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Katy Perry’s best music videos, ranked
As the pop star prepares to make a return to touring, we scroll back through her videography to find our favourites
The defining characteristic of a Katy Perry music video? Total commitment to the bit. Since 2008, the pop star has been turning out beautifully unhinged short films, often packed with plot and pastel wigs, and sometimes taking turns totally impossible for the viewer to predict. Ahead of Perry’s 2025 tour, we took a look back through her best videos to date, and assembled our top 20.
20. ‘Swish Swish’
Whilst definitely a moment in pop culture and notable enough to make our top 20, this basketball-themed offering is a little too overstuffed with celebrity cameos and bizarre visual gags to climb any further up. There are still plenty of great moments from a supporting cast that includes Molly Shannon, Gaten Matarazzo and Terry Crews, though, and Perry herself is on form. With the performance, that is. Less so the basketball. Nicki Minaj also puts in a memorable appearance with one of her best guest verses.
19. ‘Woman’s World’
The newest entry on this list, ‘Woman’s World’ divided the internet when it was released, and then the video did it again. Is the whole thing satire? Is it played outrageously and hilariously straight? We suspect the truth lies somewhere in the middle, as it does for many of Perry’s most memorable career moments. “I am Katy Perry!” she screams, hanging off the side of a helicopter in a bikini and thigh-high mechanical boots. Isn’t she just.
18. ‘The One That Got Away’
An elderly version of Perry – in some truly diabolical prosthetics – returns to her cold, bare house to stroke her loveless marriage bed and cry. She’s mourning the anniversary of the love of her life driving off a cliff, and flashing back through a highlight reel of their relationship. Younger Katy journeys through a magic closet to meet her older self and sobs inconsolably when she realises the future that’s coming for her. It’s all pretty harrowing. Is it unfair to rank this lower than it otherwise would place solely because of some budget-friendly 2011 prosthetics? Yes, but we’re doing it anyway.
17. ‘Firework’
At one point in this video, a little girl with cancer wanders down her hospital corridor and watches a woman screaming in pain whilst giving birth. If that wasn’t traumatic enough for both of them, she has fireworks exploding from her stomach. Elsewhere in the same video, a magician throws live doves at his muggers and Katy becomes a human sparkler. It’s truly a magical time.
16. ‘Teenage Dream’
Perry and her lover take a drive through a 2010 Instagram filter, whilst she does her level best to distract her man from the road. The ‘Teenage Dream’ video nails the carefree, honeymoon-phase feeling of the original song, with lots of dancing on beaches and fumbling with buttons. A few points off for Katy dancing in the ocean in skinny jeans, though.
15. ‘I Kissed A Girl’
Considering what a career-launching phenomenon the single was, the ‘I Kissed A Girl’ music video is surprisingly lowkey. Perry’s performance is the centre, against a backdrop of body parts and lingerie – along with, interestingly, a pre-famous Kesha. Despite the song’s subject matter Perry doesn’t get particularly intimate with anyone other than her cat. There’s not much to find fault with, though.
14. ‘Thinking Of You’
Set in the 40s, this is one of Perry’s more serious videos – she plays a wartime widow trying to move on from the death of her soldier husband. Similarly to ‘The One That Got Away’, she’s routinely pulled back into flashbacks of their wild swimming trips or dances in the village hall, and struggles to be intimate with her new partner. We’re actually shown her husband’s fatal wounding, which is unexpected, but overall ‘Thinking Of You’ is a simple concept well-executed.
13. ‘Part Of Me’
A hard one to rank, but undeniably original. After finding her boyfriend flirting with another girl, Perry breaks up with him and stumbles across a noticeboard vaguely suggesting she sign up to be a marine. So, naturally, she does. There’s a slightly confusing scene where she cuts off her hair in a bathroom and binds her chest – there are plenty of women in the army, so the Mulan moment feels a tad unnecessary – but after that she’s headfirst into basic training. “Look at me, I’m sparkling,” she sings, in camo and a bullet proof vest, carrying an assault rifle. Even a ‘take me back’ letter from her ex (written inexplicably in all caps) can’t sway her from her chosen path of crawling under barbed wire, storming nondescript beaches and dancing under giant American flags.
12. ‘Daisies’
An uncharacteristically stripped-back offering from Perry, shot on what looks to be a handheld camcorder, as a pregnant Perry wonders the forest in a long white dress and swims naked by a waterfall. It’s a nice contrast to much of her videography and, unlike other atmosphere-over-plot offerings, is beautiful enough never to be boring.
11. ‘Chained To The Rhythm’
Perry’s ‘purposeful pop’ shift didn’t convince everyone, but the ‘Chained To The Rhythm’ video knows exactly what it is and does it wonderful. The visuals are deliberately overblown and the commentary deliberately heavy-handed. The styling and set-design are both brilliantly done – Katy wonders into a pastel dystopia theme park called Oblivia to explore the metaphor-laden rides they have on offer and becomes self-aware when Skip Marley steps out of a TV to educate her. Her performance is great, the aesthetic is fun, and there’s just the right amount of plot.
10. ‘365’
Another slightly dystopian concept – Perry is an android being tested by a team of scientists to see if she can perform well enough as a wife to make a man fall in love with her. Despite her best, most obsessive efforts, he’s not a huge fan of being watched whilst he sleeps and embraced so hard his ribs get bruised. Ultimately, she fails to win him over, and as she’s malfunctioning she catches a glimpse of the army of identical Katys waiting to take her place. Many of Perry’s best videos execute a fun concept with a clear aesthetic and just the right amount of humour, and ‘365’ does exactly that.
