{"id":1254156,"date":"2019-02-21T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-02-21T03:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1254156"},"modified":"2019-02-21T06:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-02-21T03:00:00","slug":"the-50-best-movie-scores-of-all-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1254156","title":{"rendered":"The 50 Best Movie Scores of All Time"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Lists & Guides<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The 50 Best Movie Scores of All Time<\/h1>\n
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From Eraserhead<\/em> to Batman<\/em>, Under the Skin<\/em> to Blue Velvet<\/em>, these are the greatest original compositions for film<\/div>\n
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By <\/span>Pitchfork<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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From left to right: Halloween<\/em> photo copyright Compass International Pictures, Jackie<\/em> photo copyright Fox Searchlight Pictures, Ghost Dog<\/em> photo copyright Artisan Entertainment<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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With the Oscars coming up this Sunday, Pitchfork is celebrating with our first<\/em>\u00a0Music & Movies<\/em>\u00a0week.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Now that we\u2019ve looked at the best soundtracks in film, let\u2019s turn to the best scores. We\u2019re defining scores as original music\u00a0composed for a film, with recurring motifs and\u00a0almost always without vocals.\u00a0This type of work is\u00a0often the result of a collaboration between a composer and director, and created in tandem\u00a0with\u00a0a movie\u00a0to steadily enhance the\u00a0narrative onscreen. Put another way: Whereas\u00a0a soundtrack highlights moments of a movie, a score blankets\u00a0the entire film.\u00a0(We\u2019re only looking at narrative films in this list; we are not including documentaries.)<\/p>\n

A great original\u00a0score\u00a0is an art form in itself:\u00a0While it serves the\u00a0director\u2019s vision,\u00a0it can also stand alone as\u00a0its own immersive listen.\u00a0As you\u2019ll see below,\u00a0the original score is\u00a0a beloved medium\u00a0for musicians, who often have a favorite\u00a0one they can point to immediately.\u00a0And sometimes, musicians who\u2019ve found fame\u00a0with their own songs\u00a0can channel those same gifts\u00a0into film work. So let\u2019s\u00a0raise the curtain by talking to\u00a0two composers who are part of an innovative new vanguard\u00a0that\u2019s\u00a0creating\u00a0today\u2019s most exciting movie music.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe Weaker the Executive, the More Notes You Get\u201d: A Conversation With Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury<\/h2>\n

In their film scores, composing duo Geoff Barrow (Portishead, Beak>) and Ben Salisbury shun many tropes of the form. Instead of saccharine strings and bright horns, they\u00a0favor dense, swampy atmospheres and pulsing electronics, creating soundscapes that unsettle and fascinate. After their tense, brooding\u00a0work for\u00a0Alex Garland\u2019s 2014 thriller\u00a0Ex-Machina<\/em>\u00a0won widespread acclaim, they partnered again on Garland\u2019s Annihilation<\/em>, their surreal tones adding new layers of disorientation to the\u00a0sci-fi\u00a0mystery. Their latest film, Julius Onah\u2019s Luce<\/em>, recently premiered at Sundance. Here, they talk\u00a0about the art of film scoring.<\/p>\n

Pitchfork: What do you get creatively out of scoring films?<\/div>\n

Geoff Barrow: It\u2019s opened up a whole world for me that I never really thought existed. It challenges you every day. I love the idea of using sound to explore things like misdirection, to make a person come across as being victimized while knowing that they are the worst person in the world. I absolutely love it.<\/p>\n

Ben Salisbury: For me, as simple as it sounds, it\u2019s the combination of music and picture. I\u2019m a frustrated filmmaker as much as I am a composer, and I love being part of the collaborative filmmaking process. Sometimes it\u2019s not even about the big musical moments; there might be little moments where I know that I\u2019m changing the audience\u2019s temperature of a film\u2014that you\u2019ve twisted their melon. That is very satisfying.<\/p>\n

What are some of your personal favorite scores?<\/div>\n

Barrow: Ben and I really bonded over Planet of the Apes<\/em>. John Carpenter\u2019s Assault on Precinct 13<\/em> was big for me\u2014what he managed to convey emotionally, yet so simply, was incredible.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Salisbury: Jaws<\/em>, Star Wars<\/em>, Bernard Herrmann, Jerry Goldsmith. More recently: Solaris<\/em>, You Were Never Really Here<\/em>, Under the Skin<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Geoff, you come from a nontraditional film scoring background where you have creative autonomy over every aspect of your work. How have you found the transition to serving somebody else\u2019s vision?<\/div>\n

Barrow: Quite difficult. I read something by a music supervisor the other day who said, \u201cIt\u2019s nice when you don\u2019t notice the music in a film,\u201d and I thought, What a prick<\/em>. But this isn\u2019t an ego blast; you are working for the better of the film. It\u2019s not about you and you have to get that into your head. I\u2019m pretty honest in meetings. I don\u2019t want to waste my time or theirs and, so far, it\u2019s been OK. I\u2019ve walked away from a few things, especially if they want anything like Portishead. I\u2019m not going to try and copy myself.<\/p>\n

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\"Geoff<\/span><\/div>\n
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Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury. Photo by Cuts.<\/p>\n

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What\u2019s the biggest lesson you\u2019ve learned from moving into this world?<\/div>\n

Barrow: Don\u2019t ever deliver anything you wouldn\u2019t be proud of a single second appearing on film because sometimes, when you hand over a rushed rough version to test mood, you\u2019re no longer in control of what gets done with that music. Also, the weaker the executive, the more notes you get about the music.<\/p>\n

Ben, you\u2019ve been a composer for over 20 years. How have things changed?<\/div>\n

Salisbury: It\u2019s quite easy to make a feature film compared to decades ago\u2014you can make a film on a phone and get your mate in a band to do the score on a laptop. When I started, you needed so much kit to score films, it was quite an undertaking.<\/p>\n

This remains a very male-dominated job. Of the 250 highest-grossing films of 2018, only 6 percent of composers were women.<\/div>\n

Salisbury: It definitely is, and we need to do whatever we can to change it\u2014for equality reasons but also because you\u2019re missing out on so much. It\u2019s like cutting off half the creative ideas available to you. Why would you do that?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Barrow: It\u2019s appalling but it\u2019s going to change. There are so many more open-minded directors coming through that I think that change is already happening.<\/p>\n

What are some of the biggest differences between the music and film industries?<\/div>\n

