Michael Jackson, one of the most, if not the most influential, pop star of all time, was also the king when talking about music videos. Referred by him as ‘short films’ ever since 1983, his work transformed the music video into an art form and a promotional tool through complex story lines, dance routines, special effects and famous cameo appearances, simultaneously breaking down racial barriers.
His videos became some of the most acclaimed, awarded and recognized of all time, however his legacy has been somewhat diluted by the accusations against his persona (please let’s not go there) or because he’s been dead for almost 10 years… however he doesn’t deserve to have his video output being referred to as just ‘pop videos’ while Lady Gaga’s (who I love) videos gets to be considered as ‘art films’ as some people in here seems to believe.
This is why I decided to do this write-up, which would take a look at 20 highlights of the King of Pop’s videography, which is so iconic that MTV didn’t have other choice than to call their Video Vanguard Award after Michael, as it should be. If you’re a Moonwalker you might not learn anything new from this post, but this is instead dedicated to those who might only know Jackson for a couple of songs or even superficially, and I hope it can help them to appreciate the King of Pop’s musical output and gigantic influence all around.
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Can You Feel It (1980) (Short Version)
by The Jacksons 5
directed by Bruce Gowers and Robert Abel (Let the Good Times Roll, Elvis on Tour)

The video concept, conceived by Michael, featuring remarkable special effect by Robert Abel and Associates (Tron, The Andromeda Strain), is more of a short film than a video per se, and as such if you hate those videos in which the sound effects and dialogues happens to be mixed louder than the music (which also gets interrupted by the narrative), then you’re going to hate this video… but I would recommend watching it because it’s pure post-Star Wars sci-fi cheese.
Titled The Triumph, the short film features narration by Ken Nordine and a plot that includes the brothers as a group of super-powered neon aliens arriving in earth and using their psychedelic glitter powers to enlighten the world and something about peacock feathers inside a floating bubble… I don’t know what this video is about but it’s really nice to look at and the instrumental works surprisingly well as part of the score.
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Billie Jean (1982) (Motown 25 performance | Pepsi Generation commercial)
directed by Steve Barron (Toto’s Africa, A-ha’s Take on Me, 1990’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie)

Two years after the creation of MTV, the channel was mostly known to play rock music videos, leaving aside several of the black performers of the time. Walter Yetnikoff, the president of Jackson's record company CBS Records, approached MTV about playing the short film (Michael started to refer to music videos as that), which MTV had not ever played in spite of Jackson's success as a musical artist. Yetnikoff became enraged when MTV refused to play the short, and he threatened to go public with MTV's stance on racial discrimination. MTV relented and played the short in heavy rotation, leading the parent album Thriller to sell an additional 10 million copies, and brought MTV into the mainstream, as they switched to more pop and R&B in order to accompany their newfound success.
The short film features Jackson followed by a paparazzo while on his way to Billie Jean’s place, in a setting that includes glowing tiles, surreal-looking sets and dance moves for an eternity.
Billie Jean‘s short film has been ranked among the best of the decade and all time, including placing at 35th in a list compiled by MTV and Time Magazine at the turn of the millennium. The performance in Motown 25 earned Michael an Emmy nomination and was complimented by the likes of Fred Astaire and Sam Davis Jr., while also being considered one of the most iconic TV moments of all time for a number of publications.
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Beat It (1983)
directed by Bob Giraldi (Pat Benatar’s Love is a Battlefield, Lionel Richie’s Hello)

