Which movie(s) do you think has the best soundtrack?
I think American Psycho has a good soundtrack and I listen to it occasionaly.
The Fifth Element is probably the only soundtrack I have ever bought. The diva’s aria is AMAZING!
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
The Game has changed, Son of Flynn!
But to be honest: Its a good music video
Sadly not a good movie, though.
One of my favorite
- 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
For me the criteria is: would the movie be very different with another soundtrack. The below offerings truly elevate their movies imo.
Tron Legacy
Blade Runner
Black Panther
Can’t believe no-one mentioned The Crow…
It can’t rain all the time.
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!
- Spawn
- Baby Driver
- Garden State
- the Lord of the Rings trilogy
+1 for Spawn. Such a great soundtrack for a such bad movie.
Yes, spawn. Amazing.
Dazed and Confused
The Blues Brothers - it’s stringing together performances from famous musicians, and the soundtrack was successful as an album in its own right.
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.
The scene with all the bagpipes (not sure if it was the first or second movie) was badass. Up there with Mad Max guitar guy for cool film uses of instruments.
The Matrix soundtrack is amazing
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Reservoir Dogs / Pulp Fiction / Kill Bill
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Stand By Me
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Dirty Dancing
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The Lost Boys
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Forrest Gump, hands down.
A few not listed:
- The Crow
- Empire Records
- Leaving Las Vegas
- Get Shorty
- Grosse Pointe Blank
Pulp Fiction(listed elsewhere)
Akira(1988)
The soundtrack compliments the action so well.
real. Geinoh Yamashirogumi elevated that movie beyond “weird mindfuck anime” to an immersive experience.
On the same note, Ghost in the Shell’s soundtrack is also a masterwork, though it doesn’t have a single stand out track like Kaneda’s Theme
Too much of ambience songs.
Personally I prefer more structured pieces like Battle against Clown or the OST of Tron:LegacyI just gave it a listen through, and yes I am remembering it for Kaneda’s Theme.
Seeing that scene on the big screen in '88 has not been topped as the most electric cinematic experience, for me.
The theme reminds me a bit about the Mario Kart DS/N64 race track Banshee Boardwalk.
The theme is definitely more structured but a bit too repetetive to just listen to. As a theme it’s perfectly suited to support a narrative.