Barrow: Film makes the music industry look like a toy town. It\u2019s frightening how absolutely pure evil some people are in the film industry. But I get a kick out of navigating through that world. When I make music with Beak> or Portishead, there is nobody telling me how it should be done, but there\u2019s also more longevity in film. The music industry is basically a support system for new artists and most people expect you to quit being in a rock band by 35, but in film, people do it right until the end of their lives.<\/p>\n

Interview by\u00a0Daniel Dylan Wray<\/em><\/p>\n

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Listen to selections from this list on our Spotify playlist and Apple Music playlist.<\/p>\n

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\"Sony<\/span><\/div>\n
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Sony Classical<\/p>\n

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50.<\/div>\n

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon<\/em> (2000)<\/h2>\n

A landmark\u00a0of Asian cinema, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon<\/em> was the result of close collaboration between composer Tan Dun and director Ang Lee. Alongside famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma, Dun and Lee worked for four years\u00a0to conceptualize a movie that would introduce Western audiences to martial arts as a historical form, rather than simply violent entertainment. Just as the film bridged the East and West\u2014it remains the top-grossing foreign film of all time in the U.S.\u2014Dun\u2019s breathtaking score melds elements of his upbringing and traditional Chinese instrumentation with the classical training he received later in America.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0star here is Yo-Yo Ma; Dun\u00a0would probably agree, as he\u2019s\u00a0called him the \u201cspiritual glue\u201d of the writing process. His performances breathe elegance across the entire score,\u00a0and in the film, his\u00a0percussive thumps and pizzicato strums are interspersed brilliantly between punches and kicks. The most powerful moment comes in \u201cYearning of the Sword,\u201d\u00a0where Ma\u2019s cello concedes center stage to a Chinese erhu<\/em>, a sorrowful two-stringed instrument. The two trade melodies, highlighting their distinctive timbral differences before eventually reaching a wistful harmony. \u2013Noah Yoo<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Listen:<\/strong> Tan Dun and Yo-Yo Ma, \u201cYearning of the Sword\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Tamla\"<\/span><\/div>\n
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Tamla<\/p>\n

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49.<\/div>\n

Trouble Man<\/em> (1972)<\/h2>\n

As Curtis Mayfield\u2019s Super Fly<\/em> and Isaac Hayes\u2019 Shaft<\/em>\u00a0took Blaxploitation soundtracks to new heights, Marvin Gaye also found his\u00a0groove in film music. The\u00a0Trouble Man<\/em>\u00a0score\u00a0serves the gun-toting, fist-flying, cheesy dialogue-spouting movie just\u00a0fine, with its smooth grooves cushioning the action, and Gaye\u2019s lyrics amplifying the bullish attitude of the lead character, but it\u2019s most potent as a standalone listen.<\/p>\n

Trouble Man<\/em>\u00a0was released between the politically charged What\u2019s Going On<\/em> and the sexually driven Let\u2019s Get It On<\/em>, finding Gaye at\u00a0his\u00a0artistic peak. The score is largely instrumental with\u00a0suave horns, funky grooves, pulsing synthesizer, and sparse drums. Yet even when removed from its visual context, the music remains inherently cinematic. Gaye is so reserved with his own vocal contributions that when they soar through the honeyed instrumentations, they greet you like a long-lost friend. Gaye clearly took his role as producer seriously; he holds back his voice and lets the studio sing instead. \u2013Daniel Dylan Wray<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> Marvin Gaye, \u201cTrouble Man\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Angel<\/span><\/div>\n
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48.<\/div>\n

Teesri Manzil<\/em> (1966)<\/h2>\n

Composer Rahul Dev Burman racked up over 250 film credits\u00a0in his lifetime, making him one of the most prolific artists in the already bustling Bollywood factory. One of his most\u00a0enduring scores\u00a0is also one of his earliest: his crackling collaboration with director Vijay Anand for 1966\u2019s\u00a0Teesri Manzil<\/em>, a Hitchcock-like thriller that remains one of Bollywood\u2019s best-loved films. It marked the first time that Burman and Anand collaborated, a partnership that would last into the \u201980s.<\/p>\n

With\u00a0Teesri Manzil<\/em>, Burman\u00a0paired Indian cinema\u2019s lavish orchestrations with surf music\u2019s whiplash guitar, then added rock\u2019n\u2019roll\u2019s rollicking sax and booming backbeat. Burman also deployed iconic playback singers like Mohammed Rafi and Asha Bhosle to duet on the film\u2019s biggest numbers. With dizzying choreography set against surreal set pieces, songs like \u201cOh Haseena Zulfon Waali\u201d and \u201cAaja Aaja\u201d remain beloved in India\u00a0to this day.\u00a0\u2013Andy Beta<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Listen:<\/strong> Mohammed Rafi, \u201cDeewana Mujshe Nahin\u201d<\/p>\n

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Warner Bros.<\/p>\n

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47.<\/div>\n

Batman<\/em> (1989)<\/h2>\n

In his score for Tim Burton\u2019s Batman<\/em>,\u00a0Danny Elfman starts somewhere appropriate for our hero: the minor key.\u00a0The composer\u2019s iconic \u201cThe Batman Theme\u201d is fortissimo in all the right ways, with thunderous drums and a brass section so brash, it would make Mahler blush. It\u2019s riveting and, most importantly, not at all menacing; it’s just a bit dark, nodding subtly to Bruce Wayne\u2019s antihero tendencies without taking him too seriously or squashing the invigorating feeling of watching\u00a0him save the day.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Batman Theme\u201d is also pure\u00a0fun<\/em>, befitting a story about an unhinged rich man who spends his free time spying on people from a cave. The playfulness shows up elsewhere in the film, such as when Elfman uses \u201cPhotos\/Beautiful Dreamer\u201d to soundtrack the Joker\u2019s gleeful destruction, or turning the Joker\u2019s demented rooftop dance with Vicki Vale into a \u201cWaltz to the Death.\u201d\u00a0In contrast to the grim\u00a0tendencies of Christopher Nolan\u2019s Batman reboot\u2014complete with a joyless, orchestral score by Hans Zimmer\u2014Danny Elfman shows that a superhero movie is at its best when it\u2019s a thrilling,\u00a0snappy spectacle. \u2013Matthew Strauss<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> Danny Elfman, \u201cThe Batman Theme\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Photo by Sabrina Santiago<\/p>\n

