8 Beautiful Song Videos That We Love for Their Cinematography

Beautiful song videos we love for their cinematography include The Lumineers’ The Ballad of Cleopatra, Seafret’s Oceans with Maisie Williams, Conan Gray’s Heather, Prateek Kuhad’s cold/mess, Parekh and Singh’s Wes Anderson-inspired I Love You Baby, I Love You Doll, Novo Amor’s Anchor and Taylor Swift’s Grammy-winning All Too Well: The Short Film.

A good music video does more than show a band playing. It uses colour, framing and a simple story to deepen what the song is already saying. For this list, the song had to be good first, performance-only videos were left out, and the visuals had to carry a clear idea. We have also updated each entry with where the artist is in 2026.

Quick list: 8 song videos at a glance

Song or film	Artist	Year	Why watch
The Ballad of Cleopatra	The Lumineers	2017	Five videos told as one story
The Wisp Sings	Winter Aid	About 2013	Quiet, home-recorded mood
Oceans	Seafret	2015	Maisie Williams in a story of loneliness
Heather	Conan Gray	2020	Intimate, natural visuals
cold/mess	Prateek Kuhad	2018	Coming-of-age feel
I Love You Baby, I Love You Doll	Parekh and Singh	2016	Wes Anderson-inspired look
Anchor	Novo Amor	2015	Retelling of the selkie legend
All Too Well: The Short Film	Taylor Swift	2021	Grammy-winning short film

8 beautiful song videos that we love for their cinematography

1. The Lumineers: The Ballad of Cleopatra

The Lumineers, led by Wesley Schultz and Jeremiah Fraites, have a sound built on piano and Schultz’s rough, warm voice, with little studio polish. Their videos share that unpolished feel.

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The best example is The Ballad of Cleopatra, a short film released in April 2017 and directed by Isaac Ravishankara. It joins the videos for Cleopatra, Angela, Ophelia, Sleep on the Floor and My Eyes into one continuous story of a woman’s life. It offers a few hopeful moments but makes no promises, which is exactly why it stays with you.

2. The Wisp Sings by Winter Aid

Winter Aid is the project of Irish singer-songwriter Shane Culloty from County Kerry, who wrote and recorded The Wisp Sings at home in a Dublin flat around 2013. It is a soft, sad song with a lasting sweetness underneath.

It first went viral in 2014 after it was added to a popular Spotify playlist, and again during the pandemic as a soundtrack for emotional TikTok videos. It has crossed 300 million streams and plays, and a remastered 10th anniversary edition came out on vinyl in October 2023.

3. Oceans by Seafret

Seafret is a duo from Bridlington in Yorkshire: Jack Sedman on vocals and Harry Draper on guitar. Sedman’s strained voice sits on top of calm guitar lines, and the chorus reaches across an ocean for someone who cannot be reached.

The 2015 video stars Game of Thrones actor Maisie Williams as a young girl who comes home to find a note on the table. It deals with childhood loneliness and a parent pulled away by work, and Williams carries the story with a single lost expression.

4. Heather by Conan Gray

Heather appeared on Conan Gray’s debut album Kid Krow in March 2020, and its video, directed by Dillon Matthew and Gray, premiered on 20 August 2020. There is no glamour here. Its power lies in plain, natural moments and close-ups set to soft acoustic guitar.

Critics called it an intimate look at Gray moving between feminine and masculine standards of beauty. The song became his first entry on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number 46.

5. cold/mess by Prateek Kuhad

Jaipur-born Prateek Kuhad released cold/mess in 2018, and it marks a turning point in his work. The second half of the song grows bolder, with his voice rising and the instruments building around it.

It feels like the soundtrack to a coming-of-age film, full of teenage memories. Former US President Barack Obama put it on his list of favourite music of 2019. Kuhad’s fourth studio album, Full Moon Chamber, is listed for 2026.

6. I Love You Baby, I Love You Doll by Parekh and Singh

Kolkata musicians Nischay Parekh and Jivraj Singh made this sunny, folk-flavoured song about young love that is a little unsure of itself. It first appeared on the album Ocean, released independently in 2013, and was re-released through the label Peacefrog in 2016.

The 2016 video drew wide attention in India for a look clearly influenced by filmmaker Wes Anderson, with a playful, storybook style that matches the song’s innocence. Update for 2026: the duo went on hiatus in January 2024 and announced in February 2025 that they had split.

7. Anchor by Novo Amor

Novo Amor is the project of Welsh musician Ali John Meredith-Lacey. Released as a single in October 2015, Anchor uses hushed vocals, fingerpicked guitar and soft electric tones that move like waves on a shore.

The video reworks the old selkie legend, giving the song a mythical, dreamlike quality that suits it well. His most recent album, Collapse List, came out in April 2024.

8. All Too Well: The Short Film by Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift wrote and directed this roughly 15-minute film for the 10-minute version of All Too Well, released with Red (Taylor’s Version) on 12 November 2021. Sadie Sink and Dylan O’Brien play the couple, and Swift appears near the end as an older version of the lead.

The song recalls an autumn trip, a late-night kitchen dance and a scarf left behind. The film won the Grammy for Best Music Video in 2023, making Swift the first artist to win the category as sole director, along with MTV’s Video of the Year.

What makes a song video beautiful

• A clear idea: one story or feeling, not a string of random shots.
• Look and feel: natural close-ups in Heather, a storybook style in Parekh and Singh.
• Restraint: the best videos leave room for the song.

For more music lists and reviews, explore our entertainment section and Buzz.

Frequently asked questions

Sources: Wikipedia: All Too Well: The Short Film, Wikipedia: Parekh and Singh, Hot Press: Winter Aid, Wikipedia: Prateek Kuhad.