I’ve mentioned before the wonderful collection of composer John Barry’s movie music. Moviola [Amazon U.S.] [Amazon Canada] [Amazon U.K.] is one of my favorite CDs, and I listen to it constantly, often when I’m writing reviews. It puts me in such a movie mood — the music feels like movies. And it’s great because it means I don’t have to choose between all of Barry’s fantastic individual scores: Moviola has a taste of his best, including the one that might be my very favorite, the one for Dances with Wolves. I swear I can hear the wind moving through tall prairie grass in Barry’s music for that movie. It’s magical.
What are the best movie soundtracks ever?
My other favorites: lots by John Williams. His scores for Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Jaws are supremely iconic. Perhaps nothing better sums up The Movies than those few bars of the Raiders main theme. You know the ones I mean…
But I don’t want to hog all the great scores. Go!
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I use film soundtracks a lot to set the mood, but for actual listening… Goldsmith’s Warlock, Franke’s Universal Soldier, and Poledouris’ The Hunt for Red October all score high on the nostalgia scale. I also have a copy of the instrumental material from Highlander – the bits that weren’t done by Queen – and that’s quite fun too.
More recently I was very impressed by the Daft Punk soundtrack to TRON Legacy – by a long way the best thing about the film.
Indeed. Daft Punk was the perfect choice to score TRON, and a worthy successor to Wendy Carlos’ oustanding work on the original.
Yes! I loved the Tron: Legacy Soundtrack.
I have nothing to add, I just think this bears repeating.
The soundtrack to John Cameron Mitchell’s 2006 film, Shortbus is one of the most beautiful, delicious, sexy, and sometimes haunting experiences I am happy to revisit. I don’t think there’s a dud track there, and the music is so varied and rich. Did I forget to recommend it?
Favourite soundtracks… These are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head (and not looking at my ipod either!)
Raiders Of The Lost Ark is an obvious one – The Raiders March is a bonafide classic and I doubt I’m the only one who swoons a little when it breaks down into ‘Marion’s Theme…
More recently, Hans Zimmer’s soundtrack for Inception is a corker (Time is one of my all time favourite tracks). I also love ‘A Dark Knight’ from The Dark Knight too – all 16 odd minutes of it!
Of the more ‘modern’ composers – I love Clint Mansell’s soundtrack for Moon, which is creepy and beautiful and heartbreaking all in one soundtrack.
Most recent soundtrack I fell in love with was Maurice Jarre’s for Lawrence Of Arabia but then again, seeing it and hearing it at one of the best cinemas in the country will have that effect;)
I loved the Moon soundtrack too, but only bought one track (Welcome to Lunar Industries) – it’s very good, though, as you say – haunting and a little bit menacing at the same time.
I also love the soundtrack from Last of the Mohicans, especially the drum and violin track – I forget the name of it.
The only full soundrack that I listen to regularly, though, is Michael Nyman’s soundrack to The Piano.
I cannot recommend highly enough the entire Moon soundtrack – especially the piece ‘Memories…’ just gorgeous!
Last Of the Mohicans – I clearly remember seeing that at the cinema and developing a ginormus crush on Hawkeye; alas the book left me cold – faux Jane Austenesque dialouge – yuck! (this was before I ‘grew’ up and realized just how awesome P&P was) I’m not trying the book again.
Sounds like I need to get a hold of the Moon ST. I loved that movie.
Clint Mansell is consistently intriguing, and his scores have such a propulsive sense of drama that they absolutely absorb you. My personal favorite is The Fountain, one of the most beautiful expressions of awe in music I’ve heard in the last ten years.
The Fountain is one of those cases where the soundtrack is better than the movie. The movie is a mixed bag, but it has a great soundtrack and nice visuals.
Wait. Are we talking about soundtracks with composers only? That wasn’t clear with the title.
Talk about whatever sorta soundtracks you like.
Two movies came out last year that had some of the best soundtracks I’ve ever heard: Beasts of the Southern Wild and Moonrise Kingdom. It’s hard not to like a movie that includes “Kaw-Liga” by Hank Williams.
When it comes to older movies, I’m still pretty fond of Garden State.
Last of the Mohicans (Trevor Jones/Randy Edelman), Branagh’s Henry V (Patrick Doyle), John Badham’s Dracula (John Williams), Machine Gun Preacher (Asche & Spencer), all time favorite: How to Train Your Dragon (John Powell)
Soundtracks featuring popular songs: Casablanca, Love, Actually, Layer Cake, Rocknrolla
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind:
Once Upon a Time in the West: Enio Morricone at his best: operatic at times, and haunting at others.
High Fidelity: lots of cusp of well known artists deliver pure pop fun.
Let the Right One in: Creepy at times, sweetly melodic at others, Johan Soderqvist’s score was probably better than the film.