9. ‘Cry About It Later’
Perry’s ‘Smile’ video series saw her singles used to create a string of animated shorts in varying styles – a fun change of pace from her extravagant sets and plot-heavy music videos. ‘Cry About It Later’, the best of the bunch, sees a young witch on a night out around her magical world. She dances with Prince Charming, sips drinks with a handsome elf, shares a meal with a dwarf and bites a vampire, but ultimately goes to rescue to the women she likes from an unhappy relationship. They share a kiss on her broom and fly away into the night – a sweet ending to an entertaining short film.
8. ‘Roar’
When Perry and her fellow explorer crash-land in the middle of the jungle, his first priority is to do some Nokia product placement. He’s quickly punished for this (a tiger eats him) and Perry shakes off her nerves and sets about establishing herself as queen of the jungle. There’s a lovely sequence where hundreds of watching yellow eyes are transformed into fireflies, and Perry has great fun befriending animals and crafting accessories. The fact that she did presumably skin a leopard to make her outfit is glossed over.
7. ‘Wide Awake’
Perry’s most self-referential video – she begins by taking us back to her ‘California Gurls’ video, before heading into her dressing room to fall into a dream sequence. Meeting her younger self in a maze, the two navigate a wealth of symbolism that ends with Perry punching Prince Charming in the face. Little Katy places a butterfly in her older self’s hand before riding up off on a little pink bike, and Perry comes to in another dressing room, before heading out onstage to perform ‘Teenage Dream’. None of it is subtle, but why should it be? The larger-than-life self-exploration of it all is great fun.
6. ‘California Gurls’
In a board game that appears to be Snoop Dogg’s own very sketchy arts and crafts project, Perry rescues models from various confectionary cages. There’s a surprising amount of violence, including the horrific murder of a gingerbread man and Snoop helming an army of gummy bears, but ultimately the whole thing is a hilarious, sugary treat. Aesthetically, it’s her most referenced project – the various candy-themed looks are the accepted way to dress up as Perry for Halloween – but whilst as fun and eye-popping as it should be, it still doesn’t quite crack the top five.
5. ‘Last Friday Night’
Perry has never met an 80s aesthetic she doesn’t like. The music video for ‘Last Friday Night’ is styled after a retro teen comedy – jock Darren Criss thanks geek Katy (in full headgear) for the ‘best party of all time’, as she assesses her ruined bedroom and pieces the night together. This is back in the era where the lyrics of Perry’s songs are portrayed so literally in their accompanying videos that each one has the feel of a movie musical, and in this case it totally works. The addition of Rebecca Black, Glee’s Kevin McHale, some egregious Just Dance product placement and Kyle Mooney on the saxophone turn the whole thing into a wonderful fever dream, and even a slightly awkward ending skit when the parents return doesn’t drag it down.
4. ‘Bon Appétit’
The neon ‘NSFW’ that predicates the video isn’t lying – ‘Bon Appetit’ is genuinely disturbing. Perry injects a good amount of body horror into this food-focused video – she arrives shrink wrapped, is floured and kneaded into oblivion, boiled in a cauldron of stew and basted in oil. Her hair is chopped off with a carving knife and her tongue is singed, before she’s finally presented on the main table of a club covered in herbs. A little assistance from Migos sees her turn the tables, however, and the team of chefs set upon the would-be feasters, presenting Katy with a horrific human pie. Bananas as it, the whole thing works.
3. ‘Never Really Over’
Far less busy than many of her famous videos, ‘Never Really Over’ comes in surprisingly high on this list simply because it looks beautiful. A colour palate of blues and oranges and a dreamy, psychedelic feel make it one of Perry’s most visually cohesive videos, and the premise – that Perry is checking herself in to a magical wellness retreat to mend her broken heart – is simple but effective. Add in a few cheeky Perry-esque details – like the crystal-studded acupuncture needles in her face – and the whole thing comes together.
2. ‘Hot N Cold’
Perry’s first big narrative video, and certainly one for the books. Establishing Perry’s talent as a performer and her love of a visual gag, ‘Hot N Cold’ goes in a number of directions, all of them wonderfully unhinged. The video opens with Perry saying ‘I do’ at the altar, whilst her husband-to-be falters over his answer. Perry then pursues him like a very indignant phantom through a number of different sets, accompanied by a squad of jilted brides wielding baseball bats. The costume changes are plentiful, the humour is infectious and Perry is shining. It’s everything she does best.
1. ‘Waking Up In Vegas’
Potentially controversial, but Perry’s best video is not her most famous. It’s hard to understand why ‘Waking Up in Vegas’ hasn’t made a bigger splash in pop culture – it’s certainly not a fault of Perry’s, who acts her socks off throughout the entire thing. Adorably literal, the video follows Perry and her man graduating from a slot machine win to the penthouse of a fancy hotel – before they start losing and the whole thing starts falling apart. There’s fun moments a-plenty – Penn and Teller getting booted out of their suite, Perry and boyfriend at the altar with an Elvis impersonator, the pop star stealing food from room-service trays as her luck starts to run out – and the whole thing adds up to one fabulous spectacle. Which, of course, is what Perry does best.
Katy Perry returns to the UK this October 2025. Find tickets for her UK tour here