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46.<\/div>\n

The Pink Panther<\/em> (1963)<\/h2>\n

Spry, swinging, and just a shade louche, \u201cThe Pink Panther Theme\u201d perfectly sums up the kind of detective movie that jokes, \u201cTake your filthy hands off my asp.\u201d Its horns squeal like a Fiat burning rubber; the iconic, ascending saxophone lead, originally slurred out by the great Plas Johnson, winks and twists like mod headscarves floating through air. Henry Mancini, one of the greatest film composers of the 20th century, brought irrepressible joys to his score, lighting Peter Sellers\u2019 slapstick Inspector Clouseau with another layer of wry mischief; the light, refined lounge pop of \u201cChampagne and Quail\u201d befits his upper-crust world, while the brassy \u201cThe Tiber Twist\u201d has a noir underbelly to pair with all that hip-shaking. Mancini already had some silver-screen classics under his belt by The Pink Panther<\/em>\u2014including \u201cMoon River\u201d and \u201cTheme From Hatari!\u201d\u2014but this captures him entranced by the glamorous lives onscreen and celebrating what makes them effusively, wonderfully alive. \u2013Stacey Anderson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Listen:<\/strong> Henry Mancini, \u201cThe Pink Panther Theme\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Nessa\"<\/span><\/div>\n
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Nessa<\/p>\n

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45.<\/div>\n

Les Stances \u00e0 Sophie<\/em> (1971)<\/h2>\n

In 1969, the Art Ensemble of Chicago relocated to Paris, where they hypnotized the film director Mosh\u00e9 Mizrahi in concert. Struck by\u00a0\u201cthe way they attacked music, like they could do anything they wanted,\u201d he asked them to score his adaptation of Les Stances \u00e0 Sophie<\/em> by the French feminist novelist Christiane Rochefort. The result is often jarringly at odds with the film\u2019s visuals, pulling attention from screen to speaker and stealing scenes, but their riotous work succeeds in capturing the push-pull dynamics and\u00a0clashing philosophies of the central couple, a sexually liberated woman and her more uptight husband. The recording features Fontella Bass (singer of the R&B hit \u201cRescue Me\u201d) on the memorable \u201cTh\u00e8me De Yoyo,\u201d which melds her infectious vocals, explosive Can-like drums, silky bass-led funk, and detonating brass. The score blazes with such vitality and momentum that the music\u2019s legacy eclipses the largely forgotten film. \u2013Daniel Dylan Wray<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> The Art Ensemble of Chicago, \u201cTh\u00e8me De Yoyo\u201d<\/p>\n

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Milan<\/p>\n

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44.<\/div>\n

Jackie<\/em> (2018)<\/h2>\n

In not much time, Mica Levi has made a name for herself as a master of cacophonous anxiety.\u00a0After scoring the eerie extraterrestrial film\u00a0Under the Skin<\/em>,\u00a0she brought that disquiet to\u00a0Pablo Larra\u00edn\u2019s Jackie<\/em>, starring Natalie Portman as the grieving First Lady\u00a0in the days after\u00a0JFK\u2019s assassination. Levi elevates the film out of conventional biopic territory with its dreamlike, frightening ambience; her strings sound ominously off<\/em>, as if someone has accidentally landed on the wrong note, and the entire score doubles down on that pebble-in-the-shoe feeling. The musical Camelot<\/em> plays a big role in the film, most notably\u00a0in\u00a0the scene where the newly widowed Jackie drinks wine\u00a0alone in the White House. But overall, Levi\u2019s creeping strings provide the minor-key backbone for this snapshot of a woman in mourning\u00a0as\u00a0the world watches her. \u2013Kristen Yoonsoo Kim<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Listen:<\/strong> Mica Levi, \u201cBurial\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Photo by Ryan Lowry<\/p>\n

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Antilles<\/p>\n

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43.<\/div>\n

Koyaanisqatsi<\/em> (1982)<\/h2>\n

Director Godfrey Reggio has never wanted to say what Koyaanisqatsi<\/em> is about, to pinpoint the message behind his\u00a0precisely edited slipstream of time-lapse beauty and stunning slow-motion. Juxtaposing the ancient majesty of nature with the mechanized might of human endeavor, Koyaanisqatsi<\/em> is either an environmentalist\u2019s nightmare or an industrialist\u2019s ode to invention and conquest, depending on how you see the world. Philip Glass\u2019 overwhelming score, which runs largely uninterrupted for the length of the film, is a similar litmus test: During \u201cThe Grid,\u201d do you connect with the perfectly controlled voices or the pulsing synthesizers? Is \u201cSlo Mo People\u201d the sound of existential satisfaction or anguish, \u201cProphecies\u201d a clarion call to action or a dream for the future? Ultimately, is Koyaanisqatsi<\/em> a celebration of what we have done or a lamentation of what we will do? A microcosm of a million moving parts, Glass\u2019 score makes everything feel important and urgent, with enormous dynamic sweeps and interwoven melodies that seem to multiply and surround you, giving you no choice but to at least consider the questions he and Reggio raise. Koyaanisqatsi<\/em> marked the start of Glass\u2019 career as a major film composer, but it also helped redefine how tightly bound film and sound can be, and how much they can say together. \u2013Grayson Haver Currin<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> Philip Glass, \u201cProphecies\u201d<\/p>\n

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Cinevox<\/p>\n

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42.<\/div>\n

Suspiria<\/em> (1977)<\/h2>\n

Italian prog-rock band Goblin\u2019s score for Dario Argento\u2019s\u00a0Suspiria<\/em> is routinely exalted by horror connoisseurs and electronic music producers alike. Suspiria<\/em> nostalgia\u00a0reached an all-time high in 2018\u00a0when founding Goblin member Claudio Simonetti\u00a0led a tour performing the score to screenings of the film; also, none other than Thom Yorke filled Goblin\u2019s shoes onscreen, providing music for a chilly, cerebral Suspiria<\/em> remake by Luca Guadagnino. But what an unlikely candidate for hushed reverence: The original picture is gloriously over-the-top and irreverent, with its intentionally cartoonish color scheme, stiffly dubbed dialogue, and lurid occult violence.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Goblin\u2019s score heaps on the gaudy extravagance and visceral thrills. From The Exorcist<\/em>-like bells to Halloween<\/em>-presaging synths, funked-out guitar to prim harpsichord, trippy tabla to creepy screams, all is fair game so long as it\u2019s suitably wild. These days, synthesizers and cinema are no longer strange bedfellows, and \u201ccult classics\u201d have graduated to become simply \u201cclassics,\u201d but Goblin\u2019s work on Suspiria<\/em> still sounds wonderfully deranged. \u2013Marc Hogan<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> Goblin, \u201cSuspiria\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Var\u00e8se<\/span><\/div>\n
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Var\u00e8se Sarabande<\/p>\n

