Cinema’s 10 Best Guitar Players, Ranked

Ever since Homer’s Odyssey, music has been an important part of storytelling. It can characterize, soothe, excite, persuade, seduce, motivate, and terrify. It can set a tone, make people dance, break hearts, and make something as boring as driving a car exciting. No matter what, music always has meaning and purpose.

Few musical instruments are more iconic than the guitar, an instrument that can work in almost any genre. Axes, six-strings, gitboxes, fiddles, whatever you prefer to call them, there’s something about the sound and look of a guitar that fits the silver screen, so to honor the timeless instrument, we’re ranking ten of cinema’s most talented strummers.

10 Matt ‘Guitar’ Murphy – The Blues Brothers (1980)

When Jake and Elwood Blues (John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd) resolve to get their band back together to perform a concert to raise money to save the orphanage they were raised in, they know an integral piece of their puzzle is Matt Murphy.

A blues guitarist so good that the instrument itself became his nickname, Matt Murphy was a real-life guitarist who played with blues legends, but his most impressive performance came towards the end of The Blues Brothers when he played for so long that the brothers had time to sneak out and avoid the police waiting for them.

9 Llewyn Davis – Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)

The Coen Brothers’ Oscar-nominated Inside Llewyn Davis examines a week in the life of a broke, couch-surfing musician named Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac) as he navigates the Greenwich Village folk music scene in 1961.

Davis endures no shortage of depressing hardships and obstacles on his journey (often through his own doing), but he does an amazing job of turning his feelings and experiences into beautifully soulful music, which features catchy and impressive chord progression and fingerpicking. Fans of Bob Dylan will be especially partial to this one.

8 Cassandra Wong – Wayne’s World (1992)

Like The Blues Brothers, Wayne’s World is another fun musical movie that finds its origin in Saturday Night Live performances. A shredding and wailing tour de force, Cassandra (Tia Carrere) first catches the eye of Wayne (Mike Myers) while she’s performing with her band at a heavy-metal night club, where he instantly falls in love with her.

While Cassandra plays more bass than guitar, her performance of “Ballroom Blitz” near the end of the movie is righteous enough to put her on the list, and she returns to rock Wayne’s world again a year later in Wayne’s World 2.

7 Kyle Gass – Tenacious D In The Pick Of Destiny (2006)

The lead guitarist and one half of the comedy rock duo Tenacious D, Kyle Gass’s introduction in Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny instantly demonstrates his guitar-playing abilities. In a song that’s since been titled “Classico”, Gass seamlessly blends classical selections from Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart on his guitar while Jack Black improvises lyrics, demonstrating the duo’s instant and natural chemistry

A Grammy Award-Winner, Gass shreds plenty of impressive jams throughout the movie and the Tenacious D HBO show, including one featuring a triple-neck guitar, and a couple more in musical duels with Satan.

6 Marty McFly – Back To The Future (1985)

The opening scene of Back to the Future sees 17-year-old Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) plug his guitar into a comically oversized amp before strumming a chord loud enough to send him flying across the room.

McFly pleads with his principal to let him play at an upcoming school dance, only to get his wish granted after traveling back to 1955 and accidentally injuring the hand of the guitar player at the school dance where his parents fell in love. McFly makes the most of his opportunity, delivering a memorable performance of “Johnny B. Goode” ending in a show-stopping solo that blends Chuck Berry with Angus Young.

5 Zack Mooneyham – School Of Rock (2003)

13-year-old Zack Mooneyham (Joey Gaydos Jr.) is a classically trained guitarist who quickly catches the eye of substitute teacher and wannabe rock star Dewey Finn (Jack Black), who molds Zack into the Flying V-playing rock guitarist known as “Zack Attack” in School of Rock.

Dewey soon realizes that Zack is a better guitarist and songwriter than himself, prompting his decision to play Zack’s song at their climactic battle of the bands performance, featuring an awesome solo from the student. Oddly enough, Gaydos was arrested four times for stealing guitars in 2019.

4 SpongeBob – The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004)

During his show’s ongoing 21-year run and two feature-length movies (with a third on the way), the famous sea sponge is best known for grilling patties, catching jellyfish, and driving poorly, but it’s often forgotten that he saved the entire ocean with his guitar shredding abilities in The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie.

Shamed for his immaturity throughout the story, SpongeBob finally learns to accept and embrace who he is by delivering an inspiring rendition of “Goofy Goober Rock” (a play on Twisted Sister’s “I Wanna Rock”) that frees the ocean citizens and foils Plankton’s evil plans.

3 The Doof Warrior – Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

There are several factors that play into how impressive Coma the Doof Warrior’s (Iota) performance is in Mad Max: Fury Road. Blind since birth, he’s missing both eyeballs, not that you’d know since he wears a mask made from the skin of his murdered mother’s screaming face.

Throughout the pursuit of Max (Tom Hardy) by the warlord Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne), Coma relentlessly shreds riffs from his double-necked flamethrowing guitar while standing atop the Doof Wagon, a massive music-blasting truck designed to rally Joe’s troops and keep them pumped up for battle.

2 Nigel Tufnel – This Is Spinal Tap (1984)

All other guitarists on this list are limited by the simple fact that the loudest setting on their guitars and amps is 10, while Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest) – lead guitarist for the titular metal band in This Is Spinal Tap – can turn his amps up to 11, which is one louder.

This hysterical mockumentary features plenty of memorable musical performances from Nigel, but none more impressive than his solo that starts on one guitar before including a second guitar played by foot before Nigel picks up a violin, which he ridiculously uses as a guitar pick.

1 Eugene Martone – Crossroads (1986)

Eugene Martone (Ralph Macchio) is a talented guitarist studying classical music at Julliard who tracks down Willie Brown (Joe Seneca) – a blues musician who played with Eugene’s idol and legendary guitarist Robert Johnson.

When Eugene learns that Brown sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for his musical abilities, the pair go on a musical journey together to the very Crossroads where Brown made his deal, resulting in an epic guitar duel between Eugene and the Devil’s disciple (Steve Vai) for the fate of Brown’s soul. Your toe will tap and your jaw will drop at the incredible combination of blues, metal, and classical music.

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