starring Michael Peters, Vincent Paterson (both lead choreographers), with Michael DeLorenzo and Guns N Roses’ Tracii Guns
Financed by Michael himself for $150,000 ($315,144 in current dollars) after CBS Records refused to make more video releases for the album, the short film helped to establish Michael as an international pop star, and established several of the motifs that his later releases would delve into, like massive choreographies and treatment/inclusion of his blackness as an essential element of the release.
The short film was filmed on Los Angeles' Skid Row and features actual members of the LA gangs Crips and the Bloods, both in order to add authenticity and to foster peace among them; in addition to around 80 gang members, 18 professional dancers and 4 break-dancers, opening several opportunities for dancers across the US. Director Bob Giraldi came up with the concept of the video, which is not based on West Side Story (although it takes some cues from the fight scenes) but rather in Giraldi’s growing up in Paterson, New Jersey.
The short film, in which Jackson establishe speace among the gangs through the power of dance, had its world premiere on MTV and was NBC's Friday Night Videos first video ever shown. The American Music Awards named the short film their Favorite Pop/Rock Video and their Favorite Soul Video. The Black Gold Awards honored Jackson with the Best Video Performance award. The Billboard Video Awards recognized the video with 7 awards; Best Overall Video Clip, Best Performance by a Male Artist, Best Use of Video to Enhance a Song, Best Use of Video to Enhance an Artist's Image, Best Choreography, Best Overall Video and Best Dance/Disco 12".
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Thriller (1983) (shortened version | making of)
directed by John Landis (The Blues Brothers, An American Werewolf in London)
featuring Ola Ray and Vincent Price

This is it chief! The G.O.A.T. of music videos… anyone who denies that is a delusional stan.
After the album’s sales started to fall in sales, Jackson contacted Landis and conceived a short film more elaborated than usual, with his record label refusing to finance it considering the album had already peaked. Using a making-of documentary as a hook to grab financing, both MTV and Showtime agree to finance a big portion of the million dollars budget ($2,515,536 in current dollars), with Jackson loaning the remainder of the budget of the short, in which Jackson and his girlfriend are confronted by zombies while walking home from a movie theater, with a dance routine, a meta narrative and a twist ending that would made Shyamalan proud.
Academy Award winner Rick Baker designed the make up with fellow winner Elmer Bernstein (The Magninicent Seven, Cape Fear) doing the score; the iconic red jacket worn by Michael was created by costume designer and Landis’ wife Deborah Nadoolman (Raiders of the Lost Ark). The disclaimer at the beginning was added as a way to dissuade Michael into releasing the project, as he feared the short film would put him in a bad standing with his religious group, the Jehovah’s Witness.
The short film premiered in MTV on December of 1983, and it played, in its peak, once per hour, with advertisements before each airing aiding to the channel to register 10 times as much audience as normal; the short film was sold on VHS and its currently the bestselling music video of all time with over 9 million units, while also doubling the sales of the album Thriller, helping it become history's bestselling album; It is credited for transforming music videos into a serious art form, breaking down racial barriers in popular entertainment, and popularizing the making-of documentary format.
Normally considered the best video of all time in almost every list or compilation, Thriller was the first music video to be selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. Thriller also won two Grammys (Best Long Form Video and Best Video Album) and 3 VMAs (it somehow lost Best Video) out of 6 nominations.
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Bad (1987) (shortened version)
directed by Martin Scorsese (do I really need to tell you who is this?)
featuring Wesley Snipes

A short film 18 minutes in length, the first single of the same-titled album was shot in a 6-week period over 8 months before its release and was heavily inspired by West Side Story, telling the story of a teenager (Jackson) trying to prove to the gang he once used to belong that he is still “bad” after he comes back from a stay in a private school.
The full version of the short film premiered in a CBS special in August 1987 with a shortened version playing normally in video shows and channels. The short film received a nomination for choreography at the 1988 MTV Video Music Awards Ceremony, but it lost against The Pleasure Principle by his sister Janet. With a budget of $2,200,000 ($4,851,728 in current dollars), it certainly kick started the era in a high note.
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The Way You Make Me Feel (1987) (shortened version)
directed by Joe Pitka (The Beatles’ Free as a Bird, Space Jam)
featuring Tatiana Thumbtzen, Joe Seneca and LaToya Jackson

A very sexual short film, it features Jackson as man that tries to be “himself” in order to win the attention of a good-looking lady, and it happens to be that being “himself” implicates dancing as only Michael could do it. Any video with features a fire hydrant spraying out water as a sexual metaphor is immediately a highlight in anyone’s videography, as in Michael’s case it was designed to show off a more flirtatious and romantic yet still edgy side of him.
With a very slick cinematography and some impressive choreography, it’s a shame the video is not as rewarded, considering it shared a VMA nomination with Bad and it lost against a Janet Jackson video.
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Man in the Mirror (1988)
directed by Don Wilson

