Good Movie Soundtracks

[Impie]

I finally watched Wonder Woman and it reminded me of something that always pains my weary heart: that memorable film soundtracks are a dead art. I use music as my number one inspiration when I write, and have done so ever since I was a kid and didn't even know how to string a plot together. Film music seems so generic and incidental nowadays (barring the endless sequels to old franchises like Star Wars), whereas I used to be able to enjoy the scores on their own, even when they were the only good part of the movie. I wanted to use this thread to walk down memory lane and celebrate some of the great movie themes I've enjoyed from childhood onward.
 

Spoiler

I'll start off with Wonder Woman's badass theme from the movie. I was expecting the same generic orchestral dullardry from every other super hero movie of the past twenty years, and instead got an awesome mix of modern strings and ancient Greek percussion.

 

 

 

Oddly enough, it was a superhero theme that got me into soundtracks as a child: BATMAN. Since then I've had a soft spot for pretty much anything Danny Elfman.

 

 

 

Lalo Schifrin is the fucking MAN. His scores are always jazzy and funky as hell. I could fill a whole separate list with just his work.

 

 

 

 

 

Basil Poledouris is another king of the movie soundtrack, with classic scores like Conan the Barbarian and Robocop.

 

 

 

But I really love his work on the 90s western Quigley Down Under.

 

 

This one track contains all the different themes of the film in an absolutely beautiful suite.

 

 

 

The Terminator has one of the greatest opening title sequences of all time, and its bleak synth theme is unforgettable.

 

 

 

Lots of cool soundtracks from the 80s, including the score to Code of Silence, mixing 80s synth with a bit of Asian flair.

 

 

 

Taking of Pelham 123 has a bold-ass theme that doesn't like to be ignored. The rest of the score has some great intense tracks, too, like my favorite one here.

 

 

 

I didn't expect the third Apes film to have such a catchy soundtrack.

 

 

 

Everyone had this one burned into their ears after the movie came out.

 

 

 

Didn't care for Zatoichi The Last, but it did have some really cool music.

 

 

 

Same goes for Zeiram 2. The original film also has a great opening theme, but it's not on youtube.

 

 

 

Last Man Standing is a favorite of mine, with a great bluesy score.

 

 

 

First Contact's theme needs no introduction.

 

 

 

Sudden Death had a beautiful and intense soundtrack by John Debney.

 

 

 

Death Wish 2018 managed to have a badass and unusual synth soundtrack that somehow struck a cord between modern and 80s.

 

 

 

Lots of video links there, so I collapsed 'em. Hope you guys have some cool and memorable movie tracks to add.

Edited May 8, 2019 by Impie

[metalhumanbeing]

Awesome thread. I'm a big fan of a splatter horrors, BTW. I ripped some good music from them, and this thread gave me a chance to share this awesome tunes with Doomworld.
 

Spoiler

 

 

[insertwackynamehere]

I like Blade Runner’s soundtrack and various tracks from it became the subject of remixes or used in eclectic mixes in the trance scene.

[Impie]

11 hours ago, NailZx128 said:

Awesome thread. I'm a big fan of a splatter horrors, BTW. I ripped some good music from them, and this thread gave me a chance to share this awesome tunes with Doomworld.

 

Nice! Blood Rage is definitely my favorite of the lot.

 

The music from these kinds of movies likely inspired the Splatterhouse games' soundtracks.

 

Except the reboot, which went with generic shitmetal. Because of course it did.

Edited May 9, 2019 by Impie

[DooM_RO]

There is no better soundtrack than The Lord of the Rings.

[seed]

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Some more, good, memorable stuff from movies.

[Doom_Dude]

I agree Impie, the music of Basil Poledouris is great stuff.

 

Anyhow....

 

Spoiler

 

Basil Poledouris. Love the drums in this...

 

Love me some Erich Wolfgang Korngold, especially music from The Seahawk.

 

 

The Music from Errol Flynn's Robin Hood!

