[12] The video features the band performing the song in a nursing home (abandoned St Luke's Hospital in Pasadena, CA), in make-up making them appear as elderly versions of themselves, and end up inciting a riot amongst other patients and orderlies.

Multiple outlets, including Billboard and People magazines, felt the music video was an homage to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,[5][11] while Team Rock noted its additional similarity to the film Cocoon.

The video was inspired by drummer Taylor Hawkins lamenting having to do promotional work for the song and album cycle while the band was beginning to look older; when Grohl told him that "it doesn't really matter", Hawkins proposed taking it in the opposite direction, and purposefully making themselves look older, inspiring Grohl to write up a treatment for the video.

[20] The song is approximately five-and-a-half minutes long, and features a 40-second intro with just soft guitar notes and mellow vocals by Grohl.

[21] After the intro, the song erupts into a hard rock sound, featuring heavy, distorted guitar riffs, thunderous drums, and alternating melodically sung and screamed vocals by Grohl.

"[11] Similarly, NPR praised the song for being "an enjoyably ludicrous bit of viral silliness" and concluded "'Run' itself is no joke: Eight (and perhaps soon to be nine) albums into his Foo Fighters career, Grohl still wails with the infectiously unhinged force of a kid a third his age.