Michael Giacchino’s score for “Ratatouille” has really won me over. Every time I start the movie up the score makes me feel just like I did the first time I saw (and heard) “the 400 blows”.
Also very memorable are Michel Legrand’s scores in Godard’s “Vivre sa Vie”, Varda’s “Cléo de 5 à 7” and Jewison’s “The Thomas Crown Affair”.
Carter Burwell score for “the hi-lo country” and any score he did for the coen brothers.
Gustavo Santaolalla for brokeback mountain and babel.
Also i would like to note that ennio morricone’s score for giu, la testa or duck, you sucker or a fistful of dynamite is beyond beautiful, every score that mr. morricone does is sacred.
I love the scores for “The Shawshank Redemption” (especially the part which accompanies Brooks’ release from prison), ‘American Beauty’, ‘The English Patient’, and Terence Davies’ use of music in his films.
But without a doubt my favourite is the use of Jean Michelle Jarre’s “Oxygene” in ‘Gallipoli’ – particularly the use of Part 2 at the end of the film when Mel Gibson’s character acts as a runner in the Dardenelles trenches. It’s an inspired choice and couldn’t be more perfect if it was actually written for the film. The music perfectly mimics the sound of the bullets as they are whizzing past Gibson as he runs – just brilliant.
There Will Be Blood soundtrack
Only 2 things come to mind that I can’t find mentioned here already: Nino Rota’s stunning work for The Godfather, and anything by Aaron Copland.
I’m a total Bernard Herrmann nut, my favourites of his are:
The Day The Earth Stood Still (1950)
Vertigo (1958)
Psycho (1960)
Taxi Driver (1976)
Also love everything he wrote for The Twilight Zone.
Others I love are:
The Lost Weekend (1945) & Double Indemnity (1944) by Miklos Rozsa
Twin Peaks (both TV series and film 1990-1992) & Mulholland Drive (2001) by Angelo Badalamenti
Dead Man (1995) by Neil Young
The Assassination of Jesse James..(2007) by Nick Cave & Warren Ellis
Touch of Evil (1958) by Henry Mancini
Fargo (1996) by Carter Burwell
The Godfather (1972) by Nino Rota
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1966) by Ennio Morricone
The Man with the Golden Arm (1955) by Elmer Bernstein
Laura (1944) by David Raskin
Music for Matthew Barney’s Cremaster 5 (1998) by Jonathan Bepler
Also love what Vincent Gallo writes for films.
Favorite 70s scores:
Michael Small’s work on Arthur Penn’s “Night Moves,” Bryan Forbes’ “The Stepford Wives” and Alan Pakula’s “The Parallax View.”
Also, Paul Simon’s minimilist score for Hal Ashby’s “Shampoo.”
I’m partial to the scores in “Dead Man” and “Murder by Contract”. They go together great for a double bill.
I’m just going to put a list of films. The scores.
Punch-Drunk Love
Amelie
2001: A Space Odyssey
A Clockwork Orange
There Will Be Blood
The Fountain
Lady in the Water
GoldenEye
Dawn of the Dead
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
For a Few Dollars More
A Fistful of Dollars
Once Upon a Time in the West
Millennium Actress
Paprika
Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Almost Famous
Elizabethtown
The Devil’s Rejects
Psycho
Black Snake Moan
Suspiria
The Boondock Saints
Children of Men
The Transformers – The Movie (Animated)
Fight Club
Snatch.
Army of Darkness
Reservoir Dogs
Kill Bill: Volume 1
The Royal Tenenbaums
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
Sorry for the lenth list. Anyways my two favorite composers are Susumu Hirasawa and Ennio Morricone.
I agree with whoever mentioned Nino Rota. Fellini’s films are just that much better when the music plays. Also, can we get some love for Woody Allen’s “Manhattan”? The Gershwin score is a significant part of that film. New York City in 1979, with “Rhapsody in Blue”…so good.
I also have huge respect for Jon Brion, and pretty much anything he does.
Lalo Schifrin’s score for Bullitt is amazing. Les Gants Blancs Du Diable by Karl-Heinz Schäfer is really good also. Woody Allen always has great soundtracks though they are never original…except for Bananas I think. I really like what I’ve heard of the music from Army of Shadows…but I don’t have the album yet. I think I need to import it from France.
Any of Nino Rota’s Ex: 8 1/2, Amarcord, The Godfather, etc.
Any of Toru Takemitsu’s: Ran (haunting and ghostlike, very neat kind of space), Kwaidan (His use of just sounds is creepy, especially the scratching), Hara-Kiri, and Antonio Gaudi (has those similar qualities of his score for Ran. I especially love the organ parts).
Ennio Moricone’s western scores.
Heat by Elliot Goldenthal
the passion of joan of arc “sounds of light” i think it’s called
voices of light, i mean!
Morricone has been mentioned 100 times already but I’ll put a vote out for his “Violent City” score, even though it’s basically just the one theme song. But it’s a great song. Also not yet mentioned (I don’t think);
Lalo Schifrin – Dirty Harry + Magnum Force
John Barry – On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
David Shire – Taking of Pelham 1-2-3
Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Conversation” scored by David Shire is one of my favorites. Mixed with sound effects from all of the recording/bug devices, it just adds incredible atmosphere to Harry Caul’s paranoia and solitude.
The score for Yojimbo
The score for Yojimbo
Days of Heaven—I listen to it on my iPod, walking around thinking I’m in a Malick film.
Donnie Darko — Michael Andrews
Requiem for a Dream — Clint Mastell
Hannah Med H — The Knife
Science of Sleep — Jean-Michel Bernard
Since this thread has been revived, it might be a nice gesture to remember Maurice Jarre, composer of at least two of the best scores I know — Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago — who died yesterday.
The Proposition – Nick Cave. This man is a genius.
Only mention of Clint Mansell for Requiem? I thought he did a brilliant job in that movie.
And I loved Terminator’s soundtrack.
John Barry’s WALKABOUT (the “Back the Nature” track is the only piece of musical score that I find more haunting than Morricone’s main theme for ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA). I don’t think Ry Cooder has been mentioned yet, so I’ll say that both PARIS, TEXAS and SOUTHERN COMFORT are excellent. Korngold’s THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD is also a favourite. Two great underrated Goldsmith scores are POLTERGEIST and TOTAL RECALL. As is the incredible Fiedel work on TERMINATOR 2 (go back and listen to it again if you don’t believe me). Oh yes: JULES ET JIM has a great theme. A more recent score – one that I thought really elevated the film – was LET THE RIGHT ONE IN. Philip Glass excelled himself with MISHIMA. Best ever? Hmm. VERTIGO.
Bernard Hermann – Taxi Driver, North by Northwest, Psycho
Nick Cave and Warren Ellis – The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Ennio Morricone – Once Upon a Time in America, Once Upon a Time in the West, The Mission
The single best soundtrack ever composed is The Mission, by Ennio Morricone.
Second to that, is The Third Man, by Anton Caras.
And then, the whole other bunch. John Murphy and Underwold´s score for Sunshine is sublime. Same goes for Peter Gabriel´s Passion.
By the way, the most anoying soundtrack I ever heard, one who made unbereable to watch an otherwise sublime film, was Maurice Jarre´s music for William Wyler´s The Colletor. Hard to believe it´s from the fella who composed the Fearless soundtrack.
Antoine Doinel
Oh also Gabriel Yared – I love his use of big synths in Godard’s “Sauve qui peut (la vie)” it’s classic! And the “Betty Blue (37°2 le Matin)” soundtrack is great to listen too – it very much captures its time!