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41.<\/div>\n

Blue Velvet<\/em> (1986)<\/h2>\n

\u201cYou fucking get that thing, man. There are 27 zillion songs in the world. I don\u2019t want one of them. I want this song,\u201d David Lynch told producer Fred Caruso. He was talking about This Mortal Coil\u2019s ethereal masterpiece \u201cSong to the Siren,\u201d which he envisioned as the backdrop for a crucial scene in his film Blue Velvet<\/em>, a surreal mystery bound up in straitjacketed camp\u2014a kind of claustrophobic Norman Rockwell nightmare.<\/p>\n

Lynch didn\u2019t get the song. Instead, the director tasked Angelo Badalamenti, a young composer he had hired as Isabella Rossellini\u2019s vocal coach, with creating a replacement. It \u201cshould be a song that floats on the sea of time,\u201d Lynch told him. And that\u2019s exactly what Badalamenti came up with in \u201cMysteries of Love,\u201d in which a then-unknown singer named Julee Cruise coos coolly over beatific synth pads. (The title and lyrics\u00a0were Lynch\u2019s.) Badalamenti\u2019s score for the film\u2014the first of many he would compose for Lynch\u2014proves perfectly suited to the director\u2019s sneaky visual style, encompassing lounge jazz, sinister atmospheres, and winking twists on cinematic convention. The \u201cMain Title\u201d theme, repeated frequently, slices back and forth, pawing at the spongy ground: Like the film\u2019s narrative itself, it progresses haltingly, two steps forward, one step back, unleashing unimaginable darkness as it burrows deep into the subconscious. \u2013Philip Sherburne<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Listen:<\/strong> Angelo Badalamenti, \u201cMain Title\u201d<\/p>\n

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MCA<\/p>\n

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40.<\/div>\n

Jaws<\/em> (1975)<\/h2>\n

Steven Spielberg\u2019s thriller opens with the destruction of innocence. A young couple run off to the ocean to skinny dip; while\u00a0the woman waits for her beau, who is engaged in a drunken battle with his trousers,\u00a0she splashes around in the moonlight. Then, it begins. Dun nun\u2026dun nun\u2026.<\/em>\u00a0The girl is a goner. With just two repeating notes, played with increasing urgency by a 19-piece string and horn section, composer John Williams traumatized beachgoers forever and gave cinema\u2019s newest nightmare an unforgettable theme. Never again has a tuba been used for such evil.<\/p>\n

Despite its primal horror, the Jaws<\/em>\u00a0theme would not be as effective\u00a0were it not for the less-ominous orchestrations in the film\u2019s first half, like the swashbuckling \u201cPromenade (Tourists on the Menu)\u201d and the cheerful \u201cOut to Sea.\u201d The idyllic New England summer these moments establish make the devastation of the shark all the more cruel. By the time the film\u2019s crew of Captain Ahabs set sail to kill their aquatic demon once and for all, the score pummels relentlessly, emerging from the sea to wreak havoc. Like Psycho<\/em> before it, Jaws<\/em> showed music\u2019s ability to convey terror, chilling viewers to their cores. \u2013Quinn Moreland<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> John Williams, \u201cMain Title (Theme From Jaws<\/em>)\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"CBS<\/span><\/div>\n
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CBS \/ Sony<\/p>\n

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39.<\/div>\n

The Tale of Genji<\/em> (1987)<\/h2>\n

The Tale of Genji<\/em>, written in the\u00a011th century by a noblewoman named Shikibu Murasaki, has been called the world\u2019s first novel. Detailing courtly\u00a0love in Heian society, the sprawling, seductive book was partially adapted into the 1987 anime film from Gisabur\u014d Sugii. The film may only cover the first few chapters, but the soundtrack from Haruomi Hosono imparts a singular charge.<\/p>\n

Hosono is a legend in 20th century Japanese music, from his tenure in Yellow Magic Orchestra to his own wide-ranging solo work\u2014but even\u00a0amid his decades of music, the score for Genji stands apart. His telltale electronics hover in the background as he accentuates koto, drums, and bamboo flute, mixing Japanese court music with ambient into a mix that defies characterization. \u2013Andy Beta<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Listen:<\/strong> Haruomi Hosono, \u201c\u6708\u8aad (Tsukiyomi)\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Photo<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

Photo by Maria Louceiro<\/p>\n

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\"Mercury\"<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

Mercury<\/p>\n

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38.<\/div>\n

Once Upon a Time in America<\/em> (1984)<\/h2>\n

Ennio Morricone has created more than 500 film scores, including works for some of the greatest westerns of all time. But perhaps none are as gorgeous and emotionally resonant as Once Upon a Time in America<\/em>. Before James Woods became a pro-MAGA Twitter ideologue and Robert De Niro a guy willing to take a fat paycheck for Dirty Grandpa<\/em>, the two starred together in Sergio Leone\u2019s astonishing crime epic chronicling a lifetime of friendship and betrayal among Jewish mobsters. Morricone\u2019s score\u2014especially its sweeping centerpiece, \u201cDeborah\u2019s Theme\u201d\u2014contributes greatly to the film\u2019s tone of wistfulness and loss. (Seriously, try playing \u201cDeborah\u2019s Theme\u201d as accompaniment to any mundane activity\u2014folding laundry, eating Doritos\u2014and your life will suddenly feel like a profound meditation on squandered glory.) In addition to the main orchestral theme, the score boasts some rousing speakeasy jazz (much of the film takes place during Prohibition) and an ominous pan flute refrain performed by Gheorghe Zamfir, the same flute master from the Karate Kid<\/em> soundtrack. \u2013Zach Schonfeld<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> Ennio Morricone, \u201cDeborah\u2019s Theme\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"GSF\"<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

