Since the days of silent film, music has been instrumental in setting the mood for moviegoers. It is one of the many ways audiences are able to determine whether a scene is meant to be serious, spooky, or hysterical. While many aspects of filmmaking have changed and modernized since the turn of the 20th century, the importance of songs has not. A perfectly placed track—whether it’s tear-jerking lyrics over a moving melody or a fast-paced power ballad that pulls audiences into the action—still helps to set the tone.
Think about the powerful scene where Barbie (Margot Robbie) meets her maker in her self-titled 2023 movie. The impact of the exchange owes a lot to Billie Eilish’s introspective “What Was I Made For?” which won the Oscar for Best Original Song in 2024. Or what about the liberating final minutes of 2023’s Saltburn? Audiences could feel Oliver’s (Barry Keoghan) liberation as he giddily pranced through the halls of the titular country house to Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s 2001 track “Murder on the Dancefloor.” The movie made the song go viral more than two decades after its initial release, climbing up the Billboard charts in early 2024.
To find other movie songs that have made it big, Stacker took a look at Billboard data and highlighted the top 50 songs from films on the Hot 100 charts, as of March 2024. In order to qualify, the song had to be explicitly made for and released around the time of the movie. Songs that were in movies but not made for them (like “Murder on the Dancefloor”) were not included. According to Billboard, the ranking is based on actual performance on the weekly Billboard Hot 100 chart. Songs are ranked based on an inverse point system, with weeks at No. 1 earning the greatest value and weeks at No. 100 earning the least. Time frames are also weighted differently to account for turnover rates in those years.
Keep reading to discover the most popular song in movie history!