{"id":1079711,"date":"2026-07-10T03:01:19","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T03:01:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1079711\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T03:01:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T03:01:19","slug":"how-some-of-bonnie-tylers-biggest-hits-made-memorable-movie-scenes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1079711\/","title":{"rendered":"How some of Bonnie Tyler’s biggest hits made memorable movie scenes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welsh singer Bonnie Tyler has died at the age of 75, with fans across generations mourning her death.<\/p>\n

While her songs are hits from the 1980s, her music continuously found newer, younger audiences thanks to it soundtracking memorable scenes in movies throughout the decades.<\/p>\n

Here’s a brief look at the impact Tyler had on pop culture.<\/p>\n

What were Bonnie Tyler’s biggest hits?<\/p>\n

Power ballad Total Eclipse of the Heart<\/strong> is an undeniable classic which, as of this morning, had chalked up a staggering 1.2 billion plays on Spotify alone.<\/p>\n

It’s hard to top a billion streams, but Holding Out For a Hero <\/strong>and It’s a Heartache<\/strong> are two stand-outs that complete Tyler’s golden trio of pop songs.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Bonnie Tyler was known for her gravelly voice and powerful 80s ballads. (Reuters: Jessica Gow)<\/p>\n

Her first hit on the music charts was a song called Lost in France<\/strong><\/a>, from her debut album The World Starts Tonight.<\/p>\n

Her covers have also had some serious staying power, including her piano-heavy rendition of Have You Ever Seen the Rain? <\/strong>which completely re-imagined the Creedence Clear Water Revival’s original version.<\/p>\n

And it would be a crime not to point out that Tina Turner’s classic NRL anthem Simply The Best<\/a> was actually a cover of Tyler’s original version of the song, which was just called The Best<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Tyler’s music stands up on its own, but became even more powerful when used in film, so let’s look at the impact she had on cinema.<\/p>\n

Footloose, 1984<\/p>\n

Two young blokes diving tractors might sound pretty dull, but the concept made for an epic scene when paired with Holding Out For a Hero<\/strong> in Footloose.<\/p>\n

The song plays as Kevin Bacon’s character, Ren, faces off against Jim Youngs’s character, Chuck, in a high-stakes, low-speed game of chicken.<\/p>\n

Tyler’s gravelly voice rings out, building tension as the two fierce opponents pootle towards each other on clunky, slow-moving farm machinery.<\/p>\n

Loading…<\/p>\n

Bacon paid tribute to Tyler after her death, calling her “one of the great voices of rock” in a statement to Entertainment Weekly<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“I could not imagine chicken racing a tractor to any other song. RIP,” he said.<\/p>\n

Shrek 2, 2004<\/p>\n

The Shrek franchise was never going to fail, but its lingering popularity might not have been as potent without the inclusion of Holding Out For a Hero<\/strong> in a pivotal scene towards the end of the sequel.<\/p>\n

Performed by Jennifer Saunders, who voiced the Fairy Godmother, the song blasts out as Shrek, Donkey and their fairytale creature mates valiantly storm a castle to reach Princess Fiona in time.<\/p>\n

The fast-paced action scene is peppered with pop culture references and cut with snippets of the Fairy Godmother belting out the track on stage wearing a red sparkly dress, building up to a thrilling climax.<\/p>\n

Loading…<\/p>\n

For years now, people have been reposting the scene on social media along with a variation of “the greatest musical moment in cinematic history” or “the best action sequence of all time” in the captions and comment section.<\/p>\n

And in a world of ever diminishing attention spans on social media, many will find themselves watching the scene in its entirety when it inevitably pops up on their feed.<\/p>\n

Diary of a Wimpy Kid, 2010<\/p>\n

Diary of a Wimpy Kid features a scene where schoolchildren are auditioning for parts in a play and, instead of a song from the production, they’re instructed to sing Total Eclipse of the Heart<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The film features a montage of youngsters attempting the song with varying degrees of success, before the main character, Greg Heffley, nails it.<\/p>\n

It introduced the song to a whole new generation of young fans.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The film featured some interesting interpretations of the song. (Supplied: Disney)<\/p>\n

The last showgirl, 2025<\/p>\n

In perhaps one of the more poignant uses of Total Eclipse of the Heart<\/strong>, The Last Showgirl features Jamie Lee Cutis dancing to the track in a casino.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The unscripted scene packed an emotional punch. (Supplied: Roadside Attractions)<\/p>\n

With frosty, metallic-blue painted eyes and cheap-looking orange coat over a black leotard, Curtis gives the performance her all.<\/p>\n

But no one seems to notice.<\/p>\n

She dances on a podium surrounded by slot machines, with gamblers barely paying her a passing glimpse as they move through the casino.<\/p>\n

The scene wasn’t originally in the script and Curtis filmed it in just one take with little warning.<\/p>\n

But it was one of the most moving and talked about scenes in the film, with Curtis telling Empire<\/a> the sequence “broke my heart. Kills me every time”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Welsh singer Bonnie Tyler has died at the age of 75, with fans across generations mourning her death.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1079712,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3935],"tags":[295603,207540,295602,295601,77,134527,101911,176788,3943,295598,295599,16,15,295600,295597],"class_list":["post-1079711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-bonnie-taylor","tag-bonnie-tyler","tag-bonny-taylor","tag-bonny-tyler","tag-entertainment","tag-footloose","tag-jennifer-saunders","tag-meatloaf","tag-movies","tag-shrek-2","tag-total-eclipse-of-the-heart","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-who-is-bonnie-tyler","tag-who-sang-holding-on-for-a-hero"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116893457378109636","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1079711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1079711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1079711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1079712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1079711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1079711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1079711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}