Beastie Boys — 'Sabotage' Music Video, Downtown Los Angeles

The Beastie Boys' music video for 'Sabotage' (1994) — a parody of 1970s cop shows — was filmed across various locations in downtown and east Los Angeles, directed by Spike Jonze. The video depicts the three Beastie Boys as moustachioed, aviator-sunglasses-wearing detectives (credited as 'Sir Stewart Wallace,' 'Nathan Wind as Cochese,' and 'The Chief') engaged in car chases, foot pursuits, and dramatic arrests across the city's streets, bridges, and rooftops. The video's combination of shaky handheld footage, absurdist humour, and genuine physical commitment made it an instant classic.

The 'Sabotage' video was Jonze's breakthrough as a director and established the template for his subsequent career in both music videos and feature films. The Beastie Boys performed their own stunts — including Mike D leaping from a moving car — and the video's low-budget, improvisational energy matched the raw punk-funk fury of the song itself. It was nominated for five MTV Video Music Awards in 1994 but controversially won none, prompting the Beastie Boys' incredulous reaction on camera at the ceremony.

The specific Los Angeles locations used in the video include various downtown streets, the concrete channels of the LA River, and bridges in the industrial eastern sections of the city. 'Sabotage' is consistently ranked among the greatest music videos of all time and was instrumental in establishing the 1990s aesthetic of ironic, self-aware, deliberately rough-hewn music video filmmaking.