What's new

Favorite Movie Soundtrack?

Vangelis: "Blade Runner", "1492: Conquest of Paradise"
Ennio Morricone: "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly", "Once Upon a Time in America", "Le Professional"
Clint Mansell: "Requiem for a Dream"
Pierre Bachelet:"Perils of Gwendoline", "Emmanuelle", "Story of O"
Joe Hisaishi: "Totoro", "Kikujiro", "Hana-bi"
Georgy Sviridov: "Metel" (1965)
Michael Nyman: "A Zed & Two Noughts", "The Piano"
Bach / Eduard Artemyev: "Solaris" (1972)
Hans Zimmer: "Inception", "Interstellar". And, just for fun lets add: "The Story of O 2". I am yet still to find out what tracks, Internet says it is: "Parade Of The Masks","Madame Pembroke's Gigolo", "Overture To A Party", "Deviation".

Here is Parade Of The Masks (I did my best to blur "spicy" moments, still please consider this NSFW). This scene made a huge impact on me, and I have no idea why.

 
Last edited:
This is an equally difficult question for me as asking "what is your favorite film". There are just too many aspects to consider and too many things that I love. Also, being a composer predominately in a traditional sense rather than a media one, I must say that I prefer soundtracks which can stand on their own, rather than strictly in the context of the film itself and its visual elements. If I really had to choose a single title, I'll probably go with "Blade Runner" by Vangelis. Musically speaking, it has almost everything that I love and strive to in music, and I also deeply respect Vangelis as an artist. If I could select two favorite works at the same time, the first place would be shared with "Apocalypse des Animaux", also by Vangelis, both in a compositional sense as well for the particular sound color that never ceases to inspire me.
 
I love a lot of film music, including a lot of the suggestions posted above. But my favorite is easy: John Williams's Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The way its modernist parts sit side-by-side with the romantic parts, each lending power to the other, is brilliant. And both styles are impeccably realized.



The Arista original, or better yet, the remastered version released on SACD by Audio Fidelity a few years ago, is the version I love to listen to the most.
 
The entire "Dancer In the Dark" soundtrack. It's just so beautiful - and it conveys so much.
That film and its music made a huge impression on me. Bjork's performance in the lead role (as "Selma") of Dancer in the Dark is so raw, vulnerable, and emotionally naked it is hard to watch at times. And rarely has a performance of this power been combined with music and film editing of equal power in quite this way. The editing alone in this film is a masterclass in how to wring emotion out of the way you cut from one scene to the next (and when). At the time, it was so new to me that it practically felt avant-garde.

And the contrast between stationary-only tripod-mounted camerawork during the fantasy sequences and hand-held only camerawork during the "reality" sequences, having been established throughout the film, gives director Lars von Trier an incredible new tool for communicating just how dire Selma's circumstances become by combining her music with the semantic meaning of his different camera modes. When she sings "My Favorite Things" a capella near the end, the camera eventually switches to static/tripod-mounted, letting the audience know (even if just subconsciously) that she has escaped into her fantasy world. Yet, two songs later, in even more desperate circumstances, she begins singing "107 Steps" and the camera refuses to switch to the static/tripod-mounted fantasy mode. Finally, in the end, even music cannot overcome reality! It's a staggering moment created through a careful combination of song and camerawork.
 
That film and its music made a huge impression on me. Bjork's performance in the lead role (as "Selma") of Dancer in the Dark is so raw, vulnerable, and emotionally naked it is hard to watch at times. And rarely has a performance of this power been combined with music and film editing of equal power in quite this way. The editing alone in this film is a masterclass in how to wring emotion out of the way you cut from one scene to the next (and when). At the time, it was so new to me that it practically felt avant-garde.

And the contrast between stationary-only tripod-mounted camerawork during the fantasy sequences and hand-held only camerawork during the "reality" sequences, having been established throughout the film, gives director Lars von Trier an incredible new tool for communicating just how dire Selma's circumstances become by combining her music with the semantic meaning of his different camera modes. When she sings "My Favorite Things" a capella near the end, the camera eventually switches to static/tripod-mounted, letting the audience know (even if just subconsciously) that she has escaped into her fantasy world. Yet, two songs later, in even more desperate circumstances, she begins singing "107 Steps" and the camera refuses to switch to the static/tripod-mounted fantasy mode. Finally, in the end, even music cannot overcome reality! It's a staggering moment created through a careful combination of song and camerawork.
I couldn't agree more. It is a masterpiece.
 
Yes, I have about 30, but, just to shake things up a bit - Off the Map, scored by Gary DeMichele. It was filmed in Taos, NM, where I was living at the time, and is a desert island movie for me. The score is *very* understated, which is the only way you can go when you're dealing with the power and energy of the New Mexican landscape. I don't think the score was ever released in any form - I've been looking for years.
 
I only listen to video game music and I don't watch movies, don't even care for them since the 2000s BUT I did watch a few and from these I remember and love the music:

-Star Trek: First Contact
-Last of the Mohicans
-Man on fire (Never seen the movie, but the song 'Smiling' is amazing!)
-Titanic
 
Impossible to choose. Lately I’ve been listening The Judge by Thomas Newman and Rush from Hans Zimmer.

Superman The Movie by maestro John Williams is one of my favorites and I think it’s better than his Star Wars saga.

I love the sound from The Edge by Jerry Goldsmith. I mean the soundstage and depth of the orchestra. Something that’s impossible to create with samples.
 
Top Bottom