Run Lola Run: Pulsating techno beats act like an adrenaline jolt, which makes it a perfect fit for the film.
the Royal Tenenbaums: Nice mix of Mark Moterhsbaugh originals and retro nostalgia.
The Big Lebowski: I wouldn’t exactly listen to it by itself on any given day, but in the context of the film, the songs are a perfect fit.
The Godfather: Nino Rota delivers a haunting score, dripping with sadness
Koyaanisqatsi: Industrial age, meet existential angst.
Scott Pilgrim soundtrack: so-so movie, excellent soundtrack if you’re into independent rock.
Kill Bill vol 1: Pure pop candy.
Cowboy Bebop (original series soundtrack): Alright, technically, not a
film soundtrack, but Yoko Kanno shows off her amazing versatility and is
at the top of her game.
I knew I would forget a few. Morricone is a genius, and I love his work on all the Leone films. He invented a sound that nobody had quite heard before, and still influences anybody composing music for the Western genre.
Koyaanisqatsi is also a personal favorite. In fact, the whole “qatsi” trilogy is astonishing. Did you see that Criterion just released all three of the “qatsi” films on Blu-Ray?
Good call on Yoko Kanno, too. CB is a ton of fun. I also like her collaboration with Hajime Mizoguchi on The Vision of Escaflowne. There’s some amazingly creative and varied material throughout that whole series.
Haven’t seen The Vision of Escaflowne yet, but I would definitely be partial to seeing any work featuring Yoko Kanno’s music. I wasn’t aware that the Quatsi trilogy was being released. Damn, so many movies and songs, so little time and money.
I was watching the featurette on Once Upon a Time in the West and apparently, Morricone wrote the music for the film and Leone had to shoot/edit around it rather than the other way around.
Yoko Kanno is a goddamned genius.
This is the part where I mention my own humble film music blog at http://cinematicmusic.blogspot.com/. :-) I’m slightly obsessed with film scores – as I type this, the complete Indiana Jones soundtrack collection and Jerry Goldsmith’s score to The Shadow (great score, not such a great movie) are sitting by my elbow, and I bought a whole stack of them from MaryAnn when she moved to London. I have so many favorites that you’d get bored from my list, but a few that I always consider to be in contention for Best Scores of All Time include:
Alexander Nevsky, Sergei Prokofiev
Gone with the Wind, Max Steiner
BEN-HUR, Miklos Rosza
North by Northwest, Bernard Herrmann
Lawrence of Arabia, Maurice Jarre
The Godfather, Nino Rota
The Empire Strikes Back, John Williams
Conan the Barbarian, Basil Poledouris
Blade Runner, Vangelis
Batman, Danny Elfman
Dances with Wolves, John Barry
The ones with hyperlinks are those that I’ve written about so far in my blog. Check ’em out if you are so inclined. Now I must stop typing, though, or I’ll just keep thinking of more and more.
I really like the soundtracks for Walker, Wings of Desire, and Easy Rider.
For soundtracks that work really well with a given movie although I don’t own them or would consider listening to them seperately, all the Morricone ones listed by others, Chariots of Fire, and Blade Runner.
Are you a Vangelis fan in general? I really love a lot of his work from the ’70s and ’80s, especially Heaven and Hell, part of which was famously used as the theme music for Carl Sagan’s Cosmos.
I haven’t seen Antarctica, but I very much enjoy his soundtrack for that.
Speaking of that continent, Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Scott of the Antarctic is also a classic – later translated into concert form as “Sinfonia Antartica.”
You’re in good company with your distaste for James Fenimore Cooper’s writing: Mark Twain said, ” I feel sure, deep down in my heart, that Cooper wrote about the poorest English that exists in our language.” :-) I do love the movie and its score, though.
There are a number of great Bernard Hermann soundtracks, including North by Northwest, Jason and the Argonauts, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Citizen Kane, and The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad.
Yes! All of those are outstanding and tons of fun to listen to on their own. I also love Taxi Driver. He was relentlessly inventive, right up to the very end.
Not really. I heard a lot of his work at one point in about 1982 (had a friend who had everything by him, including pressings as they were released in other countries), I think he is great, but I don’t own anything by him.
In that genre (and how I hate genres and slicing-and-dicing of music, but whatever), I’ve got Tangerine Dream and Jarre. Except that in many ways I’d put Vangelis and Glenn Branca together. So, actually, maybe, well, I probably shouldn’t even think about genre.
Anyhow, I should listen to Heaven and Hell. Haven’t heard it in a long time.
Oh, and Petra Haden just released a new album called Petra Goes to the Movies. If you’re not familiar with Petra Haden, she “sings” most of the instrumental parts on her albums, so a collection of movie themes is both insane and brilliant. If I ever make a movie, I’m going to hire her to perform the soundtrack, just to confuse people.
