Editor's note: The following contains spoilers for Cruella.You can see a ton of money thrown at the screen in Cruella, a gaudy, fashionable, production-designed-within-an-inch-of-its-life live-action origin story of the infamous 101 Dalmatians villain. But you can hear even more.
I don't know how much money Cruella music supervisor Susan Jacobs (Promising Young Woman, I, Tonya) had to spend on all the needle drops for the film's soundtrack. But given the level of A-list artists being represented, and the wall-to-wall, nearly self-parodic volume of songs heard within the 134-minute run time, I have to imagine it was quite a damn lot. But beyond these songs' value in terms of licensing fees, how do they work to tell the creative story of Cruella?
To find out, we've ranked all 33 needle-drops — yes, there are 33 individual, pre-existing songs plopped into the tapestry of the film — from least to most effective. A few caveats before we begin: The original song "Call Me Cruella" by Florence and the Machine was not included as it's not a pre-existing song, the performance of The Stooges' "I Wanna Be Your Dog" was not included as it's performed live within the universe of the film, and a few songs have been melded together to represent their effect as presented within the film (meaning this list has 30, not 33, entries).
With that in mind, enjoy every single goshdarn Cruella needle drop ranked. And if you disagree with any of it, please don't train dogs to push any member of my family off a cliff.
30. Nina Simone - Feeling Good
Nina Simone's rendition of "Feeling Good" is, obviously, a masterpiece. But its status as such, and its cultural ubiquity and immediately understandable shorthand, all work against it here. Used to underscore Estella's (Emma Stone) first glimpse at the Baroness' (Emma Thompson) workshop, the dramatically sweeping emotion of the tune cannot accurately convey the complicated feelings of fear and apprehension undercutting all of Estella's awe. The beauty of the tune's structure — it starts with a heart-grabbing a capella section from Simone before the orchestra kicks in — is also muted by Cruella's voiceover prattling over it. Plus, it's just a song we've all heard so many times before! For a moment that's supposed to represent reinvention and newness (concepts that are explored in the lyrics, to be fair), I wish the needle drop chosen could've followed suit.
29. Joe Dolan - You're Such a Good Looking Woman
Used briefly to underscore a preview fashion show at the Baroness' workshop, Joe Dolan's "You're Such a Good Looking Woman" isn't given enough space to make any kind of impact. Yes, we hear it as the Baroness moves a key plot point forward, asking John (Mark Strong) to capture Estella as her primary Cruella suspect, but the moment does not engage with the song in any way, meaningful or superficial. It's a shame because the tune itself has a swingin', campy, bombastic vibe that feels perfect for Cruella's tone. Why clip its wings like this?
28. Tony Martin - I Get Ideas (When We Are Dancing)
One of Cruella's delightfully mischievous usages of kitschy, earnest, pre-60s music rears its head in Tony Martin's "I Get Ideas (When We Are Dancing)." This is a fun, charming song that begs to be used ironically and savagely. Instead, we get a snippet of it as the Baroness watches Estella eating lunch in an alley (which the Baroness owns) briefly on a security camera, before having her security guards come and snatch her up. Thompson's constant sneer tangoes with this smiley tune quite well, but for not much time or impact.
27. Bee Gees - Whisper Whisper
Kudos to the music supervision team for pegging a Bee Gees song before their shift into mainstream disco success! Before the days of "Stayin' Alive," the Bee Gees put out "hipper" tunes like "Whisper Whisper" that felt more in line with the hippy-friendly, progressive, uninterested-in-being-accessible rock made by their peers. But, it's only barely heard in Cruella, underscoring a prologue moment when Young Estella (Tipper Seifert-Cleveland) and her adoptive mother Catherine (Emily Beecham) head to the Baroness' palatial residence for some kind of, yes, whispered secret favor. I dig the links, both thematic and vibe-based, but it comes and goes like some kind of... what's the word for "something spoken very quietly"?
