Best Movie Scores

[Meriphew]

A few of my favs (though no idea where they were recorded at):
Blade Runner
The Year of Living Dangerously
The Mosquito Coast
Trois Couleurs/ Rouge
Trois Couleurs/ Bleu
Trois Couleurs/ Blanc
The Good the Bad and the Ugly

[Matt Grondin]

Anything by John Williams, Bernard Hermann, James Newton Howard, Jerry Goldsmith, Thomas Newman, Howard Shore, Hans Zimmer, Ennio Morricone, etc.

[Infernal Device]

Requiem for a dream.

oh yes.

[Matt Grondin]

Originally Posted by Meriphew

A few of my favs (though no idea where they were recorded at):
Blade Runner
The Year of Living Dangerously
The Mosquito Coast
Trois Couleurs/ Rouge
Trois Couleurs/ Bleu
Trois Couleurs/ Blanc
The Good the Bad and the Ugly

Blade Runner... good stuff! Vangelis makes extremely cool use of the greatest polyphonic analog synth ever, the Yamaha CS-80. I've been wanting to try the plugin version of that keyboard.

[jhg]

A recent David Lynch/Twin Peaks kick was very nicely timed with the article in newest Mix magazine. At times the music actually guides the picture, not vice versa. Incredible integration.

As well...

Ennio Morricone
Bernard Hermann
Phillip Glass

[Luker]

Ohh...
And now about Air Studios
most of perfect Movie Scores was recorded in this studio !!!

[maskedman72]

the score to the movie "the day the earth stood still" will blow your balls off.

also the conan the barbarian movies.

[MichaelT]

I'm quite fond of the "Gladiator" sountrack (Hans Zimmer and Lisa Gerrard). "Finding Neverland" is another favorite of mine (Jan A.P. Kaczmarek). There are too many I love to list them all right now.

-Mike

[C.Lambrechts]

Star Wars of course

[Lindell]

Live and Let die 1975
Star Wars 1979
The Rock 1996

[gsarbo]

You guys must be really young...

Soundtrack to El Cid, for the strength of composition. Miklos Rozca (sp?)

..or, uh, ...I forgot, what was I going to say?

[HudHudson]

Thomas Newman's score for "Meet Joe Black" is IMO one of the best suites of orchestral music written in the last 50 years, and the soundtrack recording is one of the most powerful and dynamic I've ever heard.

[dreamless]

pee wee's big adventure (1985)

[AlexLakis]

Angelo Badalamenti's score for "City of Lost Children."

And of course, one of the greatest bands of all time, DVDA, for their score for the movie "South Park."

[Cojo]

One more vote for Star Wars and Blade Runner but I would also like to add another Vangelis score: Chariots of fire!

/Cojo

[canopener]

Tommy's score for "Shawshank Redemption" is a fav of mine (it was only a matter of time before Arvo Part became "source" material) along with a ton of others by others. ("Alien", "Patton", "China Town" ... Jerry Goldsmith, boy oh boy.)

Really got off on a Mystikal track that plays a long fight scene in "Kiss of the Dragon" ((Jet Li, Bridget Fonda). For me it gave it a kind of comedic funky boy killer kung-fu vibe. Sounded like there's timpani doing some kick drum duties. I also liked some of the orchestra/rock stuff in "Cat Woman".

And so forth and on....

[cheeky b]

Some of the greatest movie scores don't necessarily make for great listening away from the pictures but try imagining some of these movies without the music:

Bernard Hermann: Cape Fear, Citizen Kane.
Elmer Bernstein: Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape.
John Carpenter : Assault on Precinct 13
Ennio Morricone: So many of the spaghetti westerns with or without Clint - his output is HUGE - plus more like Once Upon a time in America etc.
Burt Bacharach: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Thomas Newman: Shawshank Redemption, American beauty - although his style is getting copied to death now by TV series and commercials.
One for the Australians, The Necks: The Boys

Not a composer but great use of music award goes to Quentin Tarantino

[Matt Grondin]

I agree... everybody has jacked Thomas Newmans's style... it's almost ridiculous.

[AdAudioInc]

Another vote for Requiem for a Dream
an honarable mention for "Matchstick Men" not big or dramatic, but did what it needed to do
Has anybody else seen "Ash Wednesday" ? with Ed Burns ? very odd movie, I loved it - the score is this piano that just pops in and is always the same, but I think that is a personification of the story in the film.
- everyones an F'n critic . . .

[MGA]

Yet another vote for John Wiliams's Star Wars & Raider of the Lost Ark/Indiana Jones Series
Ennio Moricone's The Mission
James Horner's Braveheart
Howard Shone's Lord of the Rings Trilogy
All the composers who worked on the Exorcist score (atonal and unsettling spooky stuff!)
Also anything from early Warner Bros. cartoons!

[Meriphew]

"At Play in the Fields of the Lord" is fantastic.

[Meriphew]

Originally Posted by dobby12

Blade Runner... good stuff! Vangelis makes extremely cool use of the greatest polyphonic analog synth ever, the Yamaha CS-80. I've been wanting to try the plugin version of that keyboard.

I've been wanting to try the real thing.

[analogjeff]

Fargo -- score by Carter Burwell
Ulee's Gold -- score by Charles Engstrom
Last Temptation of Christ -- score by Peter Gabriel
Wings of Desire -- score by Jurgen Kneiper

all are unique and moving...

[Pasta4lnch]

I've always been a fan of "The Firm". Just Piano. Very simple.

[celticrogues]

Another vote for Star Wars and Lord of the Rings
Also: Waking Ned Devine (I like irish music)
Cheers
Mike

[Tim L]

Lawrence of Arabia (1962) - Maurice Jarre (Arguably the most amaizing film score ever composed)
The Lord of The Rings Trilogy - Howard Shore (A close second!)

[tunesmith]

Glad to see so many Thomas Newman fans out there. When I was in high school, my girlfriend dragged me to see the Winona Ryder adaptation of Little Women. The score for that film is among his best, and his most unusual, in that it's a grand, sweeping, orchestral score. The opening brass fanfare is still breathtakingly beautiful to my ears.

A few weeks later, I was ranting and raving about it at a family dinner, and my grandmother, a longtime music lover, semi-pro singer, and West Side resident looked straight at me and said, "Are you talking about little Tommy Newman?"

Turns out she had been good friends with his mother and father, as they lived in the same neighborhood and ran in some of the same circles. A few weeks after that, me, my grandma, and another friend of mine (who is now a successful composer himself) found ourselves sitting in studio B at Village Recorders on Santa Monica BLVD, hanging out with him and watching him score the Diane Keaton flick "Unstrung Heroes." Turns out gramma still had a few connections... I miss that lovely old lady.

It was a totally formative, mind-altering experience. He was working with one of his sample guys, layering some of those exotic sounds that he does so well. He was patient and generous, answering questions and including us (two high school boys and an old aquaintance of his mothers, for God's sake...) in the process. All I could think the whole time was... this is so ****ing cool.

So, every time he gets robbed for an oscar, I throw stuff at the TV. I think he's the most interesting composer working. Road to Perdition is my favorite score of his. The piano work is so simple and beautiful.

Also glad to see Carter Burwell's awesome Fargo score get some props.

I have to point out John Williams' brilliant JFK score, while I am at it.

[dpianomn]

Another vote for Lord of the Rings.
Braveheart was quite stirring, and I also think the score from American Beauty has influenced MANY films over the past few years. Mallet percussion has been all over the place ever since.

[Killahurts]

Hellraiser