Songs that made film scenes unforgettable

A mix of classic rock, dance, pop and blues, these needle drops are right for the moment.

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FROM left, a scene from “Weapons,” Chase Infiniti as Willa in “One Battle After Another,” and Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson in “Die My Love.”

(Photo illustration by JOSEP PRAT SOROLLA For The Times; photos by Warner Bros. Pictures, Mub)

Tunes — well-chosen ones — turn normal movie scenes into electric ones.

Needle drops, they’re called in the film world. (And don’t laugh: Several of the filmmakers mentioned are, indeed, dropping turntable needles onto vinyl records.)

What makes for a good needle drop? Sometimes it’s comic irony. Elsewhere, it’s trapping the sincerity of a moment in the amber glow of a perfect pop song, one you'll never think of in the same way again.

We went through the entire year and grabbed a dozen of our favorites, listed below in no particular order - feel free to resequence them into your own personal playlist.

The Spice Girls, '2 Become 1,' as heard in 'Together'

Dave Franco and Alison Brie are married in real life, but in the body horror romance "Together," they play an engaged couple named Tim and Millie who might be happier breaking up.

He's a frustrated, flunked-out rock star; she’s a schoolteacher who loves the Spice Girls. Writer-director Michael Shanks plays their discordant musical taste like a minor joke among all the major reasons why their codependent relationship has hit the skids. As a Hail Mary, Tim and Millie move from the city to the countryside for some miserable quality time — and there, deep in the woods, an eerie cave infects Tim's skin cells with the urge to merge with Millie permanently. It all climaxes ina slow dance to the 1996 grrrl-pop ballad that’s never felt more sticky-sweet. — Amy Nicholson

Jack O’Connell, Lola Kirke and Peter Dreimanis, ‘Pick Poor Robin Clean,’ as heard in ‘Sinners’