Best Movie Soundtracks

[Rubbish Monkey]

Heres a good site (and link stolen from the Oink forum)  for soundtracks....

http://www.allsoundtracks.ru/

[surreal]

some of my favourites:

Pi - great collection of ambient & electronica

Requiem for a Dream- just such a dark and sad theme

Magnolia - the soundtrack pretty much was the film tho, best use of music in a movie ever I think, especially on "Wise Up" where the cast start singing along

Natural Born Kilers- I agree with the earlier comment that it is better than the movie in many ways.  Favourite bit is "Forkboy" segueing into "Night on Bare Mountain"

The Fifth Element - Eric Serra's wonderous synthy/orchestral/eastern mix is a great favourite of mine, shame they left the best track off it

Lord of the Rings - The complete 3 disc score is a favourite when I'm working and need to concentrate on something

Some good stuff on Fight Club and Dark City too, but they work best in the context of the movies themselves.

[The Boston Crab]

Neil Youngs score for Dead Man - crazy film but the soundtrack is amazing. Just NEil Young, a guitar and a slide.

Yeah, just watched this recently, it's a fabulous soundtrack and hit me so bittersweet at 5 in the morning when I woke up and watched the movie. Just the ultimate in isolation, being miles and miles from home...

SPPRRRRAAAWWWWUUNNGGGGG!!!

[The Boston Crab]

A bump here for Paul Williams score for "Bugsy Malone". You'll never hear a better set of songs specifically designed for a musical film, ever. It's really underrated, but is just sublime.

Somehow missed this...I will always be able to watch Bugsy Malone over and over because I find myself loving the songs more each time I see it. I actually love the adult voices dubbed over the children's miming. Fuck off, Freud, it's just brilliant.

[Jemble Fred]

It's a shit movie generally, but the 'Mr Blue Sky' sequence in The Magic Roundabout is exhilarating. Worth buying for about £3.99 just for that bit.

[Sam]

I watched "A Very Long Engagement" last night and Angelo Badalamenti outdid himself again. He really is one of the best film scorers arounds. I watched About Schmidt also, and I loved Rolfe Kent's music for that.

And he's probably been mentioned before but Thomas Newman is fucking great. I watched Road to Perdition about four or five times in the last couple of weeks (mainly for Conrad L. Hall's superlative cinematography) and Newman's music is so beautiful. Many times I got "shivers" and was close to tears.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Assault On Precinct 13- I love the soundtrack to that. In fact I love 70's and 80's films with heavy synth-based signature riffs. I love the scores for Terminator 1 and 2 as well.

2001: A Space Odyssey-  Just glorious isn't it?

The Assassination Of Richard Nixon- The string section only plays two notes seemingly through-out but the music in the film affected me just as much as Sean Penn's performance.

[mikeyg27]

Assault On Precinct 13- I love the soundtrack to that. In fact I love 70's and 80's films with heavy synth-based signature riffs. I love the scores for Terminator 1 and 2 as well.

I definitely agree with Assault, and on a similar theme I got the soundtrack to The Warriors from Amazon the other day for a mere £3.33, which I consider a pretty good buy.

[Al Tha Funkee Homosapien]

Oh yeah I love the soundtrack to The Terminator the synths are futuristic but also pretty dated now.

I haven't read through this thread yet, but have Donnie Darko and Kill Bill been mentioned yet? Pretty obvious choices I know.

[difbrook]

I'd have to chuck in a mention here for the soundtracks to Solaris (Soderbergh version) and The Straight Story.

Solaris in particular is hypnotic - all treated steel drums, rumbling away. Wonderful stuff. And the Straight Story is just beautiful.

[Ghost of Troubled Joe]

I just got The Straight Story soundtrack out of the local library. It is a magnificent piece of work, just like the film itself.

[smewie lewis]

The Consequences of Love. Some critics described it as an overly long car commercial - but fuck them I loved it. Imaginative camerawork, marvellous use of sound, deep and rythmic soundtrack (by I don't know who), and a strangely mysterious central character all combining to produce one of the most stylish and satisfying films I've ever seen in a while.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Has anyone mentioned Withnail and I? That has a nice selection of sixties classics and the main theme is also very nice in a melancholy way.

[Jemble Fred]

I suppose The Big Lebowski's already been mentioned?

