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Made for MTV

Music videos

From a Mad Hatter tea party to a slow dance with a corpse, Tom Petty made some of the strangest and best videos of the MTV years. Here are 50 official videos with who directed them, who's in them and what they won.

1980s

1980 · Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers · Damn the Torpedoes less certain

Refugee

Directed by John Goodhue

A promo clip of the band playing the second single from Damn the Torpedoes, made to stand in for a live TV appearance.

According to Ultimate Classic Rock, the clip came about after Petty turned down performing on The Merv Griffin Show; the show aired the film instead of a live slot.

Watch the official video · The song, live history and fan clips

Sources: IMVDb: Refugee (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers) · Wikipedia: Tom Petty discography (Music videos) · Ultimate Classic Rock: Tom Petty Videos Ranked

1982 · Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers · Long After Dark

You Got Lucky

Directed by Jim Lenahan

In a Mad Max-style wasteland, Petty and Mike Campbell glide up in a hovercar to a black tent near Vasquez Rocks, where a found cassette player starts the song; the rest of the band roars in on a sidecar motorcycle, Campbell finds a Gretsch for the solo and Howie Epstein hits a slot-machine jackpot.

The band wrote the treatment themselves, borrowing the look of The Road Warrior (Mad Max 2), and Petty later called the clip a groundbreaker. It runs about a minute of story before any music starts, which has led writers to credit it as one of the first videos with a non-musical narrative opening.

Watch the official video · The song, live history and fan clips

Sources: Wikipedia: You Got Lucky · Ultimate Classic Rock: Tom Petty Videos Ranked · No Film School: Tom Petty's Legacy as a Music Video Innovator

1985 · Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers · Southern Accents

Don't Come Around Here No More

Directed by Jeff Stein

Featuring Dave Stewart (as the hookah-smoking Caterpillar); Louise 'Wish' Foley (as Alice)

A dark take on Alice in Wonderland: Alice tumbles into a black-and-white Mad Tea Party hosted by Petty's Mad Hatter, is turned into a cake and eaten by the guests, and the clip closes with the Hatter finishing her off and wiping his mouth as the song cuts off early.

Co-writer Dave Stewart of Eurythmics plays the Caterpillar on a mushroom, sitar in hand. It is the only Petty clip ever nominated for MTV's Video of the Year (Don Henley's 'The Boys of Summer' won).

  • 1985 MTV VMA Best Special Effects in a Video (won)
  • 1985 MTV VMA Video of the Year (nominated)
  • 1985 MTV VMA Best Concept Video (nominated)
  • 1985 MTV VMA Best Direction in a Video (nominated)
  • 1985 MTV VMA Viewer's Choice (nominated)

Watch the official video · The song, live history and fan clips

Sources: Wikipedia: Don't Come Around Here No More · Wikipedia: 1985 MTV Video Music Awards · IMVDb: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers videography

1985 · Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers · Southern Accents

Make It Better (Forget About Me)

Featuring Louise 'Wish' Foley

A follow-up to the Wonderland clip in which a tiny Petty, seen through a fisheye lens, pesters a young woman and crawls into her ear, spoofing the buzzing-insect gag from The Cars' 'You Might Think'.

Louise Foley, Alice in 'Don't Come Around Here No More', returns; the song was co-written with Dave Stewart.

The song, live history and fan clips

Sources: Wikipedia: Make It Better (Forget About Me) · Ultimate Classic Rock: Tom Petty Videos Ranked

1988 · Traveling Wilburys · Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1

Handle with Care

Directed by David Leland

Featuring George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, Jeff Lynne

No gimmicks: the five Wilburys crowd around an old-fashioned omnidirectional microphone and play, intercut with childhood photos of each member.

Shot in early October 1988 in a disused brewery near Union Station in Los Angeles; Leland had just directed Harrison's HandMade Films comedy Checking Out. It became an MTV favourite.

  • 1989 MTV VMA Best Group Video (nominated)

Watch the official video · The song, live history and fan clips

Sources: Wikipedia: Handle with Care (song) · Wikipedia: 1989 MTV Video Music Awards · Ultimate Classic Rock: Tom Petty Videos Ranked

1989 · Traveling Wilburys · Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1

End of the Line

Directed by Willy Smax

Featuring George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Jeff Lynne, Jim Keltner

The group plays in a passenger carriage behind a steam locomotive, Petty on bass; when Roy Orbison's vocal arrives, the camera finds his guitar resting in an empty rocking chair and a framed photo of him.

Filmed in Los Angeles in December 1988 as a tribute to Orbison. The clip was restored in 4K in 2025 from a fresh scan of the original 35mm film.

Watch the official video · The song, live history and fan clips

Sources: Wikipedia: End of the Line (Traveling Wilburys song) · Ultimate Classic Rock: Tom Petty Videos Ranked

1989 · Tom Petty · Full Moon Fever

Free Fallin'

Directed by Julien Temple, Piers Garland

A valentine to Los Angeles that follows a teenage girl through the city, from a 1960s-style pool party to a 1980s skate park, with Petty performing in those spots and others.

