The 15 most memorable movie karaoke scenes that had us singing (or wincing)

From cringe-worthy to actually spectacular, there's nothing quite like a great karaoke scene on screen. Actors get to show off their singing chops (or lack thereof), often performed to great comedic effect — as demonstrated by films like Bridget Jones's Diary (2001) and When Harry Met Sally (1989). Other times, however, such serenades can be unexpectedly poignant and revealing of a character's inner turmoil.

So, Entertainment Weekly is flipping through film history to pick the 15 most memorable movie karaoke moments.

The Sun Is Also a Star (2019)

Daniel Bae (Charles Melton) is trying to convince Natasha Kingsley (Yara Shahidi) of the power of love and destiny — in a single day. He tries to clinch it with a sexy karaoke number, singing the 1968 Tommy James and the Shondells song "Crimson and Clover." And it works! The dulcet tones of 1960s soft pop so win over Natasha they spark an entire dream montage of their life together and then a hot and heavy make-out sesh. Daniel should think about using that move over and over. —Maureen Lee Lenker

Like Father (2018)

Netflix's movie Like Father asks viewers to come sail away, physically and vocally, with stars Kristen Bell and Kelsey Grammer — they play an estranged daughter and father who bond on what should've been her honeymoon cruise and eventually perform a rousing karaoke rendition of the Styx classic "Come Sail Away"...on a cruise ship! See what they did there? —Gerrad Hall

(500) Days of Summer (2009)

Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) does not go lightly into that karaoke night: Every part of his sweaty, passionate rendition of the Pixies' "Here Comes Your Man" during a happy-hour outing with his co-workers from an L.A. greeting card company is turned all the way to 11 — maybe (definitely) for the benefit of his office crush, the elusive Summer (Zooey Deschanel). —Leah Greenblatt

Related: A definitive ranking of the 23 best fake songs from movies and TV

Booksmart (2019)

There's nothing like a graduation party to bring buried emotions to the surface. Such is the case for the high school seniors in Booksmart, who have convened for a party in which a karaoke room provides an outlet for channeling their feelings. Theater kid George (Noah Galvin) performs a very exaggerated version of Alanis Morrissette's "You Oughta Know," but the lyrics hit a little too close to home as he is soon overcome with anger toward an ex. That's where the introverted Amy (Kaitlyn Dever) steps in, surprising everyone with a solid vocal performance that impresses her crush. —Kevin Jacobsen

Bridget Jones's Diary (2001)

In her mind, Renée Zellweger's perpetually messy Bridget is a beautiful songbird; at her office Christmas party, she is an inebriated emu, somehow murdering both the high and low notes of Badfinger's classic soft-rock ballad "Without You." But her no-encore performance does get the attention of her suave boss (Hugh Grant). —L.G.

The Cable Guy (1996)

Leather jeans? Check. A fringed suede jacket? Check. Mic check? Check. Jefferson Airplane may have belted out "Somebody to Love" first, but in The Cable Guy, it's Jim Carrey's turn. With his quirky lisp, wacky energy, and tinny vocal quiver, Carrey's cable guy Chip flails around against the backdrop of a psychedelic karaoke screen, hip-thrusting and shimmying his way across a house party as the elderly crowd gets their groove on. —Piya Sinha-Roy

I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998)

After surviving the hook-handed killer in I Know What You Did Last Summer, Jennifer Love Hewitt returns as Julie James in the slasher sequel, this time hunted in the rain on a tropical island with her friends. But luckily, she at least got to sashay her way through half of "I Will Survive," egged on by her friend Brandy (Norwood, of "The Boy is Mine" fame). "Everyone's a goddamn singer," rasps the unamused bartender Nancy (Jennifer Esposito). Indeed they are...until a psycho killer shows up. —P.S.R.

Lost in Translation (2003)

A lonely young photographer's wife (Scarlett Johansson) and an existentially jet-lagged movie star (Bill Murray) come together in a Tokyo hotel in Sofia Coppola's melancholy almost-romance. Neither speaks any Japanese, but karaoke is the international language — as they find out in one iconic scene when Johansson's Charlotte dons a pink wig and sings the Pretenders' "Brass in Pocket" and Murray's Bob doubles down on Elvis Costello's "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding" and the Roxy Music ballad "More Than This." —L.G.

