Favorite Film Scores/Soundtracks

[criterionmaster]

Which ones are your favorite?

[blackmoses]

2001 and Jaws

[captainofbeef]

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

[kiddo]

One of my favorites:

Assault on Precinct 13

[mixed]

Tokyo drifter, every song is brilliant, I love it!

Kill Bill also has quite a nice soundtrack.

[satantangofan]

The Good the Bad & the Ugly, Taxi Driver, Paris Texas, The Hours (fantastic Philip Glass score), 2001, Grizzly Man, The Shining, The Deer Hunter, Aguirre Wrath of God, Requiem for a Dream...just goes on.

[criterionmaster]

I forgot Requiem. That score is amazing very haunting especially torwards the end when they are cutting back between each of the people.

[satantangofan]

Yeah it's fantastic. Clint Mansell eh (formerly from Pop Will Eat Itself)? Who would have thunk it?

[cineaste25]

Out of Africa
The Last of the Mohicans
Chinatown
Star Wars
The Godfather I & II
Memoirs of a Geisha
Casablanca

etc.

[agentknight]

Gotta love the synthesised Beethoven on A Clockwork Orange.

[satantangofan]

The intro to Raging Bull. De Niro warming up in slo mo to Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana intermezzo. My favourite piece of music in all of Christendom. Stunning.

www.mascagni.org/works/sounds/2

[agentknight]

Pi, Once Upon A Time In The West, A Clockwork Orange, 2001 and, of course, Blue Velvet.

[Clark Nova]

andruini said:

Anything Ennio Morricone scored. Genius.

I second that. the two Once Upon a Time movies have my two favorite scores of all time. Props too to GBU. Hell, even his score for The Thing is great...suitably creepy and atmospheric.

other than morricone, i gotta say a favorite of mine is Taxi Driver. Talk about capturing the atmosphere of New York City nightlife that Travis lives by.

[blackmoses]

The Rushmore soundtrack is fantastic!

[agentknight]

The Graduate!

[nonfiction]

Not really in order or anythning, but here are a few:

Chappaqua
The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly (and anything else Ennio Morricone)
All Joe Hisaishi scores (Hana-bi, Sonatine, Kids Return, Princess Mononoke, etc).
The Royal Tenenbaums
Wings of Desire
All About Lily Chou-Chou
Electric Dragon 80,000 V
Eli, Eli, Lema Sabachthani
Koyaanisqatsi
Baraka

[Nomansvally]

I would say Zbigniew Preisner's score for Kieslowski's La Double Vie De Veronique is above everything I've heard! That is my very favourite. A part form this score I place the Three Colour Trilogy and Dekalog's scores high, also composed by Zbigniew Preisner. I own about 25 soundtracks and I like:

Ennio Morricone's scores from Leone's films, I think those were the ones that got me into filmmusic.
Georges Delerue's soundtracks particulary Le Mépirs and Jules Et Jim (and Jeanne Moreau's song).
Edward Artemiev's soundtrack for Stalker is excellent.
John Debney's score for The Passion Of Christ which I bought the day after I saw it in cinema.

I also dig several of Lynch/Badalamenti's collaberations too.

[kiddo]

Oh, don`t you think the music in the three colours trilogy is some of the most beautiful music (no matter what music, in film or not) you`ve ever heard! Glad you mentioned it. I rewatched all the films in the trilogy not too long ago, and I think the music is what is most stuck in my mind. The last music in Bleu is, simply, unquestionably brilliant and utterly beautiful.

I will do anything to get hold to Dekalog and La Double Vie De Veronique!

[kiddo]

I forgot about Hans Zimmers contribution to Black Hawk Down. On my music player it says "11 Gortoz A Ran - J'Attends". You know what song I'm talking about?

[criterionmaster]

Italian composer Morricone to get honorary Oscar

Italian movie composer Ennio Morricone, famed for his work on such "spaghetti westerns" as "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" and "A Fistful of Dollars," will receive an honorary Oscar during the Academy Awards ceremony next February, organizers said on Wednesday.

Morricone, 78, has composed more than 300 motion picture scores during his 45-year career, but had never won an Oscar. He was nominated five times, for "Days of Heaven" (1978), "The Mission" (1986), "The Untouchables" (1987), "Bugsy" (1991) and "Malena" (2000).

The honorary Oscar, determined by the board of governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, went this year to director Robert Altman, who died last month.

