One Direction's 11 best music videos, ranked

Hear us out: One Direction have made an unparalleled impact on modern cinema
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George Fenwick24 July 2020
The Weekender

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It's been ten years since One Direction began and five since they said farewell, which means the band came of age right as the relevance of the music video shifted.

As linear television faded away and YouTube and Vevo expanded, the impact of a song's visual counterpart changed. With pop artists such as Lady Gaga and Lana Del Rey embracing the medium as a short film platform, One Direction slowly followed suit, attempting more cinematic storytelling in their latter years.

The results, however, were mixed. Let's take a look at their 11 best efforts, starting from the bottom...

11. Perfect

All in all, this song kind of sucks; sure, it’s about the pressures of dating a famous person, but it also feels like a man asking to be forgiven for being a rubbish boyfriend.

That aside, this clip is nothing special, but includes fun details such as Liam showing his musical prowess on Pro Tools, and Niall showing how he got biceps (hotel-room mini-golf). Without Zayn, this video fails to leave much of an impression, but there’s something quite bittersweet about this being one of the band’s last visuals before they said farewell and embarked on solo careers.

10. Best Song Ever

There is a lot going on here - Zayn in drag, Niall bulldozing an American accent, and Liam having a little too much fun playing an offensively stereotyped gay choreographer who hits on… himself.

Heterosexual nonsense aside, the video becomes fun in the latter half, and it at least allows Harry to show off his acting chops pre-Dunkirk. (Sidenote: If you need any more proof that this video is cursed, at the time of writing, it currently holds... 666k views).

9. Steal My Girl

The utter chaos in this clip secures its position on this list. We love a music video with a dramatic narrative, but for a song about one’s concern that their partner is desired by others, nothing in this video matches anything lyrically.

Instead, it contains Danny Devito, cultural appropriation, and a half-baked concept in which each of the boys personify some sort of desirable value (love! mystery!). It ends with rainfall, because they’re a boyband. The song bangs, and nothing makes sense.

8. Gotta Be You

This one would pass us by if it weren’t for the styling, which is not to be sniffed at. It would be hard to find anything more purely 2011 than this video, which essentially doubles as a video catalogue for M&S menswear.

The band (all looking extremely young and boyish) head to the country for a lakeside holiday in the latter half, which looks supremely wholesome and is perhaps the exact kind of advertising the UK government needs to entice Brits to holiday at home this year.

7. Kiss You

In what is perhaps the blueprint for the isolation music video, One Direction once again get a little bit meta in Kiss You, breaking away from the opening shot of a winding car journey to reveal… a green screen.

This video is nothing but unadulterated fun, as the five boys perform arguably one of their best songs in a range of environments - they’re surfing, then they’re sailors, then they’re in prison (except their prison uniform was seemingly purchased at H&M). Bonus points if you catch Harry’s reference to his quadruple nipples.

6. Midnight Memories

You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain. Such is true of Midnight Memories, which finds One Direction embracing their British masculinity and becoming infuriating drunk lads in the kebab shop at 3am.

Things take a turn for the better, however, when the boys decide that a good night of partying ends in defunding the police and climbing Tower Bridge. A thrill.

5. Story of My Life

When things begin in a darkroom, you know something nostalgic is about to wallop you in the heart. This one rules solely for the walk down memory lane: each member shows off a photo from their childhood, with family members making star cameos.

There’s some slight discomfort as their relatives have to hold freeze-frame poses for a little too long, but it’s a blessing to see them relax towards the end. Extremely cute.

4. Night Changes

POV: It’s 3am, you have school tomorrow, but you’re letting the UV light from your phone burn directly into your eyes just to get a taste of what it might be like to go on a date with One Direction.

Therein lies the genius of Night Changes, which happens to be the last 1D visual featuring Zayn. What a way to send him off - a disastrous date that ends with you storming out of the restaurant, leaving him drenched in bolognese.

3. You and I

Mystique, is that you? Please inject these fun (but rather crusty) visual effects straight into our veins; the transitions as each member morphs into another are hysterical and also genius.

When all five boys appear at the end, it’s easy to see exactly where Alex Garland found inspiration for his visual representation of the multi-verse theory in Devs. Also: one shot! Sam Mendes, take notes.

2. Drag Me Down

One Direction's cinematic legacy, continued. This video came out a year after Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar, and if you think about it, have any good space films come out since? No? It all ended with Drag Me Down, in which the band (minus Zayn) are mysteriously granted American passports and sent to space by NASA. A cinematic masterpiece that is as-yet unchallenged. (Just kidding, Ad Astra).

1. What Makes You Beautiful

Is this what serotonin looks like? One Direction never really topped the pop genius of this song, nor did they ever outdo the pure and simple euphoria in this video.

The Monterey Five perfected the art of discussing murder at the beach and looking forlornly at the waves, but six years before, One Direction personified chaotic good by running head-first into that ocean, fully clothed.Unparalleled, with no less than 1.1 billion views.

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