The singles for Charli xcx’s much-anticipated Brat follow-up, Music, Fashion, Film, have followed a pattern: “Rock Music” represented – surprise, surprise – music, “SS26” represented fashion, and now today’s release “Camera” completes the film corner of this trifecta. 

Starring French actor Vincent Cassel (La Haine, Shrek, Black Swan), as well as featuring frequent references to the legendary Hollywood star James Dean, the video is a not-so-subtle nod to Charli’s forays in filmmaking and acting in the two years since Brat shook the world in 2024. She even acknowledges the experience directly in the closing lyrics of the track, singing: “I don’t feel embarrassed even if I suck / I’m always craving an experience that feels dangerous / And maybe this is it, maybe it’s what I need / ‘Cause it’s the only way to feel like I’m not actually me.”

But, of course, true Angels know that this isn’t the first time Charli has referenced cinema in her music. Below, we break down five other landmark examples. 

PULP FICTION

n 2016, Charli xcx released the Vroom Vroom EP, a slick, left-field pivot into the underground, shaped by production and collaboration with PC Music affiliates SOPHIE, AG Cook and Hannah Diamond. While the title track has often drawn the most attention, it is neighbouring cut “Trophy” that delivers the project’s most direct cinematic reference. Before it snaps into its jerky hooks and bouncing beat, the song opens with a sample from Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction (1994), borrowing Uma Thurman’s line during the Jack Rabbit Slim’s dance sequence: “Now I want to dance, I want to win, I want that trophy.”

CRUEL INTENTIONS, KILL BILL AND MORE

The biggest example of Charli’s film affinity is arguably the 2012 mixtape Heartbreaks and Earthquakes. Armed with little more than a dream and a synthesiser, the 20-minute project is punctuated by a series of film sound snippets, drawing from Beyond the Black Rainbow, The Craft, Kill Bill, Cruel Intentions, and American Beauty. The DIY edit cover, neon typography, and early SoundCloud and YouTube uploads say it all – she’s been doing this from the very start.

CRASH

In 2022, as Charli xcx wrapped up her record deal with Atlantic Records, she teased her fifth and final album under the label by sharing stills from David Cronenberg’s 1996 film Crash. Her album of the same name followed shortly after, with cover art (shot by Terrence O’Connor) showing a blood-splattered Charli gazing through a windscreen.

In an interview with NPR, she confirmed that the album was partly inspired by Cronenberg’s film – an adaptation of JG Ballard’s 1973 novel of the same name, about a group of people who experience sexual arousal by staging car accidents. “I was exploring the idea of what the most sexualized, heightened, vampiric version of myself could be,” she said, explaining that this related back to the themes of both the novel and its adaptation, the characters of which “want and feed off their favorite thing and will go to any length to feel this sexuality and connection.”

TRUE ROMANCE

Long before Crash, the popstar was already lifting album titles from the world of film. Her 2013 debut album True Romance takes its name from Tony Scott’s 1993 cult classic of the same name, a crime thriller about two lovers who steal a suitcase of drugs and go on the run. The majority of True Romance’s tracks had already appeared in earlier form on her EP You’re the One, as well as across the Heartbreaks and Earthquakes and Super Ultra mixtapes.

Charli explained the meaning behind the record, saying: “Every corner of my own romantic history is explored on this record, so for me, it’s very raw, it’s very honest, and it’s very true.” Both the album and the film deal in heightened, reckless romance and the pursuit of love set against chaos.

THE MATRIX

On the cover art for 2018 single “1999” Charli xcx teams up with Troye Sivan to cosplay The Matrix’s main characters, Trinity and Neo. The film, released in 1999, is just one of the many references to culture of this time referenced throughout the music video. Battle through the brand placements at the video’s beginning and you'll find the duo dressed as Titanic's Jack and Rose, various pop stars from the era, including TLC and the Spice Girls, and a blonde Charli sprawled across a bed of rose petals in reference to American Beauty. There are plenty more scattered throughout, enough for Dazed to publish an entire breakdown of the video's references.

Charli’s “Camera” music video is out now. Catch a glimpse behind the scenes of the video shoot in the gallery above.