'High School Musical' Song Ranking

It’s now been over 10 years since the first High School Musical movie graced our TV screens, launching us into the world of East High and Troy Bolton and Gabriella Montez. Nowadays, Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens are huge stars and we’re gearing up for High School Musical 4, but there’s no doubt that the original trilogy will remain some of the most iconic films in the Disney Channel Original Movie canon. After all, even with eight years between us and the premiere of the last movie in theaters, we still haven’t managed to get the songs out of our heads.
While basically every song belted by the East High crew was an instant classic, we can’t deny that some are (way) better than others. (Yes, we have serious opinions about which HSM tunes really deserve their place in the DCOM hall of fame.) So excluding reprises, here’s our highly scientific, not-at-all biased ranking of every song in the three High School Musical movies.
- 2/30
2. "Bet On It"
The staging of this one certainly helps — who doesn’t love angry Zac Efron on a golf course?! But the thing that really makes it is that it almost sounds like it could be a real song. If Zac had actually been in a boy band, instead of starring alongside former Dream Street member Jesse McCartney in Summerland, this could’ve been their first hit.
- 3/30
3. "Breaking Free"
While we get little snippets of it throughout the movie, Troy and Gabriella's callback audition is the first truly great duet from the two of them. And given all they've gone through to get there (um...basketball games and scholastic decathlons) it's also a super satisfying payoff.
- 5/30
5. "Stick to the Status Quo"
The politics of the East High social scene are pretty ridiculous. People can only have one interest? What's that about? Luckily, it results in one of the best songs — but also leaves us questioning the quality of education they're getting. Some people never learned what a cello is?
- 19/30
19. "Right Here Right Now"
We'll give it to this song for the '80s vibes. Troy's dad was probably listening to some Journey, maybe "Open Arms," and inadvertently inspired this serenade.






