"The board was responding not just to the remarkable number of scores that Mr. Morricone has produced," said Academy president Sid Ganis, "but to the fact that so many of them are beloved and popular masterpieces."

Morricone's other credits include the scores for "Once upon a Time in America," "Cinema Paradiso," "Bulworth," "In the Line of Fire," "La Cage aux Folles" and the 2008 release "Leningrad."

The 79th annual Academy Awards will be held in Hollywood on February 25.

[Clark Nova]

My day just got a whole lot better. Congrats to my all-time favorite composer

[The Anti-Snob]

Have you people heard of Cameron Crowe? Obviously, his are the best vocal sountracks ever.

Scores? Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Spider-Man, Lord of the Rings, Back to the Future, Terminator, Day of the Dead, Halloween, Princess Mononoke... Oh, God, I can't go on; I'm too worn out from all the coolness.

-Dan

[sacrilegend]

I loved the soundtrack of Arizona Dream.

[wkw]

2046 has one of the most amazing soundtracks ever

also love:

Days of Being Wild
Amadeus
Hable con Ella
In the Mood for Love
Ashes of Time
Fallen Angels
The Double Life of Veronique
Nights of Cabiria
anything by Nino Rota
Trois Coleurs: Bleu

... and of course: Team America

[sacrilegend]

The Fountain's soundtrack has a great impact on me, but I don't know why yet. It was very suitable, though.

[criterionmaster]

Here is an interesting article, some surprising things I didn't know about him:

Ennio Morricone -- more than a "cowboy composer"
By Silvia Aloisi - Reuters



Don't mention spaghetti westerns to Ennio Morricone -- they give him artistic indigestion.

The Italian composer, who will receive an honorary Oscar this month after writing the scores of some 400 films, is just plain tired of having his name linked ad nauseam to classics like "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" or "A Fistful of Dollars."

"It's a strait-jacket. I just don't understand how after all the films I have done people keep thinking about 'A Fistful of Dollars'. People are stuck back in time, 30 years ago," the 78-year old "Maestro," as he is known in Italy, told Reuters.

"My production for westerns is maybe 7.5 or 8 percent of what I have done overall," he said in an interview on Wednesday.

Morricone has worked in almost all film genres -- from horror to comedy -- and some of his tunes are perhaps more famous than the films he wrote them for.

His many credits include soundtracks for "The Battle of Algiers," "Once Upon A Time in America," "Cinema Paradiso," "Mission," "The Untouchables" and "In The Line of Fire."

In his career spanning half a century, the native Roman has been nominated for an Oscar five times -- none of them for a western -- but never won the coveted statuette.

Many critics and fans say the call from Los Angeles was decades overdue, but Morricone said it came as a surprise.

"I am going to Los Angeles satisfied to be receiving another award but I was not expecting anything. I did not think they would remember me," he said, speaking in Italian.

Famed for his sparse arrangements and for mixing classic instruments with less orthodox ones -- his trademark sounds are the ocarina (a flute-like instrument) and jew's harp (a lyre-shaped instrument) -- Morricone said he always tried to experiment with diversity.

"You have to create music with different sounds and different timbres. The sounds of life, the noises of the street and the sounds of animals -- that is all part of my musical background and I wanted to apply that to cinema," he said.

Morricone said he could not single out a director or a particular film that was closer to his heart than others.

But he said one big regret was never having worked with Stanley Kubrick.

"He did call me to do the score for 'A Clockwork Orange' and I said yes. He did not want to come to Rome, he did not like flying. And then he called Leone, who told him I was busy working with him. He never called again," he said.

"I would have really liked working with Kubrick."

One of few Italians to have become a Hollywood legend without living there, Morricone said a studio had once offered him a luxurious villa in California, but he turned it down.

"All my friends are here, as well as plenty of directors who love me and appreciate my work," he said.

"Rome is my home."

[PTAhole]

I also really like Joe Hisaishi's work on Miyazaki's pictures, especially My Neighbor Totoro and Princess Mononoke. Just mesmerizing.

[Evan]

Some of my alltime favorites are these:

[captainofbeef]

Total props on TGBU, Morricone is a genius.

[wkw]

I think the best score ever made is probably The Passion of Joan of Arc

also great:
Three Colors: Red
Vertigo
Hiroshima Mon Amour
The Mission
For a Few Dollars More (I like this score more than TGBU)
Cinema Paradiso
Once Upon a Time in the West