In that case I'm gonna throw caution to the wind and nominate... oh god... Four Weddings and a Funeral. I can see how picking it up now and giving it a listen may make a lot of people on here vomit, but 12 years ago I had it on constant replay (IE I turned the cassette over and poressed Play again). But even to the harshest ears, it still has true classics like 'Loving You Tonight' by Squeeze and 'My First, My Last, My Everything' and so on. Soppy, yes. But no worse for that, it's a soppy film.

[surreal]

I keep meaning to pick up the Forrest Gump sountrack, looks like a great collection of classic 60s & 70s stuff on there - same goes for the Good Morning Vietnam sountrack but its much shorter than FG

[fudgemonkey]

Definitely the Badalametti scores for Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks:Fire Walk With Me(featuring Jimmy Scott) and Lost Highway.

Also Eraserhead, and has the Godfather been mentioned yet?
It's amazing.

That and the score to the Wicker Man.

[Lt Plonker]

'Marion's Theme' is as beautiful a love theme as any other,

Ah, yes. That's absolutely lovely. One of my favourite film pieces.


Alan Menkin and Howard Ashman's Disney scores are wonderful. I've just become reaquainted with The Little Mermaid soundtrack and it's brilliant. Under the Sea, Kiss the Girl and Part of Your World are wonderful peices of music. Christ, when is the DVD coming out?

Although their score for Aladdin, with it's almost broadway-like thread, wins hands down for me. A Whole New World is my most favourite. Although Menkin co-wrote that with Tim Rice, not Ashman.

[Darrell]

Are you a Little Shop Of Horrors fan, Mr Plonker?

[waxed by nature]

Gabriel Yared's score for Betty Blue. It complements the film perfectly.

And i will echo the thoughts of a couple of others about Neil Youngs score for Dead Man. Wonderful stuff.

[Leila]

Oh my. Just this week I heard, for the first time, The Pet Shop Boys soundtrack to Battleship Potemkin. Totally amazing.

Other soundtracks which rule - Goodbye Lenin, Ghost World,  Dancer in the Dark and Pi.

[Lt Plonker]

Are you a Little Shop Of Horrors fan, Mr Plonker?

I haven't seen that in years. He wrote that too, didn't he?  I think he just come off that before Little Mermaid, or so my Aladdin DVD says.

[Gazz]

Elliot Goldenthal's take on the Alien franchise is a great buy (though dont overlook the Goldsmith and Horner classics).

Listening to a lot of John Powell (The Bourne Films) and Cliff Martinez (Solaris) recently. Top notch stuff.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Bump. Dirty Harry has a classic Lalo Schiffrin soundtrack. The drums are ace.

[nw83]

One of my favourite scenes in the history of film is when Johnny Boy is dancing to The Miracle's Mickey's Monkey in Mean Streets. And the ensuing car chase (with a guitar solo from a Cream song, I think) is good, too. So, that would have to be my favourite compilation, followed by Lost In Translation.

As well as the obvious(ish) ones: Ennio Morricone's (Once Upon A Time In America is probably my fave.), Midnight Cowboy, Taxi Driver and A Clockwork Orange, I've always liked the score from Betty Blue. It has the beautiful piano theme, and the kaleidoscopic funfair melody which soundtracks many of the beach scenes. It's great.

Also, it's a bit rare, but I like Psychomania too: '60's brooding blues and psychedelic gloom. And I did like Bad Lieutenant, until Signifying Rapper was taken off the final version.

Edit: Sorry, I didn't realise that Betty Blue had already been mentioned.

[Glebe]

I haven't heard these, but you can download the main theme and an outtake from anime movie Paprika here:

Free MP3s related to original sound track for the movie "Paprika".

[didgeripoo]

'The Cement Garden' wins the film soundtrack battle for me.

[trotsky assortment]

I'd love to know why Stewart Copeland's soundtrack for 'Rumble Fish' isn't available on CD...

[samadriel]

I love John Williams' Back to the Future score and theme; why is it he can do stuff like that and Star Wars and Raiders, but then he does jingly trash like the Harry Potter score, eh?  Tch...  Well, it's more than I could do.

[CaledonianGonzo]

I love John Williams' Back to the Future score and theme

Um...it's by Alan Silvestri

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0006293/

I quite like the Harry Potter scores, though as I recall JW only really did the 1st and 3rd movies (the 2nd and 4th movies just used his theme).  The Prisoner of Azkaban work is pretty good.

[samadriel]

Whoops, seems I'm a fuckup!

...Looks like the BTTF score was the height of his work ('Van Helsing'?  Jesus shit!).  Quite liked the Predator ST, though.

Aaanyway, I still think the gulf between Williams' 'good' and 'bad' stuff is jarringly vast.