So you’re watching “Forrest Gump” get dropped into the jungles of Vietnam, and you find yourself asking “Was this war good… or bad?” Before you have the chance to arrive at any conclusions on your own, the opening notes of “Fortunate Son” kick in and lay all ambiguity to rest: in this war, the less affluent are sent to die, and that’s bad. You’re awash with the relief of being told how to feel, and you get to enjoy a tune by your favorite band Creedence Clearwater Revival.

But wait- you’ve never heard of CCR before? This film is your first exposure to the thick bayou drawl of Bay Area native John Fogerty? Well, we could give you a bunch of shit for not knowing your rock ‘n’ roll history, but instead we’ll tell on ourselves too. Here’s a comprehensive list of times we discovered bands because of a popular movie.

10. Dropkick Murphys, “The Departed”

For how much he loves needle drops, it’s surprising that the Dropkick Murphys’ “I’m Shipping Up To Boston” is the only sea shanty Scorcese ever put in a movie. The accordion has never sounded quite as hard as it does accompanying a surly Dicaprio on his mission to infiltrate the Boston mob; and if you walked out of the theater wondering if your new favorite band has any more songs about Boston, good news: they pretty much only do.

9. Elliott Smith, “Good Will Hunting”

Speaking of Bean Town, it was only logical that when director Gus Van Sant heard the intimate, whispered vocals of Portland-based singer/songwriter Elliott Smith, he said to himself “These songs sound like they’re about a secretly genius janitor who works at MIT.” The “Good Will Hunting” soundtrack featured six fucking songs by Smith, making it no longer just music for you to cry alone to. It’s also music you can get your ass beat by a Sox fan to.

8. Weezer, “Mallrats”

Hey grandkids, did you know Weezer didn’t used to be dogshit? You did if you saw 1995’s “Mallrats.” At the end of the movie, Jay and Silent Bob team up with an Orangutan named Suzanne, and the trio walk off into the sunset to a Weezer b-side, aptly titled “Susanne” (OK, different spelling but it still works). The beloved ‘90s icons of Jay, Silent Bob, and Weezer all continue to crank out worse and worse content to this day, while the orangutan who played Susanne retired from acting and lives in a great ape sanctuary- a place remote enough that no new Weezer albums or Kevin Smith films can harm her.

7. Lou Reed, “Trainspotting”

Thank god for Lou Reed and Danny Boyle, who delivered such gripping depictions of heroin addiction that we didn’t have to try it ourselves. Watching the overdosing Rent Boy sink into a carpet over the melancholic monotone of “Perfect Day” gave us the gist: this drug is so good that it’ll kill ya’. And it turned out Reed had a pretty cool band before he went solo, too.

6. Wings, “Licorice Pizza”

“Trainspotting” may ask us “Who needs reasons when you have heroin,” but Paul McCartney asks us “Who needs heroin when you have herbal jazz cigarettes, man?” Although primarily known for being the dorkiest Beatle not named Ringo, Sir Paul was also in a band called Wings, and Paul Thomas Anderson turned us all onto them by including their doob-raising anthem “Let Me Roll It” in his coming-of-age comedy “Licorice Pizza.”

5. Buzzcocks, “Ghost World”

Enid Coleslaw speaks to all of us who have tried to go punk and failed. In the Gen-X love letter/send-up “Ghost World,” we watch Enid dye her hair green while blasting “What Do I Get?” by 1970s Brit-punkers the Buzzcocks, only to be ridiculed by her friends and told that punk is over. Punk may be over, but being a poser will never die.

4. Generation X, “SLC Punk!”

Another ode to poserdom, “SLC Punk!” gave us a lot of bands we can pretend we liked before they were big. The use of “Kiss Me Deadly” by Billy Idol’s original group Generation X is especially memorable: it’s played in the film’s climatic flashback as we watch younger versions of the SLC punks throw their Rush tapes away for something more edgy, aggressive, and above all, “new.” If only they’d known they were allowed to like punk rock and D&D, maybe Heroin Bob would still be alive.

3. Dead Kennedys, “Green Room”

Unfortunately where punks breed, there sometimes appears the human pond scum of Nazi punks; who, it cannot be said enough, need to fuck off. In the garageband slasher “Green Room,” a touring band finds themselves booked in a skinhead bar, and let the racists have it with a rousing rendition of the Dead Kennedys succinctly titled “Nazi Punks Fuck Off.” The band pays for the insult dearly in a brutal battle royale with white supremacists, but hey, at least they went out fighting nazis. The only downside to getting into DK is that you now have to pretend to like Jello Biafra’s spoken-word albums too.

2. Rage Against the Machine, “The Matrix”

“What if we were all living in a simulation, bro? Do you ever think about that? What if we’re all, like, human batteries? Doesn’t that trip you out??” These are just some of the deep questions raised by “The Matrix,” which also introduced dudes in Jeeps across the country to the Rage Against the Machine banger called “Wake Up.” Even though concepts like taking the red pill and rapping over rock music have been sullied by losers like Elon Musk and Fred Durst, it’s nice to recall a more innocent time when rebellion belonged to the good guys.

1. Smash Mouth, “Shrek”

…Innocent times like the Spring of 2001! A time when America had not yet been gripped by the jingoistic bloodlust that followed 9/11, when Tom Cruise was newly single and hadn’t broken any couches, and when the world was about to meet a grumpy old ogre who was a bit lacking in the manners department— but enough about Smash Mouth lead singer Steve Harwell! “Shrek” fever coursed through our piggy veins, and “All Star” coursed through our first-generation Ipods. Eventually, “Shrek” went on to spawn an entire film franchise, and Smash Mouth went on to host several superspreader events during the deadly COVID-19 pandemic. But those of us who first heard them at the movies got the best of the band, skipping over their ska-rock roots and getting straight to “All Star”- a song everyone loves to perform at karaoke that no one ever wants to hear performed at karaoke again.