10 Perfect Uses Of Taylor Swift's Music In Movies And TV Shows

In case you've been off the grid for the past week, you probably already know that Taylor Swift has announced her 12th original album: "The Life of a Showgirl," which will be released on October 3, 2025. With this new record will, in all likelihood, come a whole new slew of bangers that will etch themselves into pop music's history and will likely be immortalized not only through Swift's own legacy but through their use in film and TV. 

The presence of pop music being used as a "needle drop" in movies and television shows is nothing new. Whether it's Simple Minds' "Don't You (Forget About Me)" soundtracking the iconic final moments of John Hughes' "The Breakfast Club," Childish Gambino's "Redbone" scoring the beginning of Jordan Peele's "Get Out," or "Kids in America" by Kim Wilde setting the tone in the '90s rom-com classic "Clueless," modern-day music has been an integral part in creating some of the most iconic moments in the history of film.

Plenty of movies pay big bucks for needle drops, but for these 10 films and TV shows, they managed to get the current queen of pop's biggest hits (as well as a few of her deepest cuts) in their soundtracks. Going through Swift's own discography, let's take a look at some of the most memorable uses of her own songs, whether she appears as herself to perform the track or simply allows them to be covered and reinterpreted by other actors and performers. 

Taylor Swift's first-ever appearance in a proper scripted theatrical film was "Hannah Montana: The Movie," the film continuation of the iconic Disney Channel series starring Miley Cyrus as a teen girl who lives a second life as the titular pop star. However, rather than just lend one of her biggest hits to the movie, Swift pulled out a song that hadn't made either of her first two albums: "Crazier," the type of romantic ballad that a young couple falling in love can waltz to on the dance floor. 

In one of Swift's few acting roles, she and her band take the stage at a local fundraiser in Crowley Corners, Tennessee, where most of the film takes place as Miley escapes a PR nightmare as Hannah. While reconnecting with her long-lost childhood love, Travis (played by Lucas Till, who would later star opposite Swift in her music video for "You Belong With Me"), Swift's beautiful song soundtracks an intimate moment between Miley and Travis. 

Despite never gracing one of Swift's own albums, the song (as well as its usage in "Hannah Montana") drew praise from critics, with some even feeling like it outshone many of Cyrus' own songs on the film's soundtrack. In case you needed a reminder of how great it is, Swift gave the track its live, acoustic debut on The Eras Tour in 2024, mashing it up with a B-side from her "Lover" album, "All Of The Girls You Loved Before." 

Despite having a career spanning two decades, Taylor Swift might never write a song as iconic as her first big pop radio hit, "Love Story," off her 2008 album "Fearless." The song rewrites "Romeo & Juliet" with a happy ending, resulting in a climactic final chorus that feels cathartic to belt at the top of your lungs. That's why it was the perfect choice to have Ebon Moss-Bachrach's Richie sing along to in "The Bear" season 2. 

Swift is mentioned frequently in the second season of "The Bear," representing Richie's struggle to provide for his daughter Eva. In what might be the best episode of "The Bear" (so far), "Forks," Richie spends a week training at a fine dining restaurant, where he transforms from a disinterested and petulant employee to a hard-working and dedicated restaurateur. Knowing the resonance Swift plays in Richie's life, it's all the more satisfying to see a montage of Richie excelling at his job, scored by a song as instantly recognizable as "Love Story," becoming diegetic as Richie races home in his car, shouting the lyrics in between berating other drivers on the road. 

It's no wonder Moss-Bachrach thanked Swift after winning Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series at the Critics' Choice Awards in 2024, which Swift reacted to on X by congratulating the actor. Subsequent seasons of the show have featured other needle drops of Swift's, including "Long Live" off "Speak Now" and "Style" off "1989".  

In what might be the oddest pairing in television history, Taylor Swift's music makes a pretty noticeable appearance in season 9 of the FXX sitcom "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," which is also arguably its best season. The episode, "The Gang Tries Desperately to Win an Award," is a meta-commentary on the long-running show's lack of attention at award shows. After discovering that Paddy's Pub has failed to be nominated at a prestigious restaurant and bar award, the show's central gang observes what works about the bars that do get nominated and tries to copy them, to little success.

Among their observations while visiting a rival bar, Suds, is the vibrant colors, affable workplace dynamics between employees, and, of course, them playing popular music, namely Swift's "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" off her album "Red." It's a pretty pointed dig at shows like "New Girl," which were not only much more popular than "Always Sunny" at the time but frequently featured Swift's music in needle drops – the singer even cameoed in the show's second season. 

