15 Most Groundbreaking & Controversial Michael Jackson Videos

What video did Michael end up later regretting? Which video upset Katherine Jackson?The King of Pop was a perfectionist. And, he did not do ordinary when it came to his videos. We have picked the top 15 most groundbreaking & controversial Michael Jackson videos and listed them here along with some little known facts. Did we get it right? Let us know how they stack up against your list!

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#15: "They Don't Care About Us" (1996)

Spike Lee almost missed his shot to direct a video for the world’s greatest performer. Michael called him 3 times because Spike hung up on his twice, thinking the call was a prank. The video was shot in Salvador da Bahia and Rio de Janeiro favela Dona Marta-then a drug-infested area. However, after Jackson’s video, the area was transformed.

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#14: "She's Out of My Life" (1979)

Shot in one complete take, this video featured Jackson in the rawest version of himself. He is simply sitting on a stool surrounded by nothing but blackness. The video was filmed using multiple cameras. Director Bruce Gowers said, “Very emotional he was in that. I was worried that he was actually going to break down and cry…” This was not the only video Jackson shot that day. He also shot “Rock With You.” Bruce Gowers said one was shot around 3 in the afternoon and the other was shot at five.

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#13: "Can You Feel It" (1981)

Robert Abel & Associates (Tron special effects team) worked on this video creating tons of visual effects. The Jackson brothers are created from the matter in the universe and they appear as giants spreading golden glitter all over a city. One interesting tidbit about the video is that no one actually sings the song in the video.

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#12: "Rock With You" (1979)

Director Bruce Gowers shot this video by creating a smoky space tunnel in an L.A. soundstage. As one of his first videos as a solo performer, Jackson kept things simple and the video only featured him in a sequined suit and a laser. Although Jackson was still timid and shy at this point, the other reason the video was so simple was because they had very little money. The laser cost $3,000. There was minimal editing because that was expensive. And, everything was rented including the cameras, the stage, the Duvetyne drop and the smoke. Jackson was truly a starving artist. Imagine that…

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#11: "In the Closet" (1992)

Up to this point, MJ fans had never really seen him be as sexually suggestive with a female as he had been with international model phenom, Naomi Campbell. With no fancy costume (just a t-shirt and jeans), MJ once again shocked fans with dance moves and an invitation to allow others to see yet another side of him.

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#10: "Beat It" (1983)

The “Beat It” video is famously known for the fight scene at the end. But, did you know director Bob Giraldi substituted the rubber knife for a real one on the second take? So, the dancers were “really backing away (because) they were actually afraid,” he said.

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#9: "Leave Me Alone" (1989)

The video relayed an anti-media message showing Jackson riding through a fun house of tabloid rumors, including rumors about his plastic surgery and his monkey, Bubbles. Shooting with Jackson only took 3 days, but it took 9 months to create the animation because, according to director, Jim Blashfield, they were “down on an animal preserve photographing llamas and peacocks. And, then we’re off at Oak’s Park, the local amusement park, photographing things out there. We’re out photographing skies.” Michael’s scenes were shot on 35mm film, turned into stills, cut out with X-Acto knives, and layered by the dozens. The end result was a bunch of still images stacked on top of one another on a piece of glass. So, each scene containing those images had to have its own shoot.

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#8: "Jam" (1992)

When the two most dominant MJs in the world teamed up together to do a music video, everyone watched. Michael Jackson and Michael Jordan filmed the video in a “rat-infested, abandoned, bombed-out armory in a neglected neighborhood in Chicago,” as director David Kellogg put it. Nobody knew the two Michaels were filming a video because people were told it was a mayonnaise commercial, and they had to build a tunnel for Michael Jackson. Did you know Jackson had the flu while filming? I bet you couldn’t tell because he went into beast mode when the shooting began.

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#7: "Scream" (1995)

The spaceship seen in the video was built in only 2 weeks and included a dozen large-scale sets. This incredibly expensive ($7 million) video featured MJ and baby sister, Janet dancing together on camera for the first time and participating in some sibling competition playing a video game together. But, the video also showed the deep love and affection they had for one another at the end when Janet hugs her brother tight.

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#6: "Remember the Time" (1992)

The Egyptian-themed video featured Magic Johnson, Eddie Murphy, model Iman, and Tommy “Tiny” Lister. It was a nine-minute video that featured Jackson’s first on-screen kiss.