GSF<\/p>\n

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37.<\/div>\n

Walkabout<\/em> (1971)<\/h2>\n

In Nicolas Roeg\u2019s film, two British children stranded in the outback are rescued and guided back to \u201ccivilization\u201d by an indigenous Australian boy\u2014scare quotes around the C-word, for Walkabout<\/em> is a rhapsodic elegy for nature and our lost innocence. Because there\u2019s only sporadic dialogue (Roeg described the script as \u201ca 14-page prose poem\u201d) and the six-year-old brother and his teenage sister have been brought up in typically post-imperial stiff-upper-lip fashion, nearly all the emotional eloquence in the movie is supplied by the score. Waltjingu Bandilil\u2019s eerie didgeridoo and Karlheinz Stockhausen\u2019s disorienting tape-piece Hymnen<\/em> conjure the unknowable majesty of the arid landscape and its scorching extremes of weather. But it\u2019s veteran film composer John Barry who establishes the prevailing mood with his piercingly poignant orchestrations. A stirring choral theme redolent of a school song, \u201cThe Children\u201d evokes the simple-hearted hope and accepting obedience with which kids face the world. The horn fanfares of \u201cThe Journey\u201d conjure a storybook-adventure air, mirroring the way that the youngest child in particular processes his predicament. Above all, there\u2019s the gently devastating, recurring main theme, a patient pulse of harpsichord over which wistful woodwinds pipe and tender violins soar and swoop. \u2013Simon Reynolds<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Listen:<\/strong> John Barry, \u201cThe Children\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Columbia\"<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

Columbia<\/p>\n

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36.<\/div>\n

Anatomy of a Murder<\/em> (1959)<\/h2>\n

At one point in the lively 1959 legal drama Anatomy of a Murder<\/em>, a small-town woman caught up in a\u00a0homicide case questions her lawyer\u2019s taste in records. \u201cAren\u2019t lawyers supposed to like music?\u201d responds the weary attorney, played by James Stewart. She shoots back: \u201cWell, not that<\/em> kind of music!\u201d\u00a0She\u2019s talking about\u00a0jazz, which was just beginning to be used in movies at the time, and Duke Ellington\u2019s work on Anatomy of a Murder<\/em> marked the first time a black composer wrote a full-length score for a major film. In an interview, the legendary bandleader made his intentions clear. \u201cI\u2019m not playing semi-classical stuff or symphonic music,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s strictly Duke Ellington music.\u201d<\/p>\n

So it is. In the late \u201950s, Ellington was enjoying a career renaissance, and his score features the sort of swinging, big-band tunes he made his name on decades prior. But most effective are the more somber compositions\u00a0that add depth to Anatomy<\/em>\u2019s explicit-for-the-time story, which revolves around an ethically murky case of rape, jealousy, murder, and the vagaries of the law. The film is famously ambiguous, smudging the line between hero and villain, and Ellington and his orchestra\u2019s improvisations work best when they achingly tug at that sense of reasonable doubt. \u2013Ryan Dombal<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> Duke Ellington, \u201cMidnight Indigo\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Photo<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

Photo by Burak Cingi\/Redferns via Getty Images<\/p>\n

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\"Fiesta\"<\/span><\/div>\n
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Fiesta<\/p>\n

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35.<\/div>\n

Ceddo<\/em> (1977)<\/h2>\n

In the late \u201970s, the Cameroonian saxophonist Manu Dibango was already legendary on dancefloors for his disco-defining 1972 hit \u201cSoul Makossa,\u201d which would go on to form the basis of Michael Jackson\u2019s \u201cWanna Be Startin\u2019 Somethin\u2019.\u201d But in 1977, Dibango reached across borders and genres to score the Senegalese director Ousmane Semb\u00e8ne\u2019s film Ceddo<\/em>. Semb\u00e8ne\u2019s unflinching historical films often looked at atrocities from Senegal\u2019s history and, like past works\u00a0of his,\u00a0Ceddo<\/em> was banned in his country.\u00a0No doubt the film\u2019s grim portrayal of Islam and Christianity in past centuries had something to do with it, showing how these religions feasted on the slave trade, turning human beings into commodities. Buoying such grim imagery is Dibango\u2019s music: His sax and vibraphone mingle with piano, guitar, and drums to create a highlight of \u201970s African cinema, revealing Dibango to be a diverse and deeply funky composer. \u2013Andy Beta<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Listen:<\/strong> Manu Dibango, \u201cCeddo\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"RCA<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

RCA Victor<\/p>\n

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34.<\/div>\n

Breakfast at Tiffany\u2019s<\/em> (1961)<\/h2>\n

In Breakfast at Tiffany\u2019s<\/em>, Audrey Hepburn portrays a \u201cvery lovely, very frightened girl\u201d who escapes to New York to reinvent herself. While Hepburn\u2019s performance of Holly Golightly is enchanting, it is arguably Henry Mancini\u2019s score that most effectively conjures the romance, loneliness, and mystique of the city. Mancini captures all sides of New York, from champagne-soaked parties soundtracked by peacocking big bands to the sultry allure of its seedy underworld.<\/p>\n

The heart of Breakfast at Tiffany\u2019s<\/em> is\u00a0indisputably \u201cMoon River,\u201d which\u00a0captures Holly\u2019s longing for love and adventure. Though instrumental and choral renditions of the song bookend the film, the most enduring version is sung by the untrained Hepburn on her character\u2019s fire escape, hair in a wrap and guitar in hand. Featuring lyrics penned by Hollywood songwriter Johnny Mercer, Hepburn\u2019s performance of \u201cMoon River\u201d aches with a genuine wistfulness that transcends the film itself. \u2013Quinn Moreland<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> Henry Mancini and His Orchestra, \u201cMoon River\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Path\"<\/span><\/div>\n
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Path\u00e9<\/p>\n

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33.<\/div>\n

La Plan\u00e8te Sauvage<\/em> (1973)<\/h2>\n

Whether you perceive La Plan\u00e8te Sauvage<\/em>\u2019s strange allegory of giant, blue-skinned Draags and their enslaved, human-sized pet Oms on the planet of Ygam as imparting a lesson in racism, human rights, or animal rights, this early-\u201970s animated flick continues to mystify first-graders and grad-school vapers alike. But the film\u2019s real genius was in tapping Serge Gainsbourg\u2019s arranger\/composer Alain Goraguer for the soundtrack, before he pivoted away from child-friendly fare into scoring French porn. Full of flummoxing wah-wah guitar, ethereal choirs, breathy horns, psychedelic Mellotron, and crisp breakbeats, this\u00a0score\u00a0has inspired beat-heads like J Dilla, DJ Shadow, Madlib, and Flying Lotus while also powering tracks for Mac Miller, Big Pun, and Capone-N-Noreaga. Surreal, forlorn, and funky in equal measure, La Plan\u00e8te Sauvage<\/em> continues to draw generations of producers and rappers into its gravitational field. \u2013Andy Beta<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Listen:<\/strong> Alain Goraguer, \u201cLe Bracelet\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Photo by Julia Holter<\/p>\n