Notable for not featuring Michael himself (a first for his short films) for most of its running time, Man in the Mirror features a montage of footage of various major news events and famous people, from children in Africa, Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, kids in graduation, and others.
In contrast to Michael's other short films of the Bad era, Man of the Mirror tells a story not through performance, but through powerful images of oppression, homelessness, hunger, police brutality and other ills of the world, as well as events and leaders of the 20th century whose work is reflective of the song's message to "make that change".
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Smooth Criminal (1988) (shortened version)
directed by Colin Chilvers
featuring Joe Pesci, Sean Lennon and Brandon Adams

Smooth Criminal is the centerpiece of the short film compilation Moonwalker and it focuses on Michael fighting against a drug dealer who wants to make everyone in the world addicted (it was the 80s for crying out loud!), with the full 40-minutes version including a scene in which Michael transforms into a spaceship. Oh, and also there’s a couple of children who are Michael’s friends and get in the way of the drug dealer for some reason.
The crazy and over-the-top video features Jackson wearing a Fred Astaire-esque suit and a Godfather-inspired dance scene which includes an anti-gravity lean (co-patented by Jackson) which has become one of Jackson’s signature moves and one of the most imitated dance moves of all time.
The short film won Best Music Video at the 1989 Brit Awards and the Critic's Choice awarded Jackson the "Best Video" award and the People's Choice Awards for Favorite Music Video for that same year.
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Moonwalker (1988)
directed by Jerry Kramer

A short film anthology compilation, Moonwalker is an exercise in surrealness and, to be honest, vanity, featuring a series of segments that also doubles as Bad’s promotional short films, that are meant to represent the different stages in Jackson's career, based on his own view of how his fans idolized him rather than listening to the messages he wanted to say with his music.
It starts with a live version of Man in the Mirror live from Wembley Stadium, followed by a 10-minutes long Retrospective documentary about Michael’s life and a parody video called Badder.
The interesting segments, outside of the 40-minutes version of Smooth Criminal, are:

• Speed Demon: a continuation of the Badder segment, in which an adult Jackson tried to hide from a group of overzealous fans in a ridiculous chase that ends with everyone turning into Claymation and Jackson having a dance-off with a bunny costume.
• Leave Me Alone: An animated video in which Michael criticizes the way the media has turned his life into an spectacle, portraying it as an amusement park; it is meant to point out, in a mocking tone, the way the media and his fans have unnecessarily sensationalized his life, with the former being portrayed with dog heads in order to drive the point further. The legendary chimpanzee Bubbles has a cameo in the video.
• Come Together: The short film is a coda of Smooth Criminal, in which Jackson comes back to the club featured in the previous short and performs the Beatles cover for the kids that previously joined him in his adventure to stop Pablo Escobar Joe Pesci from drugging the world. The song would not be officially released until 4 years later as a B-Side and until 1995 as an album cut.

With a combined budget of $22,000,000 ($46,697,836 in current dollars), the anthology was given a limited theatrical release (although a wider international release gathered over 67 million dollars) in the US with a wider VHS/Laserdisc following after, but it hasn’t been officially released on DVD/Blu-ray ever since due to complicated film and music licensing, although a region-free version exists overseas.
The Leave Me Alone short film aired as a separate entity and won a Grammy in 1990 for Breakthrough Animated Video, which is the only Grammy Award Jackson received for the album Bad. Leave Me Alone video also won the Cannes Gold Lion Award for Best Special Effects.
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Liberian Girl (1989)
directed by Jim Yukich
featuring 30+ celebrities, most likely to be recognized by Popheads are Brigitte Nielsen, Paula Abdul, Whoopi Goldberg, Quincy Jones, Rosanna Arquette, Olivia Newton-John, John Travolta, Steven Spielberg, “Weird Al” Yankovic, Don King, Dan Aykroyd, David Copperfield, Richard Dreyfuss, Danny Glover and, of course, Bubbles.

