10. Missy Elliott

"The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)"

[dir: Hype Williams; 1997]

The best debut video of the 90s, Hype Williams' off-kilter tapestry helped codify and introduce not just the Missy Elliott persona but the axis of creative talent who would blow up and rebuild hip-hop and R&B from scratch.

9. Björk

"All Is Full of Love"

[dir: Chris Cunningham; 1999]

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The strongest single images from any video of the 90s come from this strange and moving clip of two robots being constructed, then serenading each other and falling in love. Everyone from Will Smith to Pixar seemingly took notice.

8. UNKLE [ft. Thom Yorke]

"Rabbit in Your Headlights"

[dir: Jonathan Glazer; 1998]

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Pre-millennial tension rarely got this dark; technical accomplishments rarely this re-watchable. Throw in the setting-- the auto tunnel evoked the location where Princess Diana died the year before; any tunnel is metaphorically a riff on walking toward the light at the end of one's life-- and this cryptic little film about a derelict/Christ figure is rife for examination.

7. The Chemical Brothers

"Let Forever Be"

[dir: Michel Gondry; 1999]

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The quintessential Michel Gondry video. Riffing on the details spoils a sense of discovery, but the video's most impressive feat is the painstaking, DIY approach to special effects and filmmaking itself. Gondry is constructing complex worlds without the aid of anything other than time, effort, and imagination-- he's an overgrown child still reveling in the giddy thrill of taking a camera to the available world around him. If "Everlong" is his test run for The Science of Sleep, "Let Forever Be" is his first draft of Be Kind Rewind.

6. Fatboy Slim

"Praise You"

[dir: Richard Koufey and the Torrance Community Dance Group; 1998]

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One huge positive of ego-less electronic producers: They get the hell out of the way and let other creative forces take over their videos. Here, Spike Jonze unleashes his fictional dance troupe on an unsuspecting California movie theater. An expert prankster-- Google his fake Spin interview story; recall his role with Jack-ass-- Jonze, starring as Richard Koufey, sells this beautifully.

5. The Beastie Boys

"Sabotage"

[dir: Spike Jonze; 1994]

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The 70s cop/spy drama spoof, complete with fake actor and character names flashed as cards on screen, is such a pathetically overdone schtick at this point that all of the beer commercials and poor videos that followed "Sabotage" should have tarnished it in retrospect. Instead, they go to show how cleanly Jonze and the Beastie Boys knocked this out of the park.

4. Björk

"Bachelorette"

[dir: Michel Gondry; 1997]

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As impressive as "All Is Full of Love" is, the best Björk videos, well, heavily feature Björk. Arguably the most magnetic video presence of the decade, her force of personality sold "Big Time Sensuality" on its own and helped carry "It's Oh So Quiet", "Human Behaviour", and "Army of Me" as well. Best of all, however, is "Bachelorette", with its labyrinthine tabloid story, released at a time when Björk herself was a tabloid figure.

A cautionary tale against fame, leaving home, and the big city, "Bachelorette" unspools like a short film, asking questions about whether we're simply all characters in our own lives, whether we shape our destinies or they're written for us, and whether we are the sum of our own experiences or how others perceive us.

3. Daft Punk

"Da Funk"

[dir: Spike Jonze; 1997]

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With Daft Punk's breakthrough single used as diegetic sound, not just for effect but as a plot resolution, a dog-faced guy stumbles, literally, through the unforgiving streets of his new NYC neighborhood. There's not a hell of a lot more to it than that, but the inventiveness, pathos, and energy of it all is still compelling.

2. Weezer

"Buddy Holly"

[dir: Spike Jonze; 1994]

What could have been pure 70s nostalgia is so much more thanks to the integration of the band into the look and feel at Arnold's Drive-In. Like the clip for "Big Me", we're thrown into this video without our bearings. Even though the thrill of orienting ourselves within the narrative is heightened the first time, "Buddy Holly" goes way beyond a one-time viewing experience.

1. Aphex Twin

"Come to Daddy"

[dir: Chris Cunningham; 1997]

Darkly comic and just plain dark, Chris Cunningham's tale of television unleashing hell in a dilapidated housing block plays like a gothic graphic novel, an ADD-riddled version of Village of the Damned, and an H.R. Giger-designed haunted house. All at once.