"Boulevard of Broken Dreams" (directed by Samuel Bayer): ... the "Boulevard" clip, which shows us the inevitable hangover after the holiday. To give the footage an extra-grainy look, Bayer slashed the film with a razor blade, poured coffee on it and burned it with cigarettes. All that abuse paid off, as "Boulevard" would walk away with six VMAs, including Video of the Year.
"Wake Me Up When September Ends" (directed by Samuel Bayer): How do you top the success of "Boulevard"? Why, with an epic clip starring Jamie Bell and Evan Rachel Wood as a pair of star-crossed lovers torn apart by the war in Iraq, that's how! Stretching more than seven minutes in length, the video dared to portray the conflict in Iraq in a negative (realistic?) light and drew the ire of several conservative pundits. Meaning that, nearly a dozen years after their first video blasted onto the scene, Green Day were still finding new definitions of the term "punk."