You can listen to the album here:
http://www.avclub.com/articles/listen-to-an-exclusive-stream-of-petra-hadens-new,90951/
Now there’s a question for me. I LOVE soundtrack music. Both movies and games.
My taste tends to lean more towards the more recent, though. Recent being 80s – present.
I just don’t like the loud, brassy, often obnoxious, older soundtracks. I just watched Doctor Zhivago for the first time last weekend, and while I thought the movie was decent, I totally disliked the soundtrack. Too often, a piece was playing that didn’t seem to fit the mood of the scene. It just didn’t work for me.
Anyway, my favorites:
LOTR series – duh. I listen to them all the time.
Tron: Legacy – Daft Punk created an amazing soundtrack for a mediocre movie.
How To Train Your Dragon – Not every track is amazing, but the ones that are truly evoke the perfect feeling of dragon riding.
Braveheart – Just thinking about the iconic scenes, and the amazing music that accompanied them, gives me shivers.
The Lion King – Between Circle of Life and Can You Feel the Love Tonight, you just can’t go wrong. How many people teared up the first time they saw the trailer with Circle of Life playing, and the big boom at the end. *raises hand*
I could go on and on!
Edward Scissorhands,
Goodfellas,
Drive,
Jaws,
Die Hard,
John Carpenter’s Halloween
Carrie (1976)
Vertigo
The Magnificent Seven
are we talking scores or soundtracks? because soundtrack wise I’m partial to Risky Business. In terms of scores, I’m for Speed, Tron: Legacy, and Total Recall (1990 version).
I agree with most of these, particularly Last of the Mohicans, Conan the Barbarian, and How to Train Your Dragon. To add a few more:
A Series of Unfortunate Events
The Incredibles
Batman Returns
James Horner wrote one really great score sometime around 1980, and then used it over and over until about 1987.
Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story
Damn I forgot The Incredibles
The Cure. Not the band, there was a movie in the ’90s starring Brad Renfro The kid from The Client) and Joey Mazzello (The kid from Jurassic Park). By Dave Grusin. I wish I could find sheet music for it, but there is none. Such nice flow-y piano through it all.
Also, The Man from Snowy River.
You didn’t say TV, but here are mine anyway: Doctor Who and Buffy the Vampire slayer have a lot of great themes. Rose’s theme, the 10th and 11th Doctor’s themes, Amy’s theme, Doomsday, Westminster Bridge, and All the Strange Strange Creatures from Doctor Who. Sacrifice and the theme from Hush from Buffy. Murray Gold and Christophe Beck are great composers.
I realized a while ago that my superpower was an ability to absolutely remember movie soundtracks. I heard a few moments of the notes from Max Steiner’s “Bird of Paradise” score while radio-channel-surfing and recognized it instantly, despite not having seen the movie or heard the score in more than 20 years.
It is, of course, a superpower which it is impossible to monetize. Which is typical of me.
Old Hollywood is always summed up for me by Bernard Herrmann, most notably by his score for “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir,” and Max Steiner, for which my own favorite is “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.”
The auteur years of the 60’s and 70’s are always either John Barry if we’re talking Hollywood (think “Goldfinger”) or Ennio Morricone if we’re talking foreign and American independent (and my favorite of his is “Days of Heaven”).
For the most recent years, Hollywood has John Williams, Hans Zimmer, Danny Elfman and Basil Paledouris, all of whose work has been mentioned. Sidewise to them, I love the work Joe Hisaishi for Hayao Miyazaki, particularly his score for “Nausicaa.”
But the recent score that most caused me to go, “Oh, wow…” was the score to “Pan’s Labyrinth,” by Javiar Navarette.
You’re all wrong! There is only one great soundtrack – and I will hear no counterargument: Zulu
Well OK, then there’s:
Belleville Rendezvous
M. Hulot’s Holiday
Rango
Alien
Jaws
Predator
Robocop
Thunderbirds are Go!
Um, it’s hard for me to rank these things. Instead of Best Ever, here’s a couple of them that come to mind:
John Powell’s score for How to Train Your Dragon is pure Movie Music, it evokes an age of Hollywood that no longer exists. I could see a young Errol Flynn swashbuckling to it. And yet it is completely modern. To be perfectly honest I mostly care for HTTYD2 inasmuch as it hopefully means more of that score. I don’t think anybody understands how much it contributed to that movie’s success.
Most everything Michael Giacchino wrote, but I’m fond of his Incredibles work. Everything Clint Mansell wrote, particularly The Fountain.
And now, the best movie soundtrack that isn’t, and so good I’m sticking it in here anyway:
Bear McCreary’s Battlestar Galactica scores. Particularly from Season 2 onwards. it boggles my mind that the man isn’t a massive star and scoring the next ten blockbusters.