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#5: "Billie Jean" (1983)

Featured on the Thriller album, “Billie Jean” made history when it aired on MTV. It broke the network’s predominantly white rock-centric playlist after CBS records president Walter Yetnikoff threatened to go public about MTV’s racial discrimination (saying black music was not “rock” enough) and pull everything CBS had off MTV. Not only did MTV play the video—they played it in heavy rotation. After the video was aired, Thriller sold an additional 10 million copies.

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#4: "Smooth Criminal" (1988)

Next to the Moonwalk, “Smooth Criminal” produced Jackson’s second-most popular dance move—the gravity-defying lean. As part of the Moonwalker film, the whole “Smooth Criminal” segment is about 40 minutes long. Director Colin Chilvers used piano wire to keep MJ’s heels to the ground. “I fixed their heels to the ground with a slot, so that they were locked into it. If you look in the video, when they come back up from that lean, they kind of shuffle their feet back. They were unlocking themselves from the support they had in the ground.” Because Michael loved the film-noir look, they had the camera man light the video the same way. Also, MJ wanted to pay tribute to Fred Astaire during the dance sequence so he wore a costume similar to Astaire’s in the movie Band Wagon and he also had Astaire’s choreographer visit the set.

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#3: "Bad" (1987)

This black-and-white video shot in a New York City subway station was 18 minutes long. It featured a young and very popular Wesley Snipes. The second act of the video featuring the West-Side Story-styled combat dance sequence took two and a half weeks to film. Director Martin Scorsese recalled that it took about 40 times to shoot the hallway scene. Scorsese also talked about the one time during shooting that Michael was demanding. “The only time he expressed (a production demand), and again it was out of compassion—the older man is getting mugged and gets pushed at one point. And we did it a couple of takes and he (Michael) was nervous about that. He didn’t want anyone to get hurt. We didn’t know if we had it on film and we said, ‘Let’s do it again,’ and he begged me not to do it again. He said, ‘Please, this shouldn’t be violent.’ So, I didn’t do it.”

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#2: "Black or White" (1991)

Who doesn’t remember cute, young Macaulay Culkin dancing to rock music so loud that his father, George Wendt, yells at him to turn it down and go to bed? Only to have Culkin turn up a speaker past “LOUD” and “LOUDER” to “ARE YOU NUTS!?!” catapulting Wendt somewhere into the universe. The video premiered on MTV, BET, VH1 and Fox and gave them their highest Nielsen ratings ever at the time. It premiered with an audience of 500 million which was the most ever for a music video. John Landis, who directed Michael Jackson’s Thriller video, also directed “Black or White.” In the video, Jackson travels through different countries such as West Africa, Thailand, India, and Russia and dances their traditional moves. He sings on the Statute of Liberty and at the end, several faces of different nationalities morph into one another. That sequence cost $100,000.

The video was also one of Jackson’s most controversial videos. During the last 4 minutes, he morphs from a black panther to himself and performs very provocatively grabbing himself. He then gets violent-smashing windows, destroying a car and, causing an inn to explode. He later apologized for the violence. He then reemerges as a black panther and Bart Simpson dances to the song while watching it on TV. Homer Simpson yells at Bart and turns the TV off, ending the video.

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#1: "Thriller" (1983)

Thriller the album was experiencing declining sales by the summer of 1983, so Jackson’s manager Frank DiLeo came up with the idea of making a third (and final) video for the album. The rest is history.

With its hefty price tag, “Thriller” set the bar for music videos that would follow. MTV ran the 14-minute-long horror themed video twice an hour to meet demand. The iconic choreography was created by Jackson and Michael Peters who was also the choreographer for “Beat It.” As of August 28, 2018, the video has garnered over 535 million views on YouTube. In December 2009, the video was selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress along with 24 other films. This honor made it the first ever and only music video to be selected.

Despite its success, Jackson apologized for the video that, due to his religious beliefs, was unacceptable because of its gory nature. “I would never do anything like that again…Because a lot of people were offended by it…I’ll never do a video like that again!” he said.

Still the video remains a cultural phenomenon with Lexington, Kentucky becoming the first city to launch a “Thriller” reenactment for Halloween.

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