The 25 best Classic Rock songs featured in movies

21 February 2026, 18:00

Let's look at the times a great movie has been elevated by the appearance of a killer tune on the soundtrack: everyone from The Doors and The Who to Queen and David Bowie.

1. The Rolling Stones – Gimme Shelter

   The 2006 crime thriller The Departed gave Martin Scorsese his only Best Director Oscar to date and features this Rolling Stones classic in the opening scene.

   

   The Rolling Stones - Gimme Shelter (1969)

2. Dire Straits - Tunnel of Love

   Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes' recording of Up Where We Belong won Best Song after being included as the jukebox song to An Officer And A Gentleman in 1982, but the Mark Knopfler-penned Tunnel Of Love also appeared on the soundtrack.

   

   Dire Straits - Tunnel Of Love (Official Music Video)

3. Cream - Sunshine of Your Love

   This rock classic plays during a stunning slow zoom in on Robert De Niro with murder on his mind in Martin Scorsese's 1990 gangster epic Goodfellas.

   

   Sunshine of Your Love (Goodfellas) Color Edit - Cream HD

4. Jefferson Airplane - White Rabbit

   A contemporary psychedelic hit included in Oliver Stone's Vietnam drama, Platoon (1986).

   

   Platoon • "White Rabbit" Jefferson Airplane • 4K & HQ Sound

5. The Who - Magic Bus

   The British band's 1968 single appears during the opening credits of the 1996 Tom Cruise sport agent drama Jerry Maguire.

   

   The Who - Magic Bus - Live At Leeds HQ

6. Prince – Purple Rain

   Prince officially went from cult figure to pop superstar on the release of this semi-biographical movie. P plays "The Kid" and the film details his troubles with his band, his parents and his woman. All of this is soundtracked by classics like Let's Go Crazy, When Doves Cry, I Would Die For U and the title track.

   

   Prince - Purple Rain (Official Video)

7. Creedence Clearwater Revival - Bad Moon Rising

   Creedence's down-home blues memorably soundtracks David Naughton's imminent transformation from man to beast in An American Werewolf in London (1981).

   

   Bad Moon Rising - Creedence Clearwater Revival (HQ - 5.1 Studio )

8. George Thorogood & The Destroyers – Bad To The Bone

   Arnold Schwarzenegger swings into action to the sound of Thorogood's blues classic in Terminator 2: Judgement Day.

   

   George Thorogood & The Destroyers - Bad To The Bone

9. Free - All Right Now

   The 1999 black comedy American Beauty included Free's classic rocker, alongside tracks from The Who, Elliott Smith, Gomez, Bill Withers and Eels.

   

   Free - All Right Now

10. Tom Petty – American Girl

    Brooke Smith is depicted singing along to Petty's 1977 single as her character drives to an unexpected meeting with the horrifying "Buffalo Bill" in Jonathan Demme's thriller Silence of the Lambs.

    

    Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - American Girl (Live) 1978

11. Lynyrd Skynyrd – Free Bird

    As a classic song from the 1970s, Skynyrd's Free Bird was one of the impeccable choices included on the soundtrack to the Tom Hanks vehicle Forrest Gump - it's the song that plays while Jenny climbs out onto the balcony edge.

    

    Lynyrd Skynyrd - Freebird - 7/2/1977 - Oakland Coliseum Stadium (Official)

12. Bob Dylan - Knocking On Heaven's Door

    Old Bob appears as "Alias" in Sam Peckinpah's modern western, which followed on from the director's similar cowboy bloodbath The Wild Bunch. Studio interference messed with Dylan's accompanying soundtrack, but it gave the world the classic Knockin' On Heaven's Door.

    

    Bob Dylan - Knockin' On Heaven's Door (Official Audio)

13. AC/DC - Who Made Who

    Acca Dacca recorded some new songs for the trucks-on-the-loose Stephen King movie Maximum Overdrive, including the raucous title track; the soundtrack also included the classic You Shook Me All Night Long, Hell's Bells and For Those About To Rock (We Salute You).

