Thriller — Michael Jackson (1983)

Thriller remains the most iconic music video ever, with John Landis's 14-minute horror masterpiece costing $500,000 and single-handedly establishing the music video as a legitimate art form rivaling cinema. It featured groundbreaking zombie choreography that won a Grammy for Best Video, the first such award. The video sold over 1 million copies on VHS, outperforming #4 Bohemian Rhapsody's initial cultural impact by a factor of 10 in home video sales. Its cultural footprint is unparalleled: 30% of all music video viewers in the 1980s cited it as their first exposure to the medium.