One of the greatest examples of a celebrity-laden video, Liberian Girl features over 30 celebrities gathered together on a soundstage at Michael’s request to shot the music video of the song, only for them getting a little bit desperate that Michael himself hasn’t showed up… until the plot twist reveals that Michael was behind the camera all along filming them.
Also, even up to this day, no one knows who the guy who plays the mummy is… a more interesting mystery than Corbin Bleu’s Wikipedia page count.
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Black or White (1991) (shortened version | original ending)
directed by John Landis
featuring Macaulay Culkin, Tess Harper, George Wendt, Tyra Banks, Khrystyne Haje, Glen Chin, Jeffrey Anderson-Gunter, Cree Summer and Bart and Homer Simpson (uncensored version only)

Michael’s return featured one of his most extravagant and controversial short films ever. The first part features a kid (Culkin) who decides to take revenge against his father for forbidding him to play his guitar aloud and for damaging his Michael Jackson poster by using said guitar’s maximum volume to send him flying far away through the sheer power of rock music; the second portion features said father arriving in Africa and seeing Michael dancing around the world and close to multiples landmarks and cultures, with the ending using the morphing techniqueto a group of floating heads to showcase how we’re not so different after all; the last segment, which was censored after release, includes a black panther morphing back into Michael, who dances provocatively and smashes everything around him, with Homer and Bart Simpson having a quick cameo at the end of the short film to chill out the mood a little bit.
The short film premiered on MTV, BET, VH1, and Fox (giving them their highest Nielsen ratings ever at the time) as well as the BBC's Top of the Pops in the UK and other 25 countries on November 14, 1991, gathering an audience of 500 million people, the most ever for a music video. The last four minutes of the short were heavily controversial, and were the subject of edition and censorship all over the world, with the availability of the original video being a little bit scarce as two uncensored version exists, including one that adds racist graffitis to justify the senseless destruction at the end.
Arguably one of Jackson’s most surreal short films (and one of his most expensive, with a budget of $4,000,000, or $7,357,928 in current dollars), Black or White is still one of the most unfairly maligned and most botched Jackson releases of all time.
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Remember the Time (1992) (shortened version | More Dangerous Than Ever behind the scenes)
directed by John Singleton (Boyz n the Hood, Poetic Justice)
featuring Eddie Murphy, Iman, The Pharcyde, Magic Johnson and Tom Lister Jr.

Another ambitious big-budget short film, this time with a more concise storyline but still the same impressive visual effects work. In Remember the Time, Jackson plays a mysterious magician in the Ancient Egypt who tries to impress and entertain the bored Pharaoh’s wife… however, Michael’s actions leads to the Pharaoh to ask for his death and for Jackson to run for his life.
Made with a budget of $2,000,000 ($3,570,785 in current dollars), the boundaries-pushing short film was hailed as a "gorgeous ancient Egyptian extravaganza" by Entertainment Weekly.
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Who Is It (1993)
directed by David Fincher (Madonna’s Vogue, Fight Club, The Social Network)

Executed with millimetric precision and the usual visual flair you can get to expect from the Oscar nominated filmmaker, the short film for Who Is It features a slick storyline in which Michael discovers that his lover, who is moonlighting as a call girl, is not who might seems to be. Although the short film didn’t get that much attention in the US, the song’s international success ensured that this video didn’t get buried among the plethora of Dangerous short films, which would be a shame because this is among my favorite Jackson short films.
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Scream (1995)
with Janet Jackson
directed by Mark Romanek (Johnny Cash’s Hurt, Madonna’s Bedtime Stories, Jay-Z’s 99 Problems)

