hemachandra, from RRR (2022)

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RRR is the ultimate bromance movie, and every bromance needs a theme song. Lyrically, the masculine melodrama - all falcons and dragons and deep seas and revolutions - that establishes this unbreakable bond, while arguably asinine in any other movie, works wonders here, and the composition has a deep, dramatic aura that delivers the indefinable quality that solidifies our belief in these two men to bond for life and conquer the unconquerable.

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61. “Never Enough” - Loren Allred, from The Greatest Showman (2017)

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There’s a lot going on during Jenny Lind’s American debut, none of it good. Zac Efron’s playwright Phillip and Zendaya’s trapeze artist Anne’s race-mixing romance is sneered at cartoonishly by the former’s bigoted parents. At the same time, Hugh Jackman’s P.T. Barnum has a look of histrionic triumph plastered on his face for longer than any normal human can hold an expression. Meanwhile, Rebecca Ferguson does some suspect lip-synching to Loren Allred’s towering rendition of “Never Enough.” If not for an all-time vocal performance by a singer who deserves much more recognition, this song wouldn’t be half of what it is in a movie that doesn’t know what to do with its genius, but make no mistake, this is a fantastic song.

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