26. Black Sabbath - The Wizard / The Rolling Stones - Sympathy for the Devil
The first of our "fusion needle drops," in which two tunes are seamlessly blended to create a singular musical statement. Cruella ends with two of the most well-known, influential rock and roll bands ever — Black Sabbath and The Rolling Stones — to solidify the transformation from Estella to Cruella. "The Wizard" gives our faux-funeral and mansion-makeover scenes a bit of intrigue, but the moment we flip into "Sympathy for the Devil," the title of which spells out the whole point of the movie in a head-smackingly obvious manner (not to mention its identical usage to so many other movies) is the moment this fusion needle drop loses me. There's something about a movie obsessed with becoming iconic and unabashedly unsubtle closing with the most iconic and unsubtle cue available, but the eye roll sustained when it kicked in cannot be ignored.
25. David Bowie - Boys Keep Swinging
How on earth do you use a David Bowie tune so casually? In any other film, "Boys Keep Swinging" would stay on screen as long as it needs to; here, in the playlist-skip-happy Cruella, we hear the sleazy prog-funk-rock all too briefly. As Cruella sets up her and the boys' (Joel Fry as Jasper; Paul Walter Hauser as Horace) flat as a jury-rigged fashion workshop run by Artie (Jon McCrea), this tune underscores their clothes-making efforts and the stolen dalmatians' lust for chaos. The song slams you with an impeccable vibe, giving this "hard at work" scene a jolt of energy, but then dissipates into the ether soon after. It also promises a more explicit interrogation into the queer and gender dynamics given visual service in the film (the lyrics, crooned by a preening androgynous sex superstar, are all about the things you can do "when you're a boy"), but it remains an unsatisfyingly unfulfilled promise. Still — the audaciousness of using such a banger in such a subtle way is palpable.
24. Blondie - One Way or Another
How many times has Blondie's "One Way or Another" been used in a movie? Nine bazillion? Well, here is another!
The tune remains dope as hell, obviously; a scratchy, childlike simplification of what an active crush can feel like. Here, it underscores one of Cruella's many splashy Baroness party crashes, serving up one of her finest lewks: Her face spray-painted with "The future." Visually, this scene rules and rules hard. And on a guttural level, despite its overuse in media, "One Way or Another" gives it an unignorable punch. But it feels misplaced in the film, especially when taking its lyrics into account. Cruella, whom I would argue this song is emotionally tethered to at this moment, isn't searching for the Baroness or how to get her goat — she clearly has found both! And the Baroness only later makes it a primary mission to find out who Cruella is, not just yet! So why this song here and now? Is it just to scrape at any lingering goodwill, familiarity, pop culture detritus?
23. Brigitte Fontaine - Eternelle
A slinky, slippery little tune whose chords and melody remind me of another, more well-known song on this list, "Eternelle" by Brigitte Fontaine is one cool number. Combining the aesthetics of French girl-group music with a bossa nova influence from someone like Sérgio Mendes, the tune effectively underscores Cruella's rebirth after her attempted murder by the Baroness; she has become eternelle. She meets up with Artie to explain all this in a scene that, while skillfully performed, made me wish there was a little more showing and a little less telling. "Eternelle" lurks at the margins of their conversation, hinting at the mischief the two have in store quite well, putting in a much-needed sense of kineticism.
22. Judy Garland - Smile
Look. Obviously, putting Judy Garland's rendition of "Smile" in this film is going to provoke emotion, especially when used at the end of an act two scene of the Baroness setting Cruella's flat ablaze in an attempted murder. The lyrics ("smile though your heart is breaking") are too cleanly tracked to what Estella is trying to do as Cruella, and the aching melody is too melancholy not to make even the most stone-faced viewer feel something — not to mention the extratextual bit of complexity for those who know the tragic story of Garland.
