Running down every usage of the neo-classical movie soundtrack.
Leaving the theater for Chloe Zhao’s Hamnet, I couldn’t escape this feeling of emotional emptiness. Not because of the film’s sterile, lifeless third act, which aims solely to appease Shakespeare super fans and Midwest soccer moms, but because I had finally reached a breaking point with the use of Max Richter’s “On the Nature of Daylight.”
Max Richter’s “On the Nature of Daylight” is a neo-classical piece released in 2004 on Richter’s album The Blue Notebook. Since its release, the track has been featured in over 15 films and television shows as of February 2026. If you are an avid media consumer like me, you’ve probably been exposed to Richter’s magnum opus more times than you’d care to recount.
And look, I’m not opposed to a song being used in multiple movies and television programs. It happens all the time with pop songs, old rock songs, classical music, etc. It’s nothing new. But what is uniquely irritating about the over-usage of “On the Nature of Daylight” is that it’s rarely featured at the beginning or middle of a movie. It is always present in the big emotional climax, usually at the very end of the movie, fading straight to black into the credits.
Here is EVERY Film/TV project I could find that features “On the Nature of Daylight.” If I missed any, let me know in the comments down below.
Stranger Than Fiction (2006)
Will Ferrell beat everyone to the punch. Director Marc Forster unintentionally sparked a wildfire of tearjerking, sonically sappy sentiment with Stranger Than Fiction. “On the Nature of Daylight” is featured near the end of act 2, when Will Ferrell’s character throws an enraged hissy fit when realizing he is a written character, not a real human being. Trippy stuff.
Shutter Island (2010)
Martin Scorsese’s critically divisive but commercially successful psychological thriller follows Leonardo DiCaprio’s Teddy Daniels, who investigates a suspicious psychiatric facility in search of a missing patient. On the Nature of Daylight is featured near the middle of the movie, during a dream sequence with Teddy and his deceased wife, Dolores (Michelle Williams).
Jiro Dreams of Sushi (2011)
All the foodies and workaholics out there, stand up! Jiro Dreams of Sushi is a 2011 documentary following Jiro Ono (小野 二郎, Ono Jirō), a then-85-year-old sushi master and owner of Sukiyabashi Jiro, a renowned Michelin three-star restaurant located at a Tokyo subway station. I will give Jiro Dreams of Sushi a little grace for including “On the Nature of Daylight,” as the song is presented near the beginning of the film (around the 22-minute mark) and is just one of several classical and neo-classical tracks used throughout the documentary. Still, it does come at an emotional moment as Jiro looks back on his family history.
Disconnect (2012)
Oh, how the internet divides us all. Henry Alex Rubin’s 2013 Crash-for-Gen-Z ripoff, Disconnect, follows three somewhat interweaving anthology storylines about young people affected by cyberbullying in the digital age. In one particularly nauseating storyline, a teenage cyberbully named Jason is confronted by Rich, the father of a boy who attempted self-harm. Rich, played by Jason Bateman, pulls up to Jason’s house, where Jason’s father catches a fade in the front yard while “On the Nature of Daylight” drones underneath. Hands are thrown. Hockey sticks are swung. Beats are delivered. Sadness is felt.
The Connection (2014)
2014’s The Connection is a 70s-set French crime thriller from the filmmaker behind The Man with the Iron Heart, Cédric Jimenez. Following the rise and fall of one of France’s most powerful drug rings, the movie is a classic, trope-heavy crime saga that takes a melancholy turn in the third act. As this Variety review appropriately sums it up, “The era’s pop music falls silent, time seems to slow to a standstill, and Max Richter’s haunting ‘On the Nature of Daylight’ accompanies a moment of terrible inevitability in the life of a true French cowboy.” Couldn’t have said it better myself.
The Face of An Angel (2014)
Michael Winterbottom’s film The Face of an Angel is loosely based on the real-life murder trial of Amanda Knox, but surprisingly spends little time in the courtroom. Starring Daniel Brühl as Thomas, a filmmaker going through a midlife crisis, who travels to Siena, Italy, to observe the murder trial in hopes of finding inspiration for a new script. Along the way, he befriends a young foreign exchange student named Melanie (Cara Delevingne), who takes him on a tour of Siena. Does he write the movie? Does he find love? The movie doesn’t really answer those questions. Still, it ends with “On the Nature of Daylight,” underscoring a quiet, intimate card game between Thomas and Melanie before a sad montage of Thomas remembering his 9-year-old daughter at home. It always comes back to family.
Sherpa (2015)
Jennifer Peedom’s Sherpa is a documentary that follows the Nepalese climbers during the 2014 Mount Everest ice avalanche, in which sixteen people are killed doing their hazardous work. The award-winning documentary features “On the Nature of Daylight” right at the halfway mark (46 minutes in) as medical teams try to extract fallen Sherpas in the avalanche.
Les Innocentes (2016)
Les Innocentes is a French film from writer/director Anne Fontaine that follows a female medical student, Mathilde Beaulieu (Lou de Laâge), who tends to a convent of pregnant nuns in World War II Poland. The movie addresses several sensitive subjects like sexual assault, religion, discrimination, and so much more. The film ends with Beaulieu looking at happy photographs of nuns and their newborn babies as “On the Nature of Daylight” crescendos into the end credits.
Arrival (2016)
Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival is the film that cemented “On the Nature of Daylight” as an all-time classic amongst cinephiles. “Nature’s double-tap appearance in Arrival is not solely tied to a singular emotional peak, but rather ingrained in the text’s philosophical discussions of time and memories. Used as a bookend for the beginning and end of the movie, the Max Richter track is so integral to Arrival’s heartbeat that the actual original score from the late Jóhann Jóhannsson was disqualified from Oscar consideration in 2017.