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\"Var\u00e8se<\/span><\/div>\n
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Var\u00e8se Sarabande<\/p>\n

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32.<\/div>\n

Sicario<\/em> (2015)<\/h2>\n

The Stephen Hawking biopic The Theory of Everything<\/em> made the Oscars take notice of J\u00f3hann J\u00f3hannsson as a blockbuster composer, but it was the late experimental musician\u2019s score for Denis Villeneuve\u2019s Sicario<\/em>, released the following year, that proved he could smuggle truly unsettling sounds into Hollywood. Sicario<\/em> is one of those FBI drug-bust thrillers in which the tension maintains a steady simmer; you can\u2019t always tell when the action is about to go down because the heroes spend so much time riding around in SUVs. J\u00f3hannsson\u2019s score is particularly good in these moments: With its pounding timpani crescendos, venomous string strikes, and deft use of atmospheric dynamics that zoom in and out, the music is a clear sign of not just the danger that looms but the pure evil embodied by the film\u2019s drug-lord villains. The effect is well captured by \u201cConvoy,\u201d a composition that hums along anxiously before swarming up at once and surrounding each side in a different kind of instrumental chaos. When the chase finally dies down, the mood is eerily still: They\u2019ll be back. \u2013Jillian Mapes<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> J\u00f3hann J\u00f3hannsson, \u201cConvoy\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Virgin\"<\/span><\/div>\n
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Virgin<\/p>\n

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31.<\/div>\n

Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence<\/em> (1983)<\/h2>\n

The Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, a member of the electronic band Yellow Magic Orchestra, would go on to win an Oscar for his work on Bernardo Bertolucci\u2019s The Last Emperor<\/em>, but his first toe-dip into cinema\u00a0was Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence<\/em>.\u00a0Japanese director Nagisa \u00d4shima\u2019s English-language feature starred David Bowie as a handsome British major in a prisoner-of-war camp, and costarred Sakamoto himself as a guard. Sakamoto\u2019s famous piano ballad starts with notes as pure and gentle as raindrops, a friendly reprieve from the World War II backdrop and an antidote for his initially militant character (who, not surprisingly, eventually becomes enamored with Bowie\u2019s Jack Celliers). Even when the song escalates into a battle anthem, the humanistic melody still shines through. \u2013Kristen Yoonsoo Kim<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Listen:<\/strong> Ryuichi Sakamoto, \u201cMerry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Venture\"<\/span><\/div>\n
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Venture<\/p>\n

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30.<\/div>\n

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover<\/em> (1989)<\/h2>\n

Peter Greenaway\u2019s elegantly awful masterpiece is the best version of \u201cThe Aristocrats\u201d ever told. In a series of seemingly endless camera movements that glide across a feast of violence, nudity, piss, shit, garish colors, and amazing Jean-Paul Gaultier costumes, it chronicles the abuse and humiliation to which a gluttonous, nouveau-riche London gangster played by Michael Gambon subjects everyone in his orbit\u2026 until the worm, as it were, finally turns.<\/p>\n

The score by British minimalist and frequent Greenaway collaborator Michael Nyman matches the director’s commitment to both restrictive formalism and anything-goes maximalist zeal. The genteel funeral march of \u201cMemorial,\u201d for example, evolves into a ludicrous saxophone grind. In \u201cMiserere,\u201d a boy soprano sings at the upper limit of his listeners\u2019 comfort zone.\u00a0Yet\u00a0right in the middle of it all, there\u2019s \u201cFish Beach,\u201d a backbreaker of a love theme for the adulterous characters played by Helen Mirren and Alan Howard. Here, the lurid flourishes drop away entirely, leaving behind only the repeated sound of something beautiful and doomed. \u2013Sean T. Collins<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> Michael Nyman, \u201cMemorial\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Mercury\"<\/span><\/div>\n
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Mercury<\/p>\n

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29.<\/div>\n

Vertigo<\/em> (1958)<\/h2>\n

Alfred Hitchcock\u2019s musical collaborator, Bernard Herrmann,\u00a0was\u00a0responsible for some of the\u00a0most recognizable scores in cinematic history. Some of his best work can be found on Hitchcock\u2019s obsessive thriller Vertigo<\/em>, about a man who loses the woman he loves (an enigmatic, platinum-blonde Kim Novak) only to find her plain doppelg\u00e4nger (Novak again, this time brunette), whom he grooms to look exactly like his deceased lover. Herrmann\u2019s string-driven, atmospheric accompaniment not only imitates its San Francisco setting\u2014two notes mimicking the sound of fog horns by the Golden Gate Bridge\u2014but it also gracefully, desperately moves through the entire spectrum of emotions, from aching and romantic to urgent and dangerous and tragic. And like the fog that blankets the film, the score shrouds the story with an even thicker air of mystery. \u2013Kristen Yoonsoo Kim<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Listen:<\/strong> Bernard Herrmann, \u201cScene D\u2019Amour\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Photo<\/span><\/div>\n
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Photo by Kate Miller<\/p>\n

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\"Philips\"<\/span><\/div>\n
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Philips<\/p>\n

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28.<\/div>\n

Le M\u00e9pris<\/em> (1963)<\/h2>\n

Jean-Luc Godard\u2019s Le M\u00e9pris<\/em> (\u201cContempt\u201d) approaches a frightening question\u2014How does the \u201cdelicious complicity\u201d of a marriage die?\u2014with music so gorgeous, it seduces even as it shatters. Amid the stately cliffs of Capri, a\u00a0screenwriter (Michel Piccoli) struggles to adapt Homer, abandoning his own wife, Camille (Brigitte Bardot)\u2014the Penelope to his Odysseus\u2014in the process. French New Wave maestro Georges Delerue meets their stormy passions with a symphonic grandeur that befits the backdrop of their war.<\/p>\n

Delerue\u2019s score is an unusually choppy one, with over two dozen tracks of just a few minutes apiece; this was the work of the impressively cranky Godard, who submitted Delerue\u2019s original, lengthy arrangements to a hacksaw. Motifs recycle throughout Le M\u00e9pris<\/em>, hazy as memories. Delerue\u2019s overture returns often, never losing its adrenalized fear and desire, and \u201cCamille,\u201d Delerue\u2019s most iconic film theme, is an exquisite ghost throughout, almost intolerable in its fragile hope. It sounds like the most beautiful place you\u2019ve yet to visit. \u2013Stacey Anderson<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> Georges Delerue, \u201cCamille\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"RSO\"<\/span><\/div>\n
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RSO<\/p>\n