It's nevertheless hilarious to see the inept characters on "Always Sunny" attempt to replicate the will-they-won't-they dynamics of a show like "New Girl" while arguably one of Swift's poppiest songs loudly plays in the background. Of course, the best musical moment in the episode goes to Charlie's (Charlie Day) delightful and profanity-laden song about spiders at the end of the episode. 

In recent years, Taylor Swift's most iconic release has got to be the 10-minute version of "All Too Well," a fan-favorite track off her album "Red" that, alongside the album's re-recording in 2021, got its own short film directed by Swift and starring Sadie Sink. Everyone knows that "All Too Well" is all too powerful, but especially Ryan Gosling, given that his character Colt Seavers in the 2024 film "The Fall Guy" sheds tears listening to it in his car while a montage of his memories with former lover Jody (Emily Blunt) plays. 

Although "The Fall Guy" is a spectacular time at the movies, the real strength it has is in its love story, making its use of "All Too Well" feel like the perfect choice to define Colt's emotional grieving of his failed romance with Jody. Furthermore, it makes for one of the film's funniest scenes as the song reaches its climactic, tear-jerking bridge just as Jody knocks on Colt's car window, forcing him to pretend like he wasn't just having a moment "chilling down to Taylor Swift," as Jody puts it. 

As if that wasn't enough, Gosling and Blunt sang their own version of "All Too Well" when the actor hosted "Saturday Night Live" to promote "The Fall Guy," lamenting Gosling's "break-up" with Ken following the end of the "Barbie" press tour. Once again, Swift cheered on the parody via X: "Watch me accidentally catch myself singing this version on tour."

None of us would think to pair up Taylor Swift's most danceable song with a zombie movie, but Abe Forsythe's "Little Monsters" is a different kind of zombie movie. The film centers on a washed-up musician, Dave (Alexander England), his nephew Felix (Diesel La Torraca), Felix's teacher (Lupita Nyong'o), and a famous children's TV star (Josh Gad) facing a zombie outbreak that threatens a group of schoolchildren on a field trip Dave is chaperoning. 

This Australian zombie comedy is a bloody laugh riot, but has plenty of moments of sweetness, thanks to Nyong'o's lovable and truly good Audrey, who often serenades her kindergarten students with songs on a ukulele, including "Shake It Off," which may be Swift's most recognizable song off her 2014 album "1989." True to his character, Dave can't stand the song, even when Audrey plays it acoustically for her students, but he eventually comes around to it. Though Nyong'o's version lacks the polished production and party vibes of the album track, it's as adorable as it is haunting. 

However, few moments are as cute as the film's final scene, in which Dave and Audrey serenade the school kids with "Shake It Off" while in quarantine, as all the children's parents watch with joy that they've survived the zombies. For a film as bloody as "Little Monsters," the fact that these kids can all shake it off rather than experience the trauma of the film's events showcases the power of Swift's music. 

"Killing Eve" season 3 was uneven, but still wildly entertaining must-watch TV, and those who watched might've recognized a familiar song playing during the opening credits of the episode "Beautiful Monster." That song is "Look What You Made Me Do," the lead single off Swift's 2017 album "Reputation," which Variety described at the time as sounding "as if she and producer Jack Antonoff had designs on doing an electro-clash update of the boom-car classic 'Supersonic.'"

For "Killing Eve," however, "Look What You Made Me Do" is slower, with a deep male voice nearly whispering the lyrics over eerie electric guitar, subtle drums, and dreamy acoustics. This cover of the track is credited to a band called Jack Leopards & The Dolphin Club, though it didn't take much sleuthing for Swifties to uncover that it was actually self-produced by Antonoff and Swift, with the latter's brother Austin on vocals. Swift is even credited on the song as Nils Sjöberg, a pseudonym she previously used to ghostwrite "This Is What You Came For" by Calvin Harris and Rihanna. 

Considering this episode aired not long after Swift's promise to re-record her first six albums, covering her own song was a clever way to avoid licensing the original master recording prior to her recent purchase of them earlier in 2025. Plus, this alternate version of "Look What You Made Me Do" feels perfect for the twisted and campy tone of "Killing Eve." 

Obviously, the 2020 Netflix documentary "Miss Americana" is chock-full of Taylor Swift needle drops, considering it's a documentary examining the pop star's career in the late 2010s. The choice of songs to feature in the film specifically avoided some of her biggest hits, as director Lana Wilson told FF2 Media, "I didn't want to use number one hits ... I wanted to do slightly deeper cuts, but it was really all about picking songs that emotionally and thematically fit the moment."

