Now the world don't move to the beat of just one drum...

Just thought I'd share.

Focus: Bernard Herrmann - Citizen Kane, The Man Who Knew Too Much, North By Northwest ...you get the idea.

 

I love the Cowboy Bebop opening theme. Actually all the music used in the series.

 

I couldn't find anything after hours of searching, but whoever did the score for No Country for Old Men is a musical genius!

FOCUS: Damn near anything that Angelo Badalamenti has made for David Lynch.
Try watching Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, or the Lost Highway, and you will see how trippy sounds can make a movie (not like they weren't weird already).

 

There are two songs that immediately jump out at me whenever this topic comes up. I'm a huge fan of using music that doesn't nessesarily match the scene that it's getting played over, and I think two great examples of this are...

When Chris Tucker OD's in Dead Presidents with Al Green playing the background.



And in Snatch when Brad Pitt knocks Gorgeous George the fuck out. (music starts and 1:05 but I feel like it helps to watch the whole thing.



There are probably hundreds of pairings like this that I could think of, but these are the two that immediately come to mind.

Edit: Also, I think this thread would be remiss if it didn't include a shout out to Prince for any song in Purple rain, which is one of the most epic films ever made.

 

Alan Silvestri has composed some of the most memorable scores of all time-

Forrest Gump

Back to the Future series

Cast Away

 

Shower scene music from PSYCHO.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_XfUxXDldY

The shrieking violins go great with the knife strikes and also tie in nicely with the bird theme. The cellos sound ominous and have an odd cutting rhythm as the last bit of swirling music mimes the flow of blood down the drain.

Can't forget JAWS.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLAYvjaGGqM

More menacing cellos. This time they're stalking and waiting for you to turn your back.

Also, anything by Ennio Morricone. For xmas once someone gave me a bunch of his soundtrack stuff. Every once in a while I see a spahetti western and hear it again for the first time. His work took those spaghetti westerns to a whole new level.

 

My favourite film composer is Jerry Goldsmith. He wrote terrific music for every genre I can think of, and to me it just sounds better than anybody else (at a loss of words to explain why). This is the theme from the war-reporter-in-Nicaragua movie Under Fire:



Elliot Goldenthal’s score for Alien3 is fucking brilliant. It is a combination of snarling orchestral terror and coldly beautiful soundscapes. Here is the opening music:



Morricone is mostly known for his Leone westerns, but a lot of his best stuff was written for films few people have seen (he has almost 500 composer credits listed on Imdb). This is a suite from Nostromo:



And David Arnold’s Bond music is just simply cool:

 

Having just watched this again the other day, my vote goes for Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers*.

Not only did we get one of Nine Inch Nails' best songs (the soundtrack was produced by Trent Reznor), "Burn" out of it, but since it was an art film there were no restrictions to what could be used, and what is used works, be it Bob Dylan's "You Belong to Me", Patsy Cline's "Back in Baby's Arms", Patti Smith and Lenny Kaye's "Rock and Roll Nigger", or NIN's "Something I Can Never Have" and "A Warm Place", etc. And of course who could forget the tones set by (appropriate for an art time) Leonard Cohen's opening "Waiting for the Miracle" and closing "The Future", and the chaos and insanity of the prison riot set to "Allah, Mohammad, Char, Yaar" by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan & Party.

Say what you want about the movie, but that's an awesome soundtrack.

Another good one, of course, is The Big Lebowski, especially with regards to Dylan's "The Man in Me", which I want played at my wedding, if I have one. Tarantino has nothing on the Cohens when it comes to scores. Speaking of which...

*Yes I'm aware Tarantino wrote the script. But if he'd done it the way he wanted it done, it would have been True Romance set in the 1950s, and not the surreal satire and arguable masterpiece that Stone made. I'll always defend NBK, even if Stone makes five Alexanders and World Trade Centers.

 

When it comes to great soundtracks, there are two films that primarily come to mind;

Highlander- Amazing soundtrack by Queen, including quite possibly their best song;



Bloodsport- A surprisingly good 80's action film that made Jean Claude van Damme a major star. One reason is the unusually upbeat, appropriate music. It beats out Rocky 4 for the best action movie soundtrack I've heard;

 

I don't know about you guys, but anytime I hear the soundtrack to Never Back Down I just feel like getting up and fighting someone right there.

 

Two particular soundtracks stand out to me, the ones for the movies "Singles" and "Blade Runner".

My mid to late teens were right on the explosion of grunge, and I accepted it with full fervour. I bought the soundtrack to Singles just because of the bands on it. I knew nothing about the movie and still haven't seen it to this day. But I'll be damned if that disc wasn't probably the best sampler for the music coming out of the scene to date.

Blade Runner is my favourite movie. The sounds Vangelis created it for it are nothing short of spot on and fantastic. Not really my type of music, but I own the 4 disc version and have no compunction in putting it on in the car from time to time.

 

All these posts and not a single mention of Wes Anderson? Ya damn alpha males.

I think all of his movies use music incredibly well, fitting perfectly for each scene, whether they're quirky, hilarious or heart-wrenching.

My favorites that come to mind are:
2000 Man - The Rolling Stones (Bottle Rocket)
A Quick One While He's Away by The Who (Rushmore)
Just about everything from Royal Tenenbaums, but especially Fly by Nick Drake
Play With Fire by The Rolling Stones at the end of Darjeeling Limited, during an absolutely fantastic scene in an otherwise kind of mediocre film
Heroes and Villains - Brian Wilson (Fantastic Mr. Fox)

 

But you don't mention


One of my favorite movies is Danny Boyle's Sunshine, not the least of which is it's fantastic score

 

I get giddy when I hear the soundtrack from my absolute favorite movie...when I was 12.

Oh, who am I trying to bullshit, I still love this movie.

 

If you've seen a trailer for an indie movie any time in the last year and a half you've heard this song:



I've always been partial to Fight Club's soundtrack, it was surprisingly good. I think it does a great job of maintaining the tone of the movie, if David Flincher had gone with generic metal the film would have lost a lot of punch (no pun intended).

 

What no mention of the EPIC win that is PING ISLAND. That was the best song in the whole movie, except for the Bowie covers...




I'm also a big fan of the TRUEBLOOD opening credits.

 

It was mentioned earlier but Lux Aeterna by Clint Mansell for Requiem For A Dream bears repeating.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKLpJtvzlEI

 

Rocknrolla was a gold mine. The song is We Had Love by The Scientists. It's the best of an amazing soundtrack.

Crank has some more good selection. Everybody's Talkin' by Harry Nilsson. Starts at 00:42.

Banlieue 13 intro all shitty techno on it's own but perfectly fit to the film. chase song is good too.