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27.<\/div>\n

Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back<\/em> (1980)<\/h2>\n

George Lucas\u2019\u00a0Star Wars<\/em> was an absolute blast\u2014and still is, anytime you\u2019re flipping through channels and catch the Death Star attack run. For the sequel, Lucas and company went a bit deeper, got a bit darker, and added more mystical light and romantic heat. So did Lucas\u2019 go-to composer.<\/p>\n

Between Jaws<\/em>, Close Encounters of the Third Kind<\/em>, Superman<\/em>, and, of course, that first Star Wars<\/em>, John Williams was already responsible for some of the most recognizable film music ever recorded, combining a pop musician\u2019s ear for hooks with a sense of scale commensurate with galaxies far, far away. In Empire<\/em>, he expanded the sonic template he established for the original film, creating his richest and most varied set of compositions yet. Foremost among these is \u201cThe Imperial March,\u201d the brassily sinister martial theme associated with Darth Vader. \u201cYoda\u2019s Theme\u201d is its opposite\u2014soft and sweet, its melody seems to slowly levitate. A swoon in musical form, \u201cHan Solo and the Princess\u201d is an intensely romantic theme for that literally tortured love affair. Empire<\/em> is the definitive Star Wars<\/em> score, featuring songs so intrinsic to Lucas\u2019 fictional universe, it\u2019s hard to believe they weren\u2019t there from the start. \u2013Sean T. Collins<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Listen:<\/strong> John Williams, \u201cThe Imperial March\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Invada<\/span><\/div>\n
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Invada \/ Lakeshore<\/p>\n

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26.<\/div>\n

Annihilation<\/em> (2018)<\/h2>\n

It\u2019s one thing when a score is tasked with carrying the emotion of a small scene, nudging the audience toward the desired effect of the director. But when a score is\u00a0asked to carry a wordless, 10-minute pas de deux between a film\u2019s protagonist and her translucent extraterrestrial clone that serves as the jaw-dropping climax of a surreal sci-fi film, it\u2019s Annihilation<\/em>. Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury\u2019s score lives in the belly of Alex Garland\u2019s movie, coiling and mutating as the expedition treks deeper into the alien Shimmer. They make use of an otherworldly instrument called a waterphone and ground the film\u2019s humanity within a recurring two-note acoustic guitar riff (alongside repeated flashbacks that feature Crosby, Stills & Nash\u2019s angelic \u201cHelplessly Hoping\u201d). As the characters start to unravel and transform, the music undergoes its own mitosis, splitting and blooming until that climactic scene in the lighthouse, when those fog-horn synths develop an entirely new musical language. \u2013Jeremy D. Larson<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury, \u201cThe Alien\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Photo<\/span><\/div>\n
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Photo by Danilo Pellegrinelli<\/p>\n

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Blast First Petite<\/p>\n

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25.<\/div>\n

The Hired Hand<\/em> (1971)<\/h2>\n

Bruce Langhorne made his name as a guitarist for hire, most famously on Bringing It All Back Home<\/em>, Bob Dylan\u2019s\u00a0first electric album. (Legend has it that Langhorne also provided the inspiration for \u201cMr. Tambourine Man.\u201d) But as important as his contributions were to that revolutionary folk-rock record, the guitarist\u2019s true legacy is his score for Peter Fonda\u2019s pastoral anti-western The Hired Hand<\/em>. Langhorne overdubbed banjo, Farfisa organ, Appalachian dulcimer, and fiddle to create a sui generis<\/em> slice of cosmic Americana. The film\u2019s dazzling opening sequence\u2014a slo-mo, impressionistic montage\u2014is a hypnotic marriage of sight and sound, earthy and psychedelic all at once. \u201cEnding,\u201d meanwhile, is as lonesome as a frontier sunset. The Hired Hand<\/em> wasn\u2019t released as an album until the 2000s, but since then, it\u2019s earned a devoted underground following. In 2017, Scissor Tail Records released The Hired Hands<\/em>, a double-disc tribute featuring Lee Ranaldo, Steve Gunn, and other disciples who have fallen under the spell of Langhorne\u2019s singular score. \u2013Tyler Wilcox<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Listen:<\/strong> Bruce Langhorne, \u201cEnding\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Victor\"<\/span><\/div>\n
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Victor<\/p>\n

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24.<\/div>\n

Akira<\/em> (1988)<\/h2>\n

Akira<\/em> is beloved for its irreverent, cyberpunk spirit, but there\u2019s a keen sense of dread to its hyper-stylized world. Neo-Tokyo isn\u2019t at all new; it\u2019s salvaged, scrapped from ruins. That collision of modernity and near-extinction gives the film a tense, hallucinogenic quality, and sets the tone for the score\u2019s extreme dynamism.<\/p>\n

Experimental Japanese collective Geinoh Yamashirogumi fills every crevice of the score with sounds familiar and strange, blending choral chants, Balinese percussion, and organs into extravagant compositions that swell into polyrhythmic head rushes and contract into blistering silence. Composed and recorded before the film was animated, the score structures the story and amplifies the excesses of the animation. There\u2019s a constant contrast between the film\u2019s rich detail\u2014it was the most costly animated movie in Japan\u2019s history at the time\u2014and its delirious imagery, and the score embraces that friction. Evoking the thrills of Akira<\/em> right alongside its horrors, Geinoh Yamashirogumi\u2019s\u00a0decadence inspires awe but never comfort. \u2013Stephen Kearse<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> Geinoh Yamashirogumi, \u201cKaneda\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Colgems<\/span><\/div>\n
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Colgems \/ RCA Victor<\/p>\n

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23.<\/div>\n

Casino Royale<\/em> (1967)<\/h2>\n

How do you take your Bond? Do you prefer him a stern, cold, remorseless killer? Or do you want him to be rakish, campy, and too busy leering at everything in a skirt to concern himself with geopolitical gamesmanship? Wherever you land on the spectrum, you have the original Casino Royale<\/em> to thank for the choice. The 1967 film was a happy mishegoss of competing superstar egos and screenwriters, a disaster that burned through $12 million (an absurd sum at the time) and featured not one, not two, but seven<\/em> different James Bonds. An incomplete list of writers it took to yield the howlingly incoherent screenplay: Terry Southern, Joseph Heller (yes, that one), Billy Wilder (yes, that one), and, um, Woody Allen. As for the stars parading through it, all of whom chewed the overripe scenery: Peter Sellers, Orson Welles, John Huston, Peter O\u2019Toole, and, yes, Woody Allen again.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Who else to compose the music for such a booze-soaked, 10-ton cheesecake but Burt Bacharach and Herb Alpert? The score was as extravagant as the movie: Audiophile legend has it that the recording sessions featured such a fancy grade of tape, the engineers buried the needle in the red, producing such a dynamically hot and wide-ranging recording that it was used as a test record for high-performance stereos for years. The vinyl became a vanishingly rare cult object\u2014\u201cI don\u2019t even have a copy,\u201d Bacharach admitted once\u2014and the music on it became a touchstone for a certain kind of knowing bachelor-pad cheese. \u2013Jayson Greene<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> Burt Bacharach,\u201c007 Casino Royale\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Photo<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