My biggest problem with this cue comes, like many of the other cues here, from its ubiquity, easiness, and obviousness, especially as it relates to one other, giant, "alternate history origin story of a famous villain" film released in recent years. Joker was the snarky comparison point for Cruella since its beginning glimpses. I, for one, think the films are quite different (and think Cruella is qualitatively light years ahead of Joker). But it's really not doing itself any favors by using the same song for a similarly ironic emotional effect! With Cruella, it at least is used for a more earnest, understandable, intentional moment of despair and, yes, twistedness. But my criticism remains that it's an easy choice, and a choice the music supervisors should have known better given the clown-shaped shadow they were putting themselves under.
21. Nancy Sinatra - These Boots Are Made for Walkin’
Another painfully obvious song choice, but a fun one with a sneaky kicker (and the track that "Eternelle" reminds me of). Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" is an immediate signifier of newly found independence and butt-kicking, used in films as wide-varying as Full Metal Jacket and The Dukes of Hazzard. Here, beyond the clear tracking of "boots" used to symbolize Estella's love of designing fashion, the song accurately underscores her drunken attempts at making a better department store display window (she even goes as far as singing it within the text herself). But cannily, the film is smarter than just "using the song we all know to deliver the emotion we all know" (at least in this needle drop). By showing just how inebriated Estella is, it almost satirizes the use of this tune; she is aspiring to the level of confidence crooned by Sinatra without quite getting there. Case in point: The tune screeches to an abrupt halt as we hard cut to Estella passed out drunkenly in the display window itself, refusing any sense of a traditional catharsis or even "completion in the montage." Expectations are met and then bucked. I like it!
20. Rose Royce - Car Wash
Containing perhaps the most iconic handclaps in all of pop music, I cackled aloud when I heard Rose Royce's "Car Wash" cut through Cruella; sort of a "yeah, why not" reaction. By this point in the picture, I had understood that the film would throw any and all tunes at us in an effort to entertain, and I was ready to get washed over in the strategy. Still, "Car Wash" threw me for a loop, even though as I came down from its high, I understood why it was chosen beyond its silly vibes and representative audacity.
"Car Wash" is here to underscore a "dalmatian wash," you see. As part of Cruella's plan, Jasper and Horace stake out a fancy dog grooming business to nab the Baroness' prized, mom-killing, necklace-eating pups. They share a touch of Pulp Fiction-esque banter over the handclaps, then as the tune's funk kicks in overdrive, they pull off the dog heist. It's very, very entertaining stuff, even beyond the novelty appeal of the song choice. Plus, the song continues over this mini-heist's natural ending, underscoring both a banter-filled meeting between Cruella and Artie and a shot of chaos when the frisky dalmatians arrive at Cruella's flat. Many of these needle drops barely last enough time to register, and I appreciate one that's given more space (even if it feels so strange to even be there).
19. Ohio Players - Fire
My goodness, what an absolute slice of funk. The Ohio Players' "Fire," a fiery ode to finding someone very, very attractive will make your neck rock so hard it'll fall off its hinges. It will always be welcome in a film in any context, and it is especially welcome in its introductory, what I might call "mildly kinky" moments. As the tune's siren blares and the snare and guitar syncopate the hell out of each other, we push in on Estella in a crucial moment. The Baroness seems to like her dress design. But, she has pulled out a blade and, while chopping Estella's design, nicked Estella enough to draw some blood. So when the Baroness walks away, we see Estella's stone, hurt face... until, right as the funk kicks into high gear... she smiles.
It's a pivotal moment in Estella/Cruella's development, and it is matched perfectly by this Ohio Players odyssey. The tune continues as Estella meets Artie for the first time, buying one of the Baroness' vintage dresses from him. And while their banter interplays with the song pretty well, I can't help but feel as though, in contrast to the other blink-and-you'll-miss-them needle drops, "Fire" overstays its welcome just by an inch. The power felt when she smiles to this tune is palpable; to continue using the tune for an emotional drop-off dampens the fire unnecessarily.
