20 Most Perfect Scenes In Cinema History

Cameron Crowe, a former Rolling Stone journalist obsessed with the effect that a soundtrack can have on the human heart, has made his name on marrying the right song to the right moment.

From John Cusack’s boombox serenade in Say Anything…, to Tom Cruise’s fist-pumping ecstasy singing Tom Petty in Jerry Maguire: the man’s got a gift. But the ‘Tiny Dancer’ scene in Almost Famous takes that gift to a whole new level.

It’s 1973, and Stillwater are a rock n’ roll band on the verge of breaking big, but trapped together on a tumultuous tour of the midwest. After a huge bust-up, singer Russell leaves the band and crashes a local party, taking heroic quantities of acid and declaring himself ‘a golden god’.

Back onto the tour bus, a sullen silence dampens the air as the wasted frontman tries to avoid everyone’s eyes, while Elton John and Bernie Taupin’s paean to the freespirited hippychick women of the era plays in the background.

When the music moves from soundtrack to diegetic sound - when you realise that the band and the crew can hear it too - that’s where the magic begins. The atmosphere dissolves, the fight is forgotten, as gradually everyone on the bus joins in.

It’s the perfect encapsulation of Crowe’s heartfelt belief that music, maaan, is supposed to bring people together.