Which movie(s) do you think has the best soundtrack?
I think American Psycho has a good soundtrack and I listen to it occasionaly.
I am quite fond of the recent Dune movies’ soundtrack. Hans Zimmer can make a good bwowwwum, and a helping of One-Woman-Wailing :tm: also helps
Aside for that I would get into movie musical territory. A much derided subgenre that I adore.
For anyone who didn’t see it, he did an interview about why and how it sounds like that.
- Spawn
- Baby Driver
- Garden State
- the Lord of the Rings trilogy
Stranger Than Fiction, soundtrack by Spoon
A few not listed:
- The Crow
- Empire Records
- Leaving Las Vegas
- Get Shorty
- Grosse Pointe Blank
Pulp Fiction(listed elsewhere)
- Pirates of the Caribbean (personally, At World’s End has the best, Hans Zimmer)
- The Lord of the Rings (Howard Shore)
- Gravity (Steven Price)
- Tron Legacy (Daft Punk)
- Moonlight (Nicholas Britell)
- Harry Potter (can only speak to the ones by John Williams)
- Braveheart (James Horner)
- The Matrix (Don Davis)
- Interstellar
- Jaws
- Smokey and the Bandit
- The Way
The Lord of the Rings
This is Howard Shore’s Magnum opus. It’s what distinguishes this movie as more than just a great adaptation. His use of themes to represent not only races and kingdoms but characters, objects (like the One Ring, of course), and even concepts is a level above most movie soundtracks. There are even elements of storytelling through the music!
For example, the first time we hear the theme for Gondor is when Boromir is in Rivendell. Since he’s more or less alone, the theme is played by a single French Horn in a somber (almost tragic) style. In Return of the King, we see Minas Tirith, capital of Gondor, in all its glory, and so the full orchestra plays the theme.
One more: As the Fellowship begins to break down, so too does the theme. We go from heroic phrases to shorter, interrupted instances. There’s a book about the soundtrack written by Doug Adams. I highly recommend it if you’re interested!
The Third Man has that fantastic zither theme.
I quite like the Interstellar soundtrack.
The Blues Brothers - it’s constantly stringing together performances from famous musicians, and the soundtrack was wildly successful as an album in its own right.
Tron Legacy, but that’s cheating as it’s essentially a Daft Punk music video.
The grid. A digital frontier. I tried to picture clusters of information as they moved through the computer. What did they look like? Ships? Motorcycles? Were the circuits like freeways? I kept dreaming of a world I thought I’d never see. And then. One day. I got in…
and then it BEAMS
But to be honest: Its a good music video
Sadly not a good movie, though.
One of my favorite
The Fountain, Requiem for a Dream, or anything by Clint Mansell
The Matrix
O Brother Where Art Thou?
Forest Gump+1 for The Matrix. I once watched the film at a theater where the music was played live by an orchestra. One of my favorite movie experiences of all time. The soundtrack is incredible.
This is an old one, but:
The Mission, scored by Ennio Morricone.
Into The Wild
Birdman. Just drums. Really fucking good drums. Also they appear in the middle of one scene in an excellent way.
Also: not a movie, but Cowboy Bebop. Lots and lots of great tracks.