Easily the best example of this in the film is "Getaway Car," a non-single off of "Reputation" that features in a memorable moment that went viral on TikTok years after the film's release. In the scene, made up of archival footage that Swift filmed herself during the making of the song, she and producer Jack Antonoff spontaneously write the song's stripped-down bridge by screaming the lyrics at each other. This moment cuts directly to Swift performing said lyrics on the Reputation Stadium Tour, encapsulating the artist's freedom from the circumstances of her previous few years.

Antonoff theorized that the moment went viral because it's a rare instance where a camera happened to catch a truly magical moment in the studio. Whatever the reason for the needle drop's virality, it's hard to find a moment featuring one of Swift's songs that captures the way her deepest cuts resonate just as well, maybe even more so, than her biggest hits. 

Pretty much everybody was surprised in 2020 when Taylor Swift announced her album "Folklore" with less than 24 hours' notice, and even more surprised when it turned out to be arguably her best album yet. "Exile" was one of the best songs on the album, a piano ballad in which Swift duets with Bon Iver frontman Justin Vernon; many critics lauded the tune as one of the standout tracks on a standout album. The song sees Swift and Vernon trading verses as lovers with conflicting accounts of their relationship's demise.

With that story in mind, it's not hard to see why "Exile" was chosen to score a shocking and devastating scene at the end of "You" season 3, which reminds us how love doesn't last forever when Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) is involved. "You" season 3 primarily focuses on the ill-fated romance between Joe and Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti), whose complicity in Joe's obsession with violence and stalking ultimately results in (spoiler alert) her death. "Exile" is truly as haunting as ever as it plays over Joe methodically staging Love's death as a suicide. 

According to showrunner Sera Gamble, the choice to include "Exile" in such a pivotal moment in the show was informed by her own obsession with "Folklore" during the pandemic, telling Entertainment Weekly, "[One] of the things that gives me a lot of pleasure is to put really significant songs, songs that mean a lot to me personally, in the shows that I'm making." 

It didn't take long for fans to begin associating Taylor Swift's other surprise release in 2020, "Evermore," with Emily Dickinson. Not only was the album announced on the poet's birthday (December 10), but even its title might've been inspired by Dickinson's poetic language. Of course, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to have the brilliant idea of using a song from the album in Apple TV+'s genre-bending series "Dickinson," in which Hailee Steinfeld (a former co-star of Swift's in her "Bad Blood" music video) plays the titular poet in a star-crossed affair with her brother's wife Sue (Ella Hunt).

The song in question is "Ivy," a track Swift co-wrote with Aaron Dessner and Jack Antonoff, describing infidelity between a woman and a lover outside of her marriage, which, along with its poetic and vivid lyrics, certainly fits the storyline of a show like "Dickinson." Though the song only soundtracks the credits following an intimate scene between Emily and Sue, it was an important inclusion for one particular member of the creative team.

As showrunner Alena Smith told The Hollywood Reporter, "The fans have sort of developed a mythology around it as being a song that relates to Emily and Sue on some emotional level," though it was chosen not to play over the scene itself so as not to tonally conflict with the moment itself. At the very least, fans' interpretations of "Evermore" got to be made canon with this needle drop, earning "Ivy" its spot here. 

You don't typically expect to hear Taylor Swift's music play a part in the routine of a stand-up comic, but leave it to Marc Maron to surprise even himself. His newest special, "Marc Maron: Panicked," premiered on HBO in 2025, his second following the sudden loss of his partner, Lynn Shelton, in 2020. Although most of the special focuses on Maron's own anxieties with life, he briefly touches on his own grief at the very end of the special during a story that involves one particular Swift song.

"Bigger Than The Whole Sky" is a deluxe track off of the "3am Edition" of Swift's 2022 album "Midnights," co-written and co-produced by Jack Antonoff, a former guest of Maron's "WTF Podcast." As Maron describes in the special, he gave the album a curious listen while on a hike and was blindsided by the track — a poignant musing on the effects of grief — and subsequently fainted and nearly died. After playing the track off his phone for the audience, Maron claims he no longer fears death, so long as he has "Bigger Than The Whole Sky" playing.

As if that doesn't immortalize the power of Swift's music in Maron's life, the comedian has since covered the song live at Largo in Los Angeles. It's not only surprising that one of the most profound and beautiful uses of a Taylor Swift song is in a stand-up comedy special, but Maron's story speaks for all Swifties who have found themselves overcome with emotion listening to "Midnights."