Top 50 Most Overused Songs in Movies and TV

Overview

WatchMojo counts down 50 songs that have become familiar—and sometimes painfully predictable—fixtures in movies and TV. The recurring joke is that Hollywood often uses a track as instant shorthand: “Shout” means a party is going wild, “One Way or Another” means someone’s being chased, “Bad to the Bone” announces a would-be rebel, and “Kung Fu Fighting” usually means the fighters aren’t very good.

Familiar Cues

The lower half of the countdown is packed with recognizable choices. “Baby Got Back” gets a laugh for being called “classical music” in Futurama; “Don’t Fear the Reaper” supplies ominous, cowbell-backed dread; and “Holding Out for a Hero” powers a seemingly endless supply of rescue and action montages.

Other familiar picks include “All Star,” “Who Let the Dogs Out,” “Sweet Home Alabama,” “September,” “Celebration,” and “Don’t Stop Believin’.” The video also notes how “Take on Me” can shift from upbeat ’80s nostalgia to a melancholy acoustic moment, while “Hallelujah” has become a go-to for emotional scenes.

Top Ten Highlights

The top ten focus on tracks that have been especially hard to escape:

• “Fortunate Son” for Vietnam-era war scenes—even veterans can’t escape hearing it around helicopters, as one joke observes.
• “Stayin’ Alive” for characters trying to look cool.
• “We Are the Champions” for victories.
• “Let’s Get It On” for seduction.
• “Eye of the Tiger” as the default training-montage anthem.
• “What a Wonderful World” to tug at the heartstrings.

At number two, “Hallelujah” earns a particularly self-aware mention: Leonard Cohen reportedly agreed with a critic who asked filmmakers to stop using it so often.

The winner is “Born to Be Wild.” Once a defining expression of freedom in Easy Rider, the song has since been used so widely—often to signal motorcycles or a character breaking loose—that the video argues the cliché has dulled its original rebellious spirit.

Personalities and Artists

The video is narrated by an unnamed WatchMojo voice-over. Artists discussed include Steppenwolf, Leonard Cohen, Survivor, Louis Armstrong, Marvin Gaye, Queen, AC/DC, the Bee Gees, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Aretha Franklin, and many others.