 

So much great music in Star Wars obviously. This one from Star Wars, Attack of the Clones: Across The Stars (Love Theme)! John Williams!

 

John Williams again....

 

Graeme Revell. Music from Riddick.

 

Michael Giacchino. Music from Cloverfield.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Impie]

@seed Have to strongly disagree about any of the Chris Nolan Batman shit. I could listen to that music all day and not remember a single note. Bland Zimmer-esque music is part of the reason I bring up good soundtracks in forums to begin with.

 

That Dog Soldiers track is beautiful, though.

 

@Doom_Dude Graeme Revell has some wicked scores to his credit, too.

 

 

[HavoX]

On 5/8/2019 at 2:54 AM, Impie said:

Lots of video links there, so I collapsed 'em.

That didn't really help much in my part... :/

[ENEMY!!!]

I'm a big fan of a lot of Thomas Newman's stuff:

Whisper of a Thrill (Meet Joe Black)

Road to Chicago (Road to Perdition)

2815 A.D. (WALL-E)

Route 12 (Revolutionary Road)

 

And a lot of stuff by John Williams, including most of his Star Wars scores, the first two Indiana Jones scores, Jaws, Close Encounters, Angela's Ashes, Schindler's List.  I'll post a link to the Angela's Ashes theme as it is not as well-known as some of his other stuff:

Angela's Ashes theme

 

John Barry was the mastermind behind most of the music for the earlier James Bond films.

The Death of Goldfinger - End Titles (Goldfinger)

007 (From Russia with Love)

We Have All the Time in the World - Instrumental (On Her Majesty's Secret Service)

Inflight Fight (The Living Daylights)

 

Another favourite of mine is Ennio Morricone.  My favourite of his scores is probably The Good, The Bad and the Ugly:

Ecstasy of Gold (The Good, The Bad and the Ugly)

 

And Jerry Goldsmith was behind a staggering number of very good to excellent scores:

Ilia's Theme (Star Trek: The Motion Picture)

 

And another favourite of mine is the Lawrence of Arabia soundtrack by Maurice Jarre:

Lawrence of Arabia Overture

 

As you might have guessed I'm rather into movie soundtracks.  These days Hans Zimmer's Remote Control group tends to be a dominant influence and I don't think much of most of the collaborative compositions that come out of Remote Control, but I think Zimmer's solo efforts are often very good (Interstellar, The Prince of Egypt and The Last Samurai for example).  And we still have some composers producing scores that are more akin to those of the likes of John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith et al, e.g. Alexandre Desplat, Michael Giacchino, Alan Silvestri.  Alexandre Desplat's score for The Shape of Water was one of my recent favourites.

[Impie]

10 hours ago, ENEMY!!! said:

John Barry was the mastermind behind most of the music for the earlier James Bond films.

 

Another favourite of mine is Ennio Morricone.  My favourite of his scores is probably The Good, The Bad and the Ugly:

That's my fave Ennio Morricone track!

 

Also John Barry did a beautiful score for Octopussy in particular (my favorite Roger Moore outing as Bond).

 

 

 

Also, the score to Road to Perdition had a really lovely part during the opening credits, and one or two other somewhat memorable bits throughout the film.

 

 

Spoiler

I have a bone to pick with Road to Perdition. I read the comic and saw the film back to back.

 

Here's what the shootouts (well, shootout, singular) were like in the film.

 

Here's what they were like in the comic.

 

Tension buildup is okay, but once shit hits the fan, I'm...not impressed.

 

Edited May 11, 2019 by Impie

[SOSU]

I like the Tomb of Dracula OST :)

 

Plus Riddle of Steel is the shit :D

 

[Impie]

1 minute ago, SOSU said:

I like the Tomb of Dracula OST :)

Well, now we gotta have a funky vampire theme battle.

 

 

 

[SOSU]

@Impie You dare chalenge me to a funky vampire theme battle? Fool! You have lost the moment you dared to chalenge me!