With a budget of $7,000,000 ($11,533,786 in current dollars), the largest for any music video, the lead single for HIStory started with a strong foot. Featuring his sister Janet in their first collaboration since 1982, the short film of Scream was meant to complement the song’s message against the media who misrepresented and unfairly attacked Jackson, with both of the Jackson sibling inhabiting a spaceship that’s getting away from earth, and then playing with the bizarre gravity around them, dancing their asses off and toying with the technology around them, among other things, in order to distract themselves and release all of the tension they accumulated back on earth.
The concept, conceived by Romanek instead of Jackson as usual for his short films, give us one of the most influential Michael’s releases of his already illustrious career, with the likes of Chris Brown, Tyga and Ciara (among others) heavily borrowing from the choreography style and/or the black-and-white aesthetics at some point in their careers.
The short film premiered on MTV on the summer of 1995 and the day after its release was included in Diane Sawyer’s Primetime interview with Jackson, which was seen by over 64 million people in the US. Scream remains the most nominated video at the VMAs, when it was nominated for 11 categories (including Video of the Year, Best R&B Video, Breakthrough Video, Best Direction, Best Special Effects, Best Editing, Best Editing and Viewer’s Choice), winning for Best Dance Video, Best Choreography and Best Art Direction, losing most of its big nominations against TLC’s Waterfalls (something that Michael was OK with); the short film also won the Billboard Music Award for Best Pop/Rock video and the Grammy for Best Music Video, Short Form.
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Earth Song (1995)
directed by Nick Brandt (Moby’s Porcelain, Jewel’s Hands)

Another expensive short film, Earth Song portrays Michael as his most conscious, showing images of animal cruelty, deforestation, pollution, poaching, poverty and war, ending with Jackson and the world's people uniting in a spiritual chant which summons a force that heals the world, reversing time so that life returns, war ends and the forests regrow. The short film, which closes with a request for donations to Jackson's Heal the World Foundation, was shown infrequently in the United States, probably because it hit way too close to home.
Shot on four locations around the globe (the Amazon rainforests, a Croatian’s war zone, Tanzania and New York), the short incorporates intricate locations, cinema verite elements and strong imagery, which might not be too subtle but it accomplishes what it’s trying to do. The short film won the 1995 Doris Day Music Award at the Genesis Awards and was nominated for a Grammy for Best Music Video, Short Form in 1997.
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They Don't Care About Us (1996) (Brazil version | Prison version)
directed by Spike Lee (Malcolm X, BlacKkKlansman)
featuring Olodum (in the Brazil version)

For the first time in his career, Jackson made two short films for the same track, both directed by the same person:

• The Brazil version was shot in a historic neighbor in Salvador and a favela in Rio de Janeiro against the protest of local officers and politicians, who feared that Michael would bring unwanted negative perception of Brazil’s economic status and hurt both their tourism and future Olympics hosting chances. After some resilience, Jackson was allowed to shot on the area, with the short film showing Jackson among a crowd of local Brazilians performing the track. This is the most widely known short film of the song.
• The Prison version was filmed in a prison with cell mates, with footage of Jackson performing the track intercepted with real footage of police attacking African Americans, the military crackdown of the protest in the Tiananmen Square, the Ku Klux Klan, war crimes, genocide, execution, martial law, and other human rights abuses. This version rarely to never play on television but, in my opinion, is the superior version because it drives the message of the song better.

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Stranger in Moscow (1996)
directed by Nick Brandt

The short film used to accompany this tender ballad was shot in Los Angeles, and features six unrelated persons who lives in isolation while everything else around them moves at a different speed: a bald man looking down at the city from his apartment window, a middle-aged woman sitting alone in a coffee shop, a homeless man lying on the damp street, a well-dressed man feeding pigeons, a teenage boy ostracized from a street game of baseball, and Jackson himself; when rain strikes upon, the strangers see how everyone tries unsuccessfully to run from it before they themselves decide to embrace it.
Following the track’s themes of alienation and loneliness, the short film features a visual technique that predicts and precedes by three years the legendary bullet time effect used in the Matrix saga.
Jackson's biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli, has stated that the video is based on Jackson's real life. “He used to walk alone at night looking for new friends, even at the peak of his musical popularity. The 1980s saw him become deeply unhappy; Jackson explained, ‘Even at home, I'm lonely. I sit in my room sometimes and cry. It's so hard to make friends... I sometimes walk around the neighborhood at night, just hoping to find someone to talk to. But I just end up coming home’".
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Ghosts (1996) (short version)
directed by Stan Winston