My Best Friend's Wedding (1997)

After Kimmy (Cameron Diaz) tells Michael (the dreamy Dermot Mulroney) how much she doesn't want to do karaoke at a crowded bar, Jules (Julia Roberts) supports her and tells Michael to leave her alone — only to take the mic, introduce the "dazzling vocal stylings of Miss Kimberly Wallace" and turn the spotlight on a shocked Kimmy, who should have seen Jules' actions for what they were — pure, unfiltered, backstabbing betrayal. Jules sits back in her chair, her eyes trained on Kimmy with the hint of a villainous smile. As the opening notes of the White Stripes' "I Just Don't Know What to Do With Myself" ring out across the crowded bar, Kimmy starts shakily warbling the lyrics as she goes off-key. She embraces her bad singing as the crowd cheers and claps along and Michael looks at her besotted, while Jules smiles and shakes her head as she pity-claps for the poor, sweet Kimmy who can't sing a single note. —P.S.R.

The Night Before (2015)

Joseph Gordon-Levitt finds the magic mic again, this time with Seth Rogen and Anthony Mackie as three best friends with a Christmas Eve tradition of putting on their loudest holiday sweaters, karaoke-ing Run-DMC's "Christmas in Hollis," and ingesting as many class-A drugs as they can. The fistful-of-glitter finale feels like a highlight, until the movie one-ups itself with another climactic singalong: Gordon-Levitt and his new friend Miley Cyrus duetting on a messy spoken-word "Wrecking Ball" to win back his Miley-fangirl ex (Lizzy Caplan). —L.G.

Related: Carpool Karaoke: Inside James Corden's sing-along sensation

Ted (2012)

If a Teddy bear can talk and walk and be best friends with Mark Wahlberg, what rule of movie magic says he can't do karaoke, too? His floor-rolling rendition of Hootie & the Blowfish's "Only Wanna Be With You" pretty much brings the house down. Yes, in between verses he accidentally stabs a guy in the hand during a knife trick, but he is a bear of infinite wisdom, too. As he tells the crowd before going on to show them exactly how: "You can do any '90s song with just vowels." —L.G.

Up in the Air (2009)

Anna Kendrick earned her first Oscar nomination playing a type-A junior executive stuck on an odd-couple business trip with a human resources expert (George Clooney), and it's nice to think that the scene that clinched it was the one where she gets brutally dumped by her boyfriend via text and mournfully, shoelessly sings Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time" to a room full of oblivious bar patrons. (Her pitch? Not perfect. But she means every note.) —L.G.

When Harry Met Sally (1989)

Karaoke technology is so new in the '80s that the songs actually play from a double cassette tape, and there's a little paper printout for the lyrics. But it's not hard for Harry (Billy Crystal) to get Sally (Meg Ryan) onboard for an in-store duet of "Surrey With the Fringe on Top" from Oklahoma. It even takes her a few stanzas to notice that Harry's gone stone-cold quiet when he sees his ex, Helen (Harley Jane Kozak) — hand-in-hand with her new boyfriend — across the room. —L.G.

Marriage Story (2019)

While most karaoke scenes have a comedic bent (as demonstrated by most other entries on this list), Adam Driver's vocal performance in Marriage Story is a stirring exception. After enduring the prolonged process of divorcing his ex-wife, Driver's Charlie Barber commiserates with friends at a bar. He channels his pent-up emotions with a rendition of "Being Alive" from Stephen Sondheim's musical Company, complete with impressive interpretations of each character within the song. The effectiveness of the performance is in how Driver communicates Charlie's feelings of regret and heartbreak as he sings of finding a partner to hold him "too close." —K.J.

Related: Here are 19 of the best Oscar musical performances

27 Dresses (2008)

A cynical wedding reporter decides to write a big profile on a single, naively optimistic woman who's happily always the bridesmaid — 27 times to be precise. Now, there's no real reason for these two attractive singletons (Katherine Heigl and James Marsden) to come together, but, then again, never underestimate the power of a dive bar, shots, and the slightly mumbled lyrics of Elton John's "Bennie and the Jets." While this technically isn't actually karaoke, this scene from 27 Dresses is worth an honorable mention for the epic singalong, as Heigl's Jane and Marsden's Kevin lead the fellow patrons into belting out and butchering the lyrics of the 1973 classic. Soon, Jane becomes a dancing queen atop the bar while Kevin confesses that he did indeed cry "like a baby" at the Keller wedding, revealing that mushy core inside his cynical exterior. —P.S.R.

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