    

    AC/DC - Who Made Who (Official HD Video)

14. David Bowie - Station To Station

    Subtitled Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo (We children of Zoo Station), Christiane F is a grim but brilliantly made story of young heroin addicts in Wall-era Berlin. The title character is a big Bowie fan, so the soundtrack album serves as a perfect digest of the man's mid-70s period thanks to the numerous clubbing scenes. Bowie even turns up in the film to perform Station To Station, when Christiane goes to see her hero play the local arena.

    

    David Bowie - Station To Station (Christiane F ) 1980 - new edit, remastered HD

15. Queen – Bohemian Rhapsody

    You know this one. The iconic 1975 chart-topper soundtracked a memorable scene in Wayne’s World from 1992; it's now obligatory to headbang when the operatic section gives way to some hard rockin'.

    

    Bohemian Rhapsody Wayne's World HD

16. Steppenwolf - Born To Be Wild

    Perhaps the best movie to come out of the counterculture in the late 1960s, Dennis Hooper and Peter Fonda star as two bikers out to lose themselves in the back roads of America. Along the way, they pick up Jack Nicholson and drive up and down on their "hogs" to the sounds of Jimi Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, The Band, The Who, The Byrds and the iconic Born To Be Wild.

    

    Steppenwolf - Born To Be Wild (Easy Rider) (1969)

17. Elton John - Tiny Dancer

    Cameron Crowe's tale of a music journalist in the mid-1970s is peppered with brilliant songs. The soundtrack features Rod Stewart's Every Picture Tells A Story, Led Zeppein's That's The Way, Elton's Tiny Dancer, a live version of The Velvet Underground's I'm Waiting For The Man by Bowie and tracks by Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Allman Brothers, The Who, Yes and Cat Stevens.

    

    Almost Famous - Tiny Dancer

18. Bob Seger - Old Time And Roll

    Tom Cruise performed a improvised, trouser-free dance to this Seger classic in the 1983 caper Risky Business. Superstardom beckoned!

    

    Risky Business Dance Scene

19. The Doors - The End

    When Francis Ford Coppola used The End in the opening scene of Apocalypse Now, it effectively kick-started the Doors revival. Images of the Vietnamese forest going up in flames fade into a shot of Martin Sheen holed up in a hotel room as the ceiling fan echoes the sound of the American helicopters bringing "death from above" to the local populace.

    

    The Doors 'The End' see the chopper segueing into the ceiling fan... 'Apocalypse Now' (1979)

20. Blue Öyster Cult - Don’t Fear The Reaper

    Jamie Lee Curtis drives to her ill-fated babysitting gig as this morbid favourite plays on the car stereo in the first Halloween movie from 1978.

    

    Halloween 1978 Don't fear the reaper scene

21. KISS – God Gave Rock & Roll To You

    The Detroit rock legends covered the 1973 Argent rocker for the 1991 sequel Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey.

    

    Kiss - God Gave Rock ‘n’ Roll To You II (Official Music Video)

22. Queen - A Kind Of Magic

    The British rock band provided a number of songs for the soundtrack to the 1986 fantasy action film Highlander starring Christopher Lambert and directed by former music video director Russell Mulcahy, A Kind Of Magic would title Queen's twelfth album released the same year. Lambert turns up for a cameo in the video!

    

    Queen - A Kind of Magic (Official Video Remastered)

23. The Runaways – Cherry Bomb

    The 1976 single from the all-female rock group made a memorable appearance in 2014's Guardians Of The Galaxy.

    

    Guardians of the Galaxy (The Runaways) - Cherry Bomb (1976, 2014)

24. Warren Zevon - Werewolves Of London

    The Halloween playlist favourite appears during a demonstration of pool hustling in the Paul Newman and Tom Cruise vehicle The Color Of Money.

    

    The Color of Money - Werewolves of London Scene - Paul Newman - Tom Cruise - Warren Zevon

25. Survivor - Eye Of The Tiger

    The Chicago band had already released two albums before Sly Stallone came knocking on their door, needed a theme tune for his film Rocky III in 1983. It spent four weeks at Number 1 in the UK.

    

    Survivor - Eye Of The Tiger (Official HD Video)