 

[Caffeine Freak]

The 'Annihilation' soundtrack. Creepy, surreal and abstract. Watching the scene with the humanoid in the theater was one of the better cinematic experiences of my life so far, and wouldn't have been so without the masterful score.

 

 

Also, 'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo'. Great film, complemented by a superbly immersive, resonant soundtrack. A sample: 

 

[Impie]

Another cool little track from Road to Perdition.

 

 

[Doominator2]

I dont know what it is about the Taxi Driver soundtrack, but I swear you could put it over any scene in the movie and have it work. Its such a master piece of music.

 

[Grimosaur]

 

Soundtrack for the film Angel's Egg. Spooky as hell and fantastic film. If you like 2001: A Space Odyssey then you will probably like this as well, it's got the same mysterious, atmospheric tone to it. It's just on Youtube if you want to watch it but be prepared to be very, very confused.

[jupiter_ex]

I've been consuming and partly producing soundtracks since the 90s so I have just too many to post

[Mr. Freeze]

I'm surprised people like WW's theme. It sounds like the soundtrack to a terrible fighting game. 

 

My contribution is the soundtrack to Day of The Dead. It's this cool blend of 80's synths and Caribbean rhythms. I actually prefer it to Dawn's soundtrack. 

 

 

[Impie]

On 6/6/2019 at 8:34 PM, Mr. Freeze said:

Day of The Dead

Fucking LOVE this one. I ripped this youtube video as an mp3 so I could jam to it.

[xvertigox]

I'm watching A Nightmare on Elm Street and the OST is mean as fuck - especially the intense synth driven songs.

 

 

[elend]

One of my all time favourites is the soundtrack to a little gem of a film called „The Reflecting Skin“. In it we follow the daily life of a little kid who thinks his neighbour is a vampire. Someone once  described the movie aptly as „a mix between David Lynch and Terrence Malik“. 

 

And the most outstanding part of it is the soundtrack, imho. Which is parts eerie and sad.

 

 

[Impie]

It's criminal that I forgot about this one.

 

 

[4everDoomed]

I like most of Goblin's titeltracks, especially Suspiria '77 and Contamination '80.  

John Carpenter/Alan Howarth did a great job as well on their older movies, my favourite tune would be the one from Escape from New York...

 

Giorgio Moroder's work on Scarface '83 was pretty cool. I loved that videogame on XBOX, played it hundreds of hours just because of the in-built soundtracks on your radio. 

 

Terminator '84 is epic. One of the best ever. 

 

And now for something completely different: 

Cincinnati Kid with Steve McQueen, mid 60's. Probably the only Ray Charles song I'm very fond of.  

[zen4040]

who the hell even still watches movies? videogames have everything movies do and more besides most movies these days are garbage anyway and you guys are here talking about movie soundtracks

[TMAD]

I recently watched the first two John Wick movies and one thing that stood out to me was how much I enjoyed the soundtrack.

 

[Impie]

On 7/15/2019 at 1:58 PM, ([zen3001]) said:

who the hell even shows interest in things I'm not interested in?

Fixed.

 

Another good one from Sin City with an awesome slow burn in the beginning.

 

[Taurus Daggerknight]

Adding to Sin City would be its sequel: A Dame to Kill For. That one had a pretty solid OST as well.

 

Other good ones: 

 

Serenity 

The Social Network 

Hanna (the movie. Don't know about the new series)

John Wick (original, sequel's OST was kind of so so compared to it, and I haven't seen chapter 3 yet)

The Matrix Trilogy 

Blade Runner

 

Also surprised no one has mentioned Star Wars, given how iconic its score is. 

[geo]

It's so tough to even remember good soundtracks. I own a lot on CD, but music streaming services just don't have them for me to remember they exist. Some soundtracks on streaming sites will have like 3 out of 20 songs.

 

 - Mortal Kombat

 - The Matrix Reloaded

 - Natural Born Killers

 - Lost Highway

 - House of 1,000 Corpses

 

Memorable film soundtracks aren't a dead art, it's like video game music, designed to fit into the background while people are talking.