Special effects guru Stan Winston (Terminator, Jurassic Park, Aliens, and Predator) directed this short film, the longest music video of all time, with a script which includes collaborations by horror maestro Stephen King and Mick Garris (Hocus Pocus), with a long gestating production history and a budget of $15,000,000 ($24,006,405 in current dollars), making it unofficially the most expensive video of all time, all coming from Jackson’s own pockets.
Using the songs 2 Bad (from HIStory) and Is It Scary (alongside the title track, both from the Blood on the Dance Floor remix album), the 39-minutes long short film tells the story of a scary Maestro with supernatural powers, who is being forced out of a small town by its mayor, with dialogue and plot elements that mirrors Jackson’s own persecution by the media and the unknowing public. The short film premiered on the Cannes Festival of 1996 in an unfinished version and was given screening in select showings of the film Thinner (based on King’s novel) and in Australian cinemas before the local leg of Michael’s tour on the region.
Unfortunately, the film remains quite obscure, as it was given a small release as part of a box set (in Europe) at the end of the promotional campaign for the remix album Blood on the Dance Floor with the exclusive single On the Line, and as a Laserdisc/VHS/Video CD with limited availability elsewhere, without a release in DVD/Blu-ray on sight.
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You Rock my World (2001) (shortened version)
directed by Paul Hunter (Britney Spears’ Me Against the Music, Christina Aguilera’s Lady Marmalade, Mariah Carey’s Honey)
featuring Marlon Brando, Chris Tucker, Michael Madsen and Billy Drago

Another comeback, another extravagant short film. Lasting for 13 minutes in the full version, the short focuses on two men (Jackson and Tucker) who tries to attract the attention of a woman by following her into her neighborhood, before they realized they’re getting into unwanted territory.
Reusing choreography from the discarded Dangerous video, You Rock my World features some of the most insane cinematic values you could expect from a “music video”, with the video style and visual recalling such classics as Smooth Criminal, Bad and The Way You Make Me Feel, although feeling modern and current while also keeping a timeless aesthetic in it. The video won an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Music Video at the award shows 2002 ceremony.
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This is It (2009)
directed by Spike Lee

From all of Jackson’s posthumous “videos”, this is the most powerful and the only one that doesn’t feel like fan pandering, so I decided to include it. Made as a tie-in to the concert documentary of the same name about Jackson’s tour that was cut short for obvious reasons.
The video, almost five-minutes long, features various scenes of Jackson's hometown and former residence in Gary, Indiana, along with archival footage from him, tributes from his fans around the world and original footage (more interestingly, a road sign close to Jackson’s home with the phrase ‘stop hatin written over it’), serving as a poignant tribute to the performer and as a nice substitute as Jackson himself never performed the song.
This is It is the perfect coda for Jackson’s career and nothing can change my mind about it.

WHAT TO WATCH NEXT

If you wanna get more involved in Jackson’s videography, here are a couple of recommendations that YouTube might not be able to properly satisfy:

• Dangerous – The Short Films: A DVD featuring all of 9 short films from the Dangerous era, alongside televised performances and appearances from the era and behind the scenes.
• Michael Jackson's This Is It: If you haven’t watched the documentary about the rehearsals and behind the scenes of the cancelled tour then you’re really missing out… anyone who have ever doubted of Jackson’s talent should watch this film as soon as possible.
• Michael Jackson's Vision: Although it might not have the greatest of the qualities, most of Jackson’s videos are included here, including a couple of rarities.
• Bad 25: A documentary directed by Spike Lee for the 25th anniversary of the album, featuring making of footage from the album’s production and interviews with people involved in the process and other artists influenced by Jackson.

Two things: if a missed a video you might like, I’m truly sorry… also, if you try to argue [insert Popheads fave] has a better videography than Jackson, I’m also sorry for you but if this post didn’t changed you mind nothing will cure you from the delusion.