Kanye West’s ‘Runaway’ Joins List of Most Epic Music Videos.

“Runaway,” which will premiere on MTV and BET on Saturday night at 8 p.m. ET, tells the story of a phoenix (model Selita Ebanks) who falls to Earth and is saved by Kanye (Griffin), but later burns up after suffering the ridicule of small-minded earthlings.

The convoluted plot, the ambitious scale and eye-popping visuals were inspired by some of Jackson’s most beloved work, and West has said he was aiming for the same kind of grandeur as MJ’s legendary mold-breaker “Thriller.” If nothing else, the “Runaway” clip is expected to take the crown as the longest music video ever released, and perhaps point the way to a new, even more cinematic future for promotional music videos.

History will decide if he hits the mark, but in the meantime, here is a select list of some of the most ambitious videos of all time:

Michael Jackson:

There’s a reason Jackson is considered the greatest video artist of all time. The former child prodigy fully embraced the then-burgeoning medium in the early 1980s and went on to make some of the most iconic clips of all time. Beginning with 1983’s landmark 14-minute “Thriller,” Jackson gave notice that promotional clips could be more than mere ads for songs. With direction and a screenplay co-written by movie director John Landis, a chilling monster movie story, elaborate costumes and Hollywood-worthy sets, the Halloween-themed mini-movie set the bar and ended up as the first video to ever be inducted into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress.

But Jackson didn’t stop there. He went on to release a string of equally ambitious and big-budget clips, from the racial harmony-themed “Black or White” (which employed then-new morphing technology) to the Martin Scorsese-directed “Bad,” the street-gang tale “Beat It” and the most expensive video ever filmed: his space-themed duet with sister Janet, “Scream.”



Guns N’ Roses:

No slouches themselves, the pugnacious 1990s hard rockers released a trio of epic clips from their Use Your Illusion albums with a thematic through line. The idea was to make three short films that would end up telling one coherent story. First up, “Don’t Cry,” which was co-written by singer Axl Rose, was shot like a film and features clips of the band performing on a skyscraper rooftop interspersed with scenes in which a seemingly depressive Rose has a gun taken away from him by then-girlfriend Stephanie Seymour. There are other dramatic scenes in hospitals and underwater.

Next up was “November Rain,” based on a short story written by band biographer Del James. Again based on a difficult relationship between Rose and a woman (this time, his ex-wife Erin Everly), the clip finds Rose composing a song for his unattainable love and proceeds to a dramatic wedding between Rose and Seymour. There’s a massive rain storm, scenes of guitarist Slash playing a solo in a wheat field and shots of Seymour in a coffin.

The final film, the nine-minute “Estranged,” has the band playing live on the Sunset Strip, as well as images of Rose jumping off an oil tanker into the ocean and swimming with dolphins.

Lady Gaga:

Though she’s a relatively new artist, Lady Gaga has picked up the mantle of her musical godmother, Madonna, and turned the art of the music video into an event, as well as an opportunity to push the envelope when it comes to sexuality and religion.

Graduating from fairly tame dance pop efforts such as “Poker Face,” Gaga quickly upped the ante with the eight-minute clip for “Paparazzi,” directed by Jonas Akerlund (Madonna, U2). The clip stars “True Blood” vampire Alexander Skarsgard as a love interest, who tosses the singer over a balcony after she becomes enraged that he summoned photographers to her mansion. It features elaborate costumes and dance sequences that would soon become Gaga’s visual calling card.

From her razor-blade sunglasses to a white coffin, frantic lap dances, a polar bear jacket and a pyrotechnic bra, the “Bad Romance” clip upped the ante. But it was just a tease for the truly over-the-top video for “Telephone.” Again teaming with Akerlund, Gaga created a nine-minute modern feminist classic that takes her from a prison dance routine featuring cigarette glasses, lesbian make-out sessions and a commissary catfight to a jailbreak with Beyonce, a joyride in the “Kill Bill” “pussy wagon” and the poisoning of model Tyrese Gibson in a funky coffee shop.