18. Georgia Gibbs - I Love Paris
"I Love Paris," as performed by Georgia Gibbs, is stuffed with momentum, emotion, and storytelling, from its forward-moving tempo to its shift into a broad major key from its contained minor key. I also love its orchestration and arrangement, combining tango-ready accordions and violins with Hollywood-ready orchestral splendor. When the music supervisors found this tune, they must've screamed "Eureka!"; despite Cruella taking place in London and not Paris, it feels custom-fit to the film's aesthetics and themes in just about every way.
The moment of the film tracked to "I Love Paris" doesn't quite hit the splendor of the tune, but in a way that feels, like "Boots" before, intentionally satirical. To watch Jasper and Horace metal detect any potentially pooped out necklace behind the butts of some angry dalmatians to an aspirational tune of rich romance is a prime piece of clash-of-contexts comedy — and one that speaks to the ongoing development of "Cruella" as a figure of cruelty rivaling the Baroness, one who will use her friends like Jasper and Horace without remorse. The tune goes on to underscore the first steps of a grift involving a delivery of beads to the Baroness by Horace, foreshadowing even more clash-of-context comedy that will befall Thompson's villain.
17. Ike & Tina Turner - Whole Lotta Love
At the moment we start to realize Cruella is going to be a bit of a heist picture in addition to everything else it's doing, Ike & Tina Turner's dramatic, rollicking Led Zeppelin cover of "Whole Lotta Love" kicks in, its arrangement building atop each other one delicious instrument at a time. It is a true and sincere pleasure, a piece of cinematic candy, to watch our crew sneakily break into the Baroness' party and get Cruella in there to steal her necklace back. Once again, the filmmakers use the inherent space of the tune's arrangement to their advantage, allowing the music's suspense to heighten the film's suspense. This sequence, especially for a heist-lover like me, is just so fun.
But, alas, it whimpers to an end instead of an intentional explosion. Cruella does find her way into the party, but instead of culminating in some kind of fierce endgame, the tune fades out as we instead focus on Anita (Kirby Howell-Baptiste), a new character who needs to introduce a new plot point to the story. A whole lotta love ends with a whole lotta anticlimax.
16. The Rolling Stones - She’s a Rainbow
As Young Estella leans down into a sink to dye her hair red, Adult Estella, fully Emma Stoned, rises up instead. She is locked into her adult life, full of easy grifts, practical fashion designs, and lingering melancholy. To communicate this transitory montage, Cruella gives us The Rolling Stones' "She's a Rainbow," an atypically sensitive, psychedelic-leaning, piano-driven kaleidoscope from the usually hard, blues-tinged rockers. This is a really lovely fusion of visuals and music; beyond the obvious lyrical matches ("she comes in colors everywhere, she combs her hair" referencing not just Estella's hair dying but her need for multiple disguises) and ironic clashes of context (a romantic explosion of sonic textures being used to exemplify a squalid life), the pacing of the song motivates the pacing of this sequence quite well. "She's a Rainbow" often slows and speeds up, using a sparse, childlike piano melody to transition between these periods of activity and space. As such, this moment of Cruella follows a similar stop-and-start tempo in shot duration, moving between long takes and more montage-driven rhythms.
The film asks this song to do a lot (maybe too much), to set up a new base reality and underscore present-tense actions taken. And it mostly succeeds!
15. Ike & Tina Turner - Come Together
Hey look, another Ike & Tina Turner cover of a classic rock song! This time, they take on The Beatles' "Come Together," giving an already blues-driven tune an appreciated boost of soulful stomping. And this time, the tune is tracked more satisfyingly, and even heart-warmingly, to another heist-planning montage. All of the film's characters — including a now converted John — do, indeed, come together as they plot the final pieces of revealing Baroness' status as a murderer. In splendidly lensed, fluid takes of motion, newspaper headlines reporting Cruella's death and Baroness' spiraling business splash across the screen, while our crew sends out false invitations asking folks to wear Cruella costumes as tribute. It's an encouraging, even meta-textual callback — another heist plotting sequence scored to another Turner rock cover — but works even better due to the emotional richness of the sequence. Plus, when the tune fades back in on the "de Vil" pronunciation reveal, ooh wee is that a cinematic moment.
