Christopher Nolan Reveals His Picks for Cinema’s Most Striking Musical Moments
Christopher Nolan spotlights two unforgettable musical scenes in film history, praising a haunting Irish folk performance in the 2025 movie Sinners and the notorious 'Singin’ in the Rain' sequence from Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange.
Pulling off a musical scene in a movie is no easy feat. It ’s all too simple for a film to slip into awkward territory, where a line of dialogue suddenly turns into a song, or a backing track breaks the cinematic illusion, reminding viewers that what they’re watching isn’t real. Yet, Christopher Nolan has identified two moments that, in his view, absolutely master the art of the musical scene.
Nolan, known for his intense, grounded storytelling —think Oppenheimer, his 2023 biopic about J. Robert Oppenheimer—doesn’t usually come to mind when you think of musicals. His films are more about raw emotion and realism than spontaneous song and dance. Even so, Nolan has a deep appreciation for the genre, once praising La La Land for its dreamlike energy and vibrant performances by Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling.
Haunting Harmony in Sinners
One of Nolan’s top choices for a standout musical moment comes from a recent release. During a conversation with director Ryan Coogler at a special screening of Sinners, Nolan singled out a particular scene featuring the film’s villain, Remmick, and his group of vampires. In this chilling sequence, they perform the Irish folk song “Rocky Road to Dublin.”
Nolan described the moment with enthusiasm:
“It’s a wonderful film in a lot of ways, but it deals in very stereotypical tropes of Voodoo about what constitutes the darkness of the human soul – how it’s expressed in anthropological terms. When I saw your film, the Irish River Dance, it was so chilling.”
The scene weaves together elements of history, horror, and the universal language of music, creating a tense and emotionally charged atmosphere. Nolan went on to say,
“It’s really the most spectacular musical inversion since Kubrick’s ‘Singin’ in the Rain,’ [from A Clockwork Orange.] I mean, what did we [Irish] ever do to you?”
Kubrick’s Disturbing Classic
Nolan’s second pick is a scene that’s become infamous in film history. In Stanley Kubrick ’s 1971 adaptation of Anthony Burgess’s novel, a group of criminals invades a couple’s home, unleashing chaos while performing a twisted version of “Singin’ in the Rain.” The original song, made famous by Gene Kelly in the 1952 musical, is transformed into something dark and unsettling.
As the violence unfolds, the bandits’ offbeat rendition of the song is punctuated by the terrified screams of a woman in red, held captive by one of the intruders. The contrast between the cheerful melody and the brutality of the scene makes it one of the most memorable—and disturbing—musical moments ever put on film.