Bear will get there. I’m sure of it. He’s only 34 years old and he’s been working in the biz for about 9 years now. Giacchino worked for about that long on video games and TV before breaking into big-budget film work.
Lord of the Rings, absolutely no question. I have listened to those soundtracks more than any other music ever. It so perfectly captures the emotions of Lord of the Rings, I cry during Into the West every time. Other favourites are Moon, Star Wars and recently I’ve been listening to the Paranorman soundtrack which is very good indeed.
Oh, yes, LOTR. Probably the only work that compares to Howard Shore’s accomplishment there is the Star Wars saga.
Same here in regards to Into the West. That song is amazing. So much so that I will intentionally avoid it sometimes when it pops up on shuffle, because I know what it does to me.
Oh and Drive!! Drive’s soundtrack is absolutely outstanding.
Right now: Beasts of the Southern Wild. Gorgeous, earthy, triumphant. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFFiaTOAWIc
I agree with so many of these. Rather than repeat them, I’d add a few more:
Hans Zimmer’s score for the first three Pirates of the Caribbean films. Classic movie adventure music and instantly iconic.
Vince DiCola’s score for Transformers: The Movie from the 1980s. I haven’t heard anything quite like it before or since, and it’s a great sugar rush of melodic, muscular 80s synth-pop. (Here’s a taste.)
I love Hawaiian music, so the soundtrack to The Descendants does it for me.
Gabriel Yared’s score for The English Patient, with Marta Sebestyen’s vocals, haunted me for months. Likewise Peter Gabriel’s dark, brooding work on The Last Temptation of Christ.
I suppose this is cheating a bit, but: Les Miserables. Yes, it’s adapted from a stage musical. But having seen it several times now, I’ve been noticing that — whatever one thinks of the singing — the orchestration for those songs is the best it’s ever been, better than the sometimes tinny, synthy soundtracks from the stage shows. The instrumental versions that play over the end credits alone are worth the price of admission.
Movie adaptations of musical scores are a lot of fun, since the orchestra can be expanded far beyond what can be contained in the theatre’s pit.
True, and Les Miz certainly benefits from that. But sometimes it wasn’t a matter of “going bigger,” but simply of making different choices. Like having the strings play what used to be the chimes-sounding pattern in “Stars,” resulting in the instrumentation for that song sounding more sublime than ever. Or like “Master of the House,” which actually sounds bigger on the Broadway soundtrack, but which sounds like it’s played by a sleazy little five-piece whorehouse band in the film (and thus fits the sour mood and claustrophobic setting perfectly).
Good on you for mentioning Transformers: The Movie. Dare and The Touch will always be in my music rotation. Always.
Escape is great, but works better within the confines of the movie.
You beat me to The Last Temptation of Christ. Another of my favorites not previously mentioned in the thread is Out of Africa.
OoA — Yes.
We’ve been focusing mainly on traditional orchestral scores here. I also love some of the jazz, soul, and funk scores of the late ’60s and ’70s, especially in the crime and exploitation genres. Curtis Mayfield’s Super Fly, Bobby Womack’s Across 110th Street, and Marvin Gaye’s Trouble Man set a mood that’s just as effective and evocative as any orchestral score. Lalo Schifrin turned in some great work on Bullitt and Dirty Harry, and even Herbie Hancock got in on the action with Death Wish. Few scores evoke as specific an atmosphere as those of that period – grimy streets, gritty stories, and grainy film.
I just realized no one mentioned Oh Brother Where Art Thou. Great soundtrack.
Also, I realized I forgot Diva. Two pieces of music in that film always come to mind with images out of the corner of my eyes. The aria, which can be heard here in the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PDM-i7pzeI and this piano air during their walk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lN_8qFinDBM
The YouTube clips are good quality.
Donnie Darko.
Boogie Nights.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Pleasantville.
Across the Universe.
Oh, “Escape” works fine on its own too, I think. It’s great workout/commute music. :-)
No mention of Pulp Fiction yet?
Haven’t seen my faves mentioned yet, so I’ll list the soundtracks to Singles and Reality Bites. I love 90s music.
O Brother, Where Art Thou (the people have spoken).
Forrest Gump’s soundtrack was the best thing about it.
Silent Running.
Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Arc (and pretty much anything by John Williams)
Tim Burton’s Batman (And pretty much anything by Danny Elfman)
Nausicaa and the Valley of the wind (And pretty much anything by Joe Hisashi)
Back to the Future
Inception
The Matrix
The Last Temptation of Christ
The Mask (Love the swing jazz)
Wall-E
Triplets of Belleville
I don’t know if they’re the best, but the soundtracks I own are: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Labyrinth, and Benny and Joon.
No love yet for Trainspotting?