14. Queen - Stone Cold Crazy
Boy howdy, when "Stone Cold Crazy" starts a-chuggin', I get pumped. The proto-metal highlight from Queen, an absurdly appropriate band to include on the Cruella soundtrack, is full of raucous energy, dynamics, and intrigue in its arrangement; another Cruella fusion of sound and motion that uses space with intention. The track underscores, simply, a car chase in a stolen car. To watch a very fashionable Cruella de Vil and her boys of mischief take a bunch of folks on a car chase, in a stolen car, in a highly stylized London, to the tune of "Stone Cold Crazy," gives me just about everything I need in a movie. My one ding? The ending of the sequence, while obviously a big character moment for Cruella (she steps out of the car and freaks out due to an emotional revelation), results in a complete loss of momentum, and another anti-climax for the stuffed musical landscape. But wow, I cannot stress how dope it is to watch a fashionable car chase set to Queen's "Stone Cold Crazy"!
13. The Clash - Should I Stay or Should I Go
Another Cruella needle drop, another very, very obvious choice! But I cannot deny that this one works; the film wants to position Cruella as a foundational architect in this world's version of punk iconoclasm, and The Clash's "Should I Stay or Should I Go" is a foundational architect in our world's understanding of punk iconoclasm (is it very "punk" for the biggest entertainment company in the world to shell out cash for the most Punk 101 needle drop to prove the point? Another essay, another time). Plus, the central conflict of the song — whether a person should stay within the space they are occupying or leave the space they are occupying — lines up neatly with the central conflict of the film's main character — whether Estella should stay within her "lowlife" space or fully evolve and become Cruella.
Beyond these macro-level analyses, the tune and visuals easily, punchily work on a guttural level. Cruella shows up to another Baroness party to ruin her day, this time with an incredible garbage truck lewk, punkifying the Baroness' high art aesthetics with literal trash. To align this with such a scratchy, spritely, well-arranged Clash tune (another tune rife with space and intrigue in arrangement) prompts a sickly smile and pop-punk appreciation of the film's intentions.
12. Doris Day - Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps
Like many of the other songs on Cruella's soundtrack, Doris Day's rendition of "Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps" is marked by an emphasis on space, genre-blending playfulness, and a vampy sense of camp. Unlike many of the other songs, "Perhaps" is used pretty explicitly as a comedy needle drop, basically dropping any act of self-seriousness.
Jasper and Horace have finished another of their mini-capers, but need it to actually look like they've broken in. That should be easy, given that a sleeping security guard is directly in front of them, right? Perhaps not; as the guard snoozes, the two criminals try their best at all matter of unsubtle alarms, with no result until they pluck a nose hair out of him. It makes the Day refrain a comedic response to their attempts. But it also highlights moments of transition for each tertiary character; in the "Perhaps" sequence, Jasper reveals he might not like being Cruella's lackey anymore, and the Baroness reveals Cruella's tricks are indeed getting to her.
11. Supertramp - Bloody Well Right
The very first Cruella needle drop starts with a jolt — then immediately quiets down to a sparse arrangement. Supertramp's "Bloody Well Right" sets up the sonic touchstones of the film confidently and surprisingly, feeling both new-fashionedly punk and old-fashionedly "music hall" like the movie it underscores. Our prologue sequence, in which a future Cruella introduces us to the previous version of herself, a young, bullied, ill-fitting Estella, fits in with Supertramp's jaunt swimmingly. As the film swirls and pushes and plays, so too does the track; each component's mastery of dynamics highlighting the other. Unfortunately, despite the many pleasures in this sequence, it just goes on and on and on, to the point where that "jolt to quiet" arrangement trick in the tune starts to feel like an inorganic gimmick rather than a refreshing bit of musical business, at no fault of Supertramp's. It's hard to make the same lightning bolt strike twice, let alone over and over again, and while this sequence undeniably zaps you, every corresponding attempt feels just a bit weaker.