Shot around LA, including the since-closed Westside Pavilion mall; its skateboarding scenes put the sport in front of a big MTV audience.

Watch the official video · The song, live history and fan clips

Sources: Wikipedia: Free Fallin' · IMVDb: Free Fallin' · No Film School: Tom Petty's Legacy as a Music Video Innovator

1989 · Tom Petty · Full Moon Fever

I Won't Back Down

Directed by David Leland

Featuring George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Jeff Lynne, Mike Campbell

A performance clip with Petty fronting a star line-up: Harrison and Lynne on guitars and harmonies, Campbell, and Ringo Starr on drums.

Ringo drums in the video even though he does not play on the record, and Campbell plays Harrison's psychedelic-painted 'Rocky' Stratocaster.

Watch the official video · The song, live history and fan clips

Sources: Wikipedia: I Won't Back Down · IMVDb: I Won't Back Down · Ultimate Classic Rock: Tom Petty Videos Ranked

1989 · Tom Petty · Full Moon Fever

Runnin' Down a Dream

Directed by Jim Lenahan

A mostly animated trip through Winsor McCay's Slumberland: a cartoon Petty travels with a Flip-like sidekick and ends up atop the Chrysler Building swatting giant mosquitoes in a King Kong nod.

Lenahan was the Heartbreakers' lighting director; the animation was done by Pittsburgh's Allan & Wilson Animation Studio and Anivision, drawn in McCay's style (Little Nemo, How a Mosquito Operates).

Watch the official video · The song, live history and fan clips

Sources: Wikipedia: Runnin' Down a Dream · No Film School: Tom Petty's Legacy as a Music Video Innovator

1990s

1990 · Traveling Wilburys · Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3

She's My Baby

Directed by David Leland

Featuring George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Jeff Lynne, Jim Keltner

The four remaining Wilburys and drummer Jim Keltner play the song on set, with a quick shot of Dylan pedalling a bicycle around.

Produced by Limelight Films for the first single from Vol. 3 (November 1990).

Watch the official video · The song, live history and fan clips

Sources: Wikipedia: She's My Baby (Traveling Wilburys song) · Ultimate Classic Rock: Tom Petty Videos Ranked

1990 · Tom Petty · Full Moon Fever

Yer So Bad

Directed by Julien Temple

Featuring Charles Rocket

A black comedy that tracks a yuppie couple from wedding reception to divorce: the husband is evicted by sheriff's deputies and ends up with an inflatable doll for company while his ex flirts with the drummer. Petty plays the wedding photographer.

Temple had just directed Charles Rocket in Earth Girls Are Easy.

Watch the official video · The song, live history and fan clips

Sources: Wikipedia: Yer So Bad · Ultimate Classic Rock: Tom Petty Videos Ranked

1991 · Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers · Into the Great Wide Open

Into the Great Wide Open

Directed by Julien Temple

Featuring Johnny Depp (Eddie Rebel), Faye Dunaway (his manager), Gabrielle Anwar (his girlfriend); cameos by Terence Trent D'Arby, Chynna Phillips, Matt LeBlanc

A storybook fable narrated by Petty: small-town Eddie heads to Hollywood, gets a tattoo, is made a star by his landlady-turned-manager and then burns it all down, while a new kid with the same tattoo steps in to take his place.

Shot while Depp and Dunaway were making Arizona Dream. Petty plays several bit parts (narrator, tattoo artist, roadie, reporter) and the Heartbreakers and manager Tony Dimitriades all have cameos; the shoot produced so much footage that the band recut and remixed the song to fit the film.

  • 1992 MTV VMA Best Male Video (nominated)

Watch the official video · The song, live history and fan clips

Sources: Wikipedia: Into the Great Wide Open (song) · Ultimate Classic Rock: Into the Great Wide Open video · Wikipedia: 1992 MTV Video Music Awards

1991 · Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers · Into the Great Wide Open

Learning to Fly

Directed by Julien Temple

A black-and-white clip back in the desert of 'You Got Lucky', with the band perched on top of airplanes while a young boy earns his wings.

Produced by Nitrate Films; the official upload is titled 'Version 1'.

Watch the official video · The song, live history and fan clips

Sources: Wikipedia: Learning to Fly (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers song) · IMVDb: Learning to Fly · Ultimate Classic Rock: Tom Petty Videos Ranked

1991 · Traveling Wilburys · Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3 less certain

Wilbury Twist

Featuring John Candy, Eric Idle, Whoopi Goldberg, Woody Harrelson, Cheech Marin, Fred Savage, Ben Savage, Kala Savage, Jimmy Nail, Milli Vanilli, Thomas Guzman-Sanchez

The band performs the song while a long parade of celebrity guests drops in to try out the dance.

Band and cameo footage was shot at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles. The 2007 Traveling Wilburys Collection DVD uses an edit that keeps only brief intro shots of Candy and Idle; that 2007 edit is what the official channel carries.

