Muse - Knights Of Cydonia (Video)

What this video is

Released in 2006 alongside Muse's fourth studio album Black Holes and Revelations, 'Knights of Cydonia' arrived at a cultural moment defined by post-9/11 political anxiety, the global War on Terror, and widespread disillusionment with institutional power — themes the song's anti-authoritarian lyrics directly addressed. The video's schizophrenic genre mashup of spaghetti western, kung fu film, and low-budget sci-fi…

Why it matters

One of the definitive examples of the music video as short film — a form that peaked in the mid-2000s before budget contractions reshaped the industry. The video demonstrated that alternative rock could compete cinematically with hip-hop's then-dominant big-budget video aesthetic. Its…

The director

Born Ahn Jun-hee on October 12, 1972, in Busan, South Korea; raised in Livorno, Italy and Houston, Texas. Attended NYU Tisch School of the Arts before dropping out. Began directing hip hop music videos in Houston in the early 1990s. Has directed over 180…