Taylor Swift is known for lending her talents to other artists — but the pop star has also shared plenty of original songs to some of your favorite movies.
Swift has appeared in several films: Amsterdam, Cats, The Giver, Valentine’s Day, and Hannah Montana: The Movie – the latter as herself. She even made a cameo on the Fox series New Girl.
Along with appearing in those films, the superstar has written songs for a few of them as well: She crafted two tracks from the Hannah Montana: The Movie soundtrack, one for Valentine’s Day, and one for Cats. Swift has also penned tracks for films she didn’t appear in, including two for the original Hunger Games, one for Britain’s Got Talent winner Paul Potts’ biopic One Chance, one for Fifty Shades Darker, one for her own documentary Miss Americana and one for Where the Crawdads Sing.
Blending her usual genres of country and pop, certain tracks were written directly for the films like “Beautiful Ghosts” and “Safe & Sound,” while others — like “Today Was a Fairytale” — she had in her vault and offered up for soundtracks. “I wrote that song last summer, and when this movie opportunity came about, I reached back into my pocket and thought, ‘I think this is perfect for the soundtrack. I hope it’s perfect for the soundtrack,’” she told The Tennessean back in 2010 of the Valentine’s Day song.
Of all the soundtrack cuts, “Today Was a Fairytale” and “I Don’t Wanna Live Forever” with former One Direction member ZAYN reached the highest chart peaks of her soundtrack cuts, each hitting No. 2 on the Hot 100.
Read below for a ranking of the songs she’s written for movies. And for more Swift rankings, check out all of her title tracks ranked, and all of her track fives ranked plus her biggest Billboard hits.
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“Beautiful Ghosts”
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}Movie: Cats
Year: 2019
Hot 100 Peak: N/ANow a cult favorite, the silver screen version of Cats wasn’t warmly received by critics or the general public – but Swift’s song with legendary composer Andrew Lloyd Webber did earn a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Song as well as a Grammy nod for Best Song Written for Visual Media.
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“Crazier”
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}Movie: Hannah Montana: The Movie
Year: 2009
Hot 100 Peak: 17Swift cameos in the film to perform the twangy and dreamy ditty that chronicles falling in love. “You showed me somethin’ that I couldn’t see / You opened my eyes and you made me believe,” she sings in her Nashville peal.
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“Today Was a Fairytale”
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}Movie: Valentine’s Day
Year: 2010
Hot 100 Peak: 2Another fitting track for a film about the both the happiness and the perils of romance. “Today Was a Fairytale” perfectly evokes the feelings of the first flush of a young relationship. And in Swift’s case, works with her character’s happy ending (as far as high school goes). (She would later re-record the song for Fearless (Taylor’s Version) in 2021.)
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“You Can Always Find Your Way Back Home”
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}Movie: Hannah Montana: The Movie
Year: 2009
Hot 100 Peak: N/AThe only song that Swift doesn’t perform on this list, Miley Cyrus’ Hannah Montana stands in as lead vocalist in the fun and exuberant tune about “knowing exactly who you are.”
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“Eyes Open”
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}Movie: The Hunger Games
Year: 2012
Hot 100 Peak: 19In the midst of her sonic evolution that started with 2012’s Red, Swift goes into almost full rock mode for The Hunger Games in this taste of her talents across all genres.
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“Sweeter Than Fiction”
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}Movie: One Chance
Year: 2013
Hot 100 Peak: 24Before there was 1989, there was “Sweeter Than Fiction,” a splashy, electro-pop anthem that became the nascence of her work partnership with Jack Antonoff, as it’s the first song they co-wrote and co-produced together.
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“Carolina”
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}Movie: Where the Crawdads Sing
Year: 2022
Hot 100 Peak: 60Appropriately cinematic and atmospherically eerie, Swift takes on the mysterious story of a girl who grew up in North Carolina in the cut co-produced by Aaron Dessner.
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“Only the Young”
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}Movie: Miss Americana
Year: 2020
Hot 100 Peak: 50Released along with her 2020 documentary that chronicled her life at the time – and partially detailed Swift’s frustration at her lack of political outspokenness – “Only the Young” proffers a thumping and hopeful message to the younger generations about picking up the mantle of activism. “They aren’t gonna help us / Too busy helping themselves / They aren’t gonna change this / We gotta do it ourselves,” she sings.
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“I Don’t Wanna Live Forever” with ZAYN
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}Movie: Fifty Shades Darker
Year: 2017
Hot 100 Peak: 2Sexy, sensual and full of longing, the collaboration between Swift and ZAYN fuses pop and R&B in glamorous fashion. “I gave you somethin’, but you gave me nothin’ / What is happening to me?” Swift cries on the bold confessional.
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“Safe & Sound” feat. The Civil Wars
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}Movie: The Hunger Games
Year: 2012
Hot 100 Peak: 30A magnum opus of folk balladry, the trio of Swift and The Civil Wars’ Joy Williams and John Paul White tender beautifully sparse harmonies in the Grammy winner for Best Song Written for Visual Media. Emotively unfettered, “Safe & Sound” mystically blends indie-pop sensibilities with the sounds of Katniss Everdeen’s Appalachian home, ultimately crafting a delicate and raw showcase for Swift, Williams and White.
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