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

35. Paula Abdul “The Way That You Love Me” (1988)
Bringing Fincher’s fetish for nice stuff to the fore again, all classic cars and glowy photography that makes his female star look great.

34. Billy Idol “L.A. Woman” 
(1990)
If Fincher frequently ripped off Tony Scott in the early portion of his video career, he passes the baton to Michael Bay who is practically now synonymous with the shot that Fincher gives us here of the underside of a plane roaring over the Hollywood sign. Bay could also have lifted this video’s teal and orange color scheme, though teal-and-orange feels like it’s bigger than any one man. Quite enjoyable early ’90s nonsense, until the cop-out ending to the sexy shenanigans which turned out to have been a game.

33. Paula Abdul “Forever Your Girl” (1989)
Leaving aside the creepy moments where the kids are dressed up as Robert Palmer‘s red-lipped vixens, this spot has a lot of charm, plus a teensy weensy Elijah Wood. And the high-contrast grainy black and white footage he uses of Abdul herself brings some welcome visual edge to prevent the clip from getting too cutesy.

32. Jody Watley “Most Of All” (1988)
A pretty stylish black and white effort, again using those ubiquitous billowing white curtains, but set against some striking, semi-surrealist backdrops. Just a shame he lapses again into the lyrics-on-screen thing which drags the video down.

31.Michael Jackson “Who Is It?”
 (1993)
Wearing its Tony Scott influence on its sleeve, this slick package for the King of Pop might have placed higher were it not just sooo ludicrous: It’s about a high-class escort (natch) who’s really pining for Jackson, and who is so sexy that apparently at one point she makes a wheelchair-bound man walk.

30. The Outfield “All The Love In The World” (1986)
Who knew these guys were so prolific? Anyway, here Fincher finds 
a more interesting way to solve the problem of how to unite performance and storyline by having our hero/lead singer essentially stalk the young woman through various TV screens.

29. Roy Orbison “She’s A Mystery To Me” (1989)

Here Fincher gives full rein to his love of noir and classic Hollywood, working in billowing curtains, monograms, lipstick on glasses, a femme fatale, and even creepy dolls: there are shades of everything from “Casablanca” to “Rebecca” to Jackie Collins.

28. Wire Train “She Comes On” (1987)
A
 sweaty, energetic black and white performance video, in a style that people still copy to this day, though it’s surprisingly fresh feeling here.

27. Gypsy Kings “Bamboleo” (1987)
A little confusingly, Fincher apparently helmed two videos for “Bamboleo,” and as far as we can ascertain, this is the first. It’s an atypically sundrenched spot that we’d suspect isn’t actually Fincher’s were it not for the heavy golden hue to the cinematography, and his calling card —the classic car that pulls up in the beginning.

26. Paula Abdul “Cold Hearted”

 (1989)
For all his talents as a visual artist and a dab hand with effects and film stocks and graphic images, Fincher’s also a brilliant director of dance. And the choreography in this Paula Abdul scene is great and shows off a load of semi-naked dancers writhing over a scaffold to great advantage.