Best To Worst: David Fincher’s Complete Music Videography Ranked

45. Martha Davis “Tell It To The Moon” (1988)
A combination of black and white and color footage with photomontage and other restrained effects results in a video that’s a little slicker than the others Fincher did for Davis’ main band The Motels, mainly due to an avoidance of special effects.

44. The Hooters “Johnny B”
 (1987)
While it looks a whole lot better than this po-faced rock-ballad dirge deserves, and serves up a familiar 80s mix of long haired men, long-legged women and some sort of potentially fatal intrigue, we have absolutely no idea what’s going on here.

43. The Outfield “No Surrender” (1987)
A great deal more successful in the U.S. than in their native U.K., where they were wanted for crimes against denim, Fincher’s first video for The Outfield is one of those that’s much better when the band aren’t on screen. Still, classic cars and venetian blinds abound.

42. Foreigner “Say You Will”
 (1987)
Ah, the 80s, when all women were apparently high class hookers on sale for rich old men. Nice early examples of some other iconography that feels very Fincher now, like white porcelain coffee cups and zippos. And the reflection-in-the-eye effects are pretty well achieved for the time.

41. Steve Winwood “Holding On” (1988)
Old timey cars, old-timey typewriters, men wearing suspenders and fedoras, kids skipping through fire hydrants: it all looks great. It’s just a shame it feels so completely unsuited to the track.

40. Martha Davis “Don’t Tell Me The Time” (1987)
Not hugely inspired, but restrained and tasteful, here’s Fincher experimenting with black and white (or rather sepia) accented with color as he would do elsewhere. 


39. Mark Knopfler “Storybook Story”
 (1987)
Creatively a little hemmed in, no doubt, by having to include footage from a film (“The Princess Bride” features this track over its end credits), Fincher can’t do a lot except make this look unimpeachably slick, which he does.

38. Eddie Money “Endless Nights”
 (1987)
Taxing the white sheet budget to the max. here’s a classic take of unrequited tenement love, which is exactly as non-memorably unobjectionable as the song.

37. The Outfield “Everytime You Cry”
 (1986)
These guys again, only this time it’s an uncharacteristic live performance video for Fincher, shot in gorgeous color that almost feels 70s-inflected, while a huge moon rises in the sky. Pretty great, especially the writhing crowd shots, until the moon cries video-effect tears, which is a bit much.

36. Rick Springfield “Celebrate Youth”
 (1985)
Here’s Fincher experimenting with color on a black and white image all the way back at the beginning of his career, and mostly getting away with it, unlike some other experiments with visual effects that didn’t work out so well. Kind of like the little girl in the red coat in “Schindler’s List” except it’s a scarf and not the Holocaust.