Nevertheless, Arrival is still my favorite Villeneuve film to this day, with excellent cinematography from the great Bradford Young, career-best performances from Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner, Denis’ breathtaking control of composition and tone, and yes, because of “On Nature of Daylight.”
Promise at Dawn (2017)
Jeez, the French sure do love this song, huh? Promise at Dawn is a 2017 French war drama from director Éric Barbier. The film follows Roman Kacew (Pierre Niney as he recounts his life from his childhood through his service in World War II after being hospitalized in a traumatic accident. A little over halfway through the movie, Roman awakes from a PTSD nightmare and struts around his base bare ass naked as “On the Nature of Daylight“ slowly fades in. The “feels“ are less earned and more manipulative in this one. Very tough to watch.
Togo (2019)
Disney has a long history of dog movies, from Ol’ Yeller to Lady and the Tramp to the Air Bud franchise. However, Ericson Core’s 2019 historical drama Togo might be the company’s best to date. The 1925-set film centers on Leonhard Seppala (Willem Dafoe) and his medicine-carrier sled dog, Togo, as they race to deliver crucial vaccines to an isolated Alaskan town during a diphtheria epidemic. It’s a canine flick with real emotional stakes, so when “On the Nature of Daylight” fades in over Dafoe’s sobering epilogue narration, the tears feel properly jerked.
Fun fact: The film was a Disney+ exclusive and did not receive a physical release. So when Disney purged hundreds of original titles from its streaming platform in late 2024, the movie was considered lost media for a significant period. Thankfully, as of February 2026, the movie is streaming on Tubi.
Eastenders 35th Anniversary Special
British soap operas aren’t necessarily my jam, but people ride hard for EastEnders. The BBC teledrama has gifted the UK with over 7,200 episodes since its debut in 1985. But in celebration of its 35th anniversary, the writers took some big emotional swings, killing off a couple of seemingly relevant characters. Excuse my callousness, but without watching anything else from this series, it’s hard to know what’s important or not. My only signifier was Richter’s “On the Nature of Daylight,” which played at the end of the episode as a young man undergoes a dramatic CPR session before expiring. Can we hear this track during a happy moment?
The Handmaid’s Tale – Season 4 Episode 9 “Progress” (2021)
The multiple Emmy-winning Hulu series The Handmaid’s Tale finally concluded its 6-season arc in May of 2025. But as the show cleverly began building towards its heartwrenching final season, the showrunners used season 4 as an avenue to introduce backstories to its main protagonists before our leading ladies were forced into the dystopian misogynist hellhole society of the “Gilead.”
In Season 4 Episode 9 titled “Progress,” we spend the entire episode watching June Osbourne (star/episode director Elizabeth Moss) escape with her daughter Nichole to Canada in the pre-Gilead days. In the last 10-12 minutes, “On the Nature of Daylight” fades in as June’s freedom-fighting boo Nick proposes before saying goodbye to his new love. It’s a touching moment that was clearly close to director Elizabeth Moss’ heart, seeing as she featured the famous Max Richter in an episode that she directed while also starring in the actual “On the Nature of Daylight” ‘s official music video.
The Last of Us – Season 1 Episode 3 “Long, Long Time” (2023)
Neil Druckmann’s The Last of Us is the wildly popular video game adapted into an Emmy-winning zombie drama series for HBO that surprisingly improves on its source material. Because of television’s expanded storytelling, the show spends much more time developing its side characters. That strength is most evident in Season 1 Episode 3 “Long, Long Time,” when showrunner Craig Mazin zoomed in on two small sidequest characters, Bill and Frank, into a full-blown flashback episode. Starring Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett, this hour of television highlights the love and loss experienced by the couple in the midst of the zombie invasion, which starkly contrasts the bickering off-screen dynamic presented in the video game.
Regarded as a high point in the series, the critically acclaimed episode famously uses Ritcher’s song as Frank dies of cancer. Emotional moment in its own right, but honestly, this was the one that took me over the haterade edge for “On the Nature of Daylight.” Because, as outlined in this article, the track has been used in over a DOZEN shows and movies since it dropped. This is where it became too much.
Hamnet (2025)
Alas, we come full circle. During the production of Hanmet, director Chloe Zhao said she struggled to find the right ending for her cinematic adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s New York Times bestseller. Once, star Jessie Buckley recommended Ritcher’s “On the Nature of Daylight,“ and Zhao was so moved that she played the song on loop during the last three days of filming.
Now, reference music isn’t a unique facet of the film industry. Most directors and editors use reference music to frame the composer’s emotions and those of the rest of the crew. But unlike most other films that have licensed “On the Nature of Daylight,“ composer Max Richter was already signed on to create an original score for the film. In this case, Hamnet used the original author’s reference music. In a way, the Grammy-winning contemporary classical composer was using his own song.
Nevertheless, Richter actually wrote an original piece intended to replace the reference track, but Zhao refused to use it. She felt that “On the Nature of Daylight“ was ingrained into the fabric of the film’s finale. While a romantic gesture to a great song, anyone who’s been exposed to this song 10 times or more, cinematically, like me, found its use creatively bankrupt.
Conclusion
At this point, we need to put an end to the use of “On the Nature of Daylight“ in any movie, TV show, miniseries, TikTok, or any other cinematic art EVER. Or at least for another 10-15 years. As a film fan, it’s not fun. It’s annoying. Any director, producer, editor, or composer who insists on this song being used in their film will officially be put on Fraud Watch.
