Christopher Nolan Reveals His Top Two Musical Film Moments
Christopher Nolan has named two film scenes that, in his view, masterfully capture the essence of music on screen, including a haunting Irish folk number from the 2025 film Sinners and the notorious 'Singing in the Rain' sequence from Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange.
Pulling off a musical scene in a film is no easy feat. It’s all too simple for things to tip into cringeworthy territory, with a sudden burst of song or an out-of-place backing track snapping punters out of the story. Yet, Christopher Nolan has pointed to two moments that, in his eyes, absolutely get it right. It’s not every day you’d put Nolan and musicals in the same sentence. He’s known for his weighty, grounded stories—just look at Oppenheimer, his 2023 epic about J Robert Oppenheimer, the so-called “father of the atomic bomb”. Even with big names like Albert Einstein popping up, Nolan keeps things raw and unsettling. Let’s be honest, you’re not about to see Einstein break into a tune, are you?
That’s not to say musicals can’t have a bit of grit. They don’t all have to follow the path of La La Land—a film Nolan’s said he rates—where Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling are twirling through neon-lit streets, tap dancing away from reality. As it turns out, one of Nolan’s favourite musical moments actually came after that 2016 flick. Instead, he’s singled out a scene from one of 2025’s most much-hyped films as “spectacular”.
Haunting Irish Folk in Sinners
During a chat with director Ryan Coogler at a special screening for Sinners, Nolan zeroed in on a particular moment where the film’s villain, Remmick, and his crew of vampires belt out the Irish folk tune ‘Rocky Road to Dublin’. Nolan was full of praise:
“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 is a mix of history, horror, and the shared roots of music, making for a tense and emotionally raw watch. Nolan went on,
“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 Chilling Classic
Nolan’s other pick is the infamous scene from Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 film, based on Anthony Burgess’s 1962 novel. This moment is arguably even more disturbing than the vampire-led chaos in Sinners. A gang of thugs talk their way into a couple’s home, turning their peaceful night upside down, all while performing a jarring version of ‘Singing in the Rain’. The original was famously sung and danced by Gene Kelly in the 1952 musical, but here, it’s a world away from that cheery number. The screams of a woman in red, held captive by one of the gang, cut through the performance, making it all the more unsettling.
Unlikely Choices from a Serious Filmmaker
Both scenes are far from your standard musical fare, but Nolan reckons they’re the best of the bunch. They show that music in film doesn’t have to be light and fluffy—it can be dark, confronting, and still hit the mark. Not the sort of picks you’d expect from a bloke known for his serious dramas, but that’s what makes his choices all the more interesting.