Favorite Movie Soundtrack / Score?

[Mannahnin]

One I haven't seen mentioned yet, but which is iconic and transformative to the movie itself is Queen's soundtrack for Flash Gordon. I'm not sure it ranks up there as one of the best, but as a big Queen fan it's always been a favourite of mine.

Queen's music elevates Highlander quite a bit as well and I'm sure is a major ingredient in it having become a cult classic.

 

[Theory of Games]

The guy really is kind of a cheat code when it comes to these lists. He’s such a foregone conclusion.

“Oh, I like John Williams.”

“Well OBVIOUSLY John Williams’ stuff!”

Yeah I can't choose just one of them. There's so many and they're all so good

 

[Koloth]

Patton - Jerry Goldsmith

 

[ART!]

Michael Giacchino's score for John Carter. It's sweeping, romantic, pulse-pounding, emotional - it's kind of perfect at what it's doing.

Christophe Beck's score for Ant-Man and The Wasp. One of the hosts of a film score podcast I listen to described it as "acrobatic", and I think that works. He mixes traditional orchestral stuff and electronica, and there's a lot of - I don't know the terminology here - beats that are off the beat? Anyway, I love it.

Jerry Goldsmith's score for Star Trek: The Motion Picture. As truly great as some of the ST film scores are, this one is the most beautiful.

Those are the three I can think of, and that I listen to the most often.

Honorable mentions, because I've been thinking a lot about them lately but haven't put them in rotation yet:

Shoji Yamashiro (aka Tsutomu Ohashi) score for Akira. Utterly unique, distinctive, uncanny, and unforgettable.

Jerry Goldsmith's score for the 1968 Planet of the Apes. Also highly unusual, inventive, off-kilter, and unsettling.

 

[Mad_Jack]

I'm not a big music guy so I don't usually bother to separate movies into soundtrack vs. score, but the ones that come to mind the quickest are Conan the Barbarian, Flash Gordon and Highlander...

 

[abazaba]

Well I've seen quite a few good picks already, so let me mention something I haven't seen yet (if it 'counts' for the purposes of this thread) :

"On the Nature of Daylight" by Max Richter from the movie "Arrival" (2016). (I believe it has been used in other movies as well, but this is where I know it from).

It almost literally makes me cry when I hear it (but in a good way). And if you haven't seen "Arrival" yet, you absolutely need to. It's one of the few (or perhaps only) movies I have ever seen that actually gets better when you watch it for the second time, and know where everything is going and ends up at.

 

[Mannahnin]

Good list!

Christophe Beck's score for Ant-Man and The Wasp. One of the hosts of a film score podcast I listen to described it as "acrobatic", and I think that works. He mixes traditional orchestral stuff and electronica, and there's a lot of - I don't know the terminology here - beats that are off the beat? Anyway, I love it.

Syncopated, maybe?

 

[The Firebird]

"On the Nature of Daylight" by Max Richter from the movie "Arrival" (2016). (I believe it has been used in other movies as well, but this is where I know it from).

It was also featured in the Last of Us, S1E3. Richter's Memoryhouse (2002) is worth a listen, if you're into that kind of thing.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Anne and Nancy Wilson have done amazing work for Cameron Crowe's soundtracks.

Whoa, I didn't know they were involved. I was under the mistaken impression that he, with his music journalist credentials, was curating them.

 

[Mannahnin]

Whoa, I didn't know they were involved. I was under the mistaken impression that he, with his music journalist credentials, was curating them.

Nancy and Crowe were married from '86 to 2010 and to my knowledge she worked on most or all of his scores and soundtracks during that time. And Ann contributed occasionally too. I think I first was prompted to notice this by her being credited on one or more of his soundtrack albums. Ann and Nancy's side band The Lovemongers being on the Singles soundtrack might also have been a clue.

I'm sure that Crowe had input too and picked some of the songs. I was just reading an article where she seemed to be crediting him for the key scene selections of In Your Eyes for Say Anything and Tiny Dancer for Almost Famous.