Watch the official video · The song, live history and fan clips

Sources: Wikipedia: Wilbury Twist · IMVDb: Wilbury Twist · Ultimate Classic Rock: Tom Petty Videos Ranked

1993 · Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers · Greatest Hits

Mary Jane's Last Dance

Directed by Keir McFarlane

Featuring Kim Basinger

Petty, a morgue attendant, smuggles home a beautiful corpse (Basinger), dresses her as a bride and dances with her among candles before laying her in the sea, where her eyes open.

The rocky-shore finale was filmed at Leo Carrillo State Park in California; the bridal scene nods to Miss Havisham in Great Expectations. Basinger later called it one of the coolest things she ever did.

  • 1994 MTV VMA Best Male Video (won)

Watch the official video · The song, live history and fan clips

Sources: Wikipedia: Mary Jane's Last Dance · Wikipedia: 1994 MTV Video Music Awards · Ultimate Classic Rock: Tom Petty Videos Ranked

1994 · Tom Petty · Wildflowers

You Don't Know How It Feels

Directed by Phil Joanou

Petty, harmonica rack on, sings in a single unbroken take on a revolving set as the scenery turns around him, including a gag borrowed from Buster Keaton's falling house front in Steamboat Bill, Jr.

Produced by O Pictures as the lead clip for Wildflowers.

  • 1995 MTV VMA Best Male Video (won)

Watch the official video · The song, live history and fan clips

Sources: Wikipedia: You Don't Know How It Feels · IMVDb: You Don't Know How It Feels · Wikipedia: 1995 MTV Video Music Awards · No Film School: Tom Petty's Legacy as a Music Video Innovator

1996 · Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers · Songs and Music from "She's the One" less certain

Walls (Circus)

Directed by Phil Joanou

A brightly coloured clip mixing band footage with Indian and Hindu-inspired imagery and scenes of the film's stars.

Premiered in July 1996 to launch the soundtrack to Edward Burns' film She's the One; Lindsey Buckingham sings backing vocals on the track.

Watch the official video · The song, live history and fan clips

Sources: Wikipedia: Walls (Circus) · Ultimate Classic Rock: Tom Petty Videos Ranked

2000s

2010s

2016 · Mudcrutch · 2

I Forgive It All

Directed by Sean Penn, Samuel Bayer

Featuring Anthony Hopkins

A moody black-and-white short: Hopkins drives through what seems to be his old neighbourhood while ghostly fragments of old film and animation drift through his memory, ending alone in a hotel room.

Released in mid-July 2016 to promote Mudcrutch's second album; co-director Samuel Bayer made Nirvana's 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' video.

Watch the official video · The song, live history and fan clips

Sources: Ultimate Classic Rock: Mudcrutch 'I Forgive It All' · Ultimate Classic Rock: Tom Petty Videos Ranked

2018 · Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers · An American Treasure

Gainesville

Directed by Brantley Gutierrez

Early-1970s home movies and career footage of Petty intercut with new film of his Florida hometown: Spanish moss, a sandhill crane, an alligator, kids swimming at Blue Spring, Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, Lillian's Music Store, Sonny's BBQ and the town's Petty murals.

An Echo-era (1998) outtake, released October 1, 2018 as the third video from the box set. The crew also filmed at Paynes Prairie and Hawthorne Road, guided by family friend Chris Nixon and Heavy Petty frontman Jason Hedges; a 1973 Hawthorne Road party photo shows members of Mudcrutch.

Watch the official video

Sources: WUFT: Nostalgia-tinged music video for 'Gainesville' · Ultimate Classic Rock: Tom Petty Videos Ranked

2020s

2020 · Tom Petty · Wildflowers & All the Rest

Leave Virginia Alone

Directed by Mark Seliger, Adria Petty

Featuring Casimere Jollette (as Virginia)

A character study following a young woman, Virginia, through different chapters of her life, letting Petty's vocal carry the story.

Petty wrote the song early in the Wildflowers sessions and passed it to Rod Stewart, who released it in 1995; Petty's own version only came out with the 2020 reissue. Seliger said the directors wanted Petty's voice to serve as the narrator.

Watch the official video

Sources: Spin: Tom Petty's 'Leave Virginia Alone' video · Ultimate Classic Rock: Tom Petty Videos Ranked

2020 · Tom Petty · Wildflowers & All the Rest

Something Could Happen

Directed by Warren Fu

Featuring Lauren Cohan

A modern fairy tale in the spirit of 'Into the Great Wide Open': a lonely woman throws away keepsakes from her past, which come to life and try to find their way home.

Premiered December 8, 2020 during an hour-long livestream on Petty's YouTube channel. Fu packed in Easter eggs from earlier clips, including the skywritten heart from 'Free Fallin'', the crown from 'It's Good to Be King' and a dog collar marked 'R' for Petty's dog Ryder.

Watch the official video

Sources: Spin: Tom Petty 'Something Could Happen' video · Ultimate Classic Rock: Tom Petty Videos Ranked

Official videos open on YouTube. Fan-shot concert clips are in the Video Vault. Missing one? Tell us.