Photo by Matt Lief Anderson<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"United<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

United Artists<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

22.<\/div>\n

Rocky<\/em> (1976)<\/h2>\n

\u201cHere was a movie that is about a loser,\u201d arranger and composer Bill Conti remembered\u00a0of the first Rocky<\/em> film. \u201cI\u2019ve read the script; I know how it ends. He loses. But in the tenth reel, he gets to train for a big fight, and we want to manipulate the audience to think that he can win.\u201d So Conti took the film\u2019s piano theme, which he wrote first\u2014a loping and doleful little motif that tails Sylvester Stallone\u2019s Rocky as he kicks dejectedly around Philadelphia, a loser\u2019s theme\u2014and turned it into a battle hymn. Horns, harps, a drum kit, strings, electric guitar, background singers, an entire goddamn orchestra: All of it lights into you. Suddenly, the sight of a lumpy guy in baggy sweats running up the steps of a Philadelphia museum turns into the ascension of a Greek god. You believe, for a moment, that the pug-ugly bastard can\u2014and must\u2014win.<\/p>\n

The music is so invincible that it has survived a series of sequels that run the gamut from simply \u201cnot-as-good\u201d all the way to \u201choo<\/em>, boy.\u201d And when Ryan Coogler rebooted the franchise with 2015\u2019s Creed<\/em>, nothing stirred the blood as much as hints of that old Conti score poking its way through the training montage. It is victory music for born losers, and there are no losers when it is playing. \u2013Jayson Greene<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Listen:<\/strong> Bill Conti, \u201cGoing the Distance\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Nonesuch\"<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

Nonesuch<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

21.<\/div>\n

Phantom Thread<\/em> (2017)<\/h2>\n

Phantom Thread<\/em>\u00a0is a film about the limits of perfection. The pursuit of beauty is solitary and futile; love brings bitterness and disappointment.\u00a0Jonny Greenwood\u2019s score is a self-conscious composition to match. There are countless moments of aesthetic bliss that threaten to overwhelm, but never do: The adagio<\/em> \u201cFor the Hungry Boy\u201d is rich and dramatic; \u201cSandalwood I\u201d is textured and lively; \u201cBarbara Rose\u201d has harp and other strings plucked harriedly. It is ambiguous how good any of this should really feel. You cannot live a charmed life forever, the music suggests.<\/p>\n

The main theme, \u201cHouse of Woodcock,\u201d is the best example of fleeting satisfaction, as its florid motif vanishes just as soon as it peaks.\u00a0Its piano is particularly reminiscent of the main theme to Lolita<\/em>, another movie about a pitifully insecure man, with a soundtrack that served as inspiration for Greenwood. The Phantom Thread<\/em> score captures the hope that\u2019s always out of reach, the desire for something more, and the acknowledgment that as you settle back down to reality, you realize that what\u2019s around you is not to be taken for granted. \u2013Matthew Strauss<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> Jonny Greenwood, \u201cHouse of Woodcock\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Nexus\"<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

Nexus<\/p>\n

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20.<\/div>\n

Aguirre, Wrath of God<\/em> (1972)<\/h2>\n

Matching the scope and ambition of a film as bold as Werner Herzog\u2019s Aguirre, Wrath of God<\/em>\u00a0was no small task, yet\u00a0the prog-krautrock band Popol Vuh\u2019s score remains as impactful as Herzog\u2019s images. Rather than attempt to bolster the audacious production and narrative with bombastic strings or dramatic arrangements, the score is restrained. The opening scene, dense with mist and dramatic mountains, is matched in texture by the main theme, which is as immersing and omnipresent as the thick vapor that envelops the landscape. The score is rich in dreamy, droning Moog synthesizer, but the choral sounds come from a custom-made, Mellotron-like instrument\u00a0called\u00a0a \u201cchoir organ.\u201d These two machines collide and interlock to create hypnotic and quietly beautiful arrangements that\u00a0let you to sink into the voyage onscreen. Several pieces of music reappear throughout, a creative editing process that adds to the feeling of a never-ending journey unfolding. \u2013Daniel Dylan Wray<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Listen:<\/strong> Popol Vuh, \u201cLacrimae Di Rei\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Lakeshore\"<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

Lakeshore<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

19.<\/div>\n

Drive<\/em> (2011)<\/h2>\n

When director Nicolas Winding Refn was making\u00a0Drive<\/em>, he had Kraftwerk on his iPod: There was something about the idea of electronic music, he said, that suited \u201cthe mythology of the gunslinger with a car.\u201d The songs that found their way to the movie\u2019s soundtrack bear that out: Slick, \u201980s-fueled synth-pop chuggers from Kavinsky and the Chromatics help establish the film\u2019s knowing sense of style, cognizant of its antecedents but not the least bit retro. Cliff Martinez\u2019s original score is also rooted in the electronic music of the \u201970s and\u00a0\u201980s; its clean-lined synths and cycling arpeggios are part of a lineage running through acts like Kraftwerk, Vangelis, and Tangerine Dream.<\/p>\n

Unlike the neon gloss of Kavinsky and the Chromatics, though, Martinez\u2019s score is darker and more ominous. Throbbing metallic pulses play up the film\u2019s heart-in-mouth action sequences, while desolate ambient passages mirror its amoral character sketches. Not long after Drive<\/em>\u2019s release, Martinez turned up remixing Plastikman, the most famous alias of the Midwestern techno producer Richie Hawtin. The pairing made sense: Just as Plastikman helped popularize the idea of ambient techno, Martinez\u2019s Drive<\/em> score introduced the idea of ambient electronic music to a public who might never have otherwise opted to listen to the buzz and burble of minimalist synthesizer recordings. \u2013Philip Sherburne<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> Cliff Martinez, \u201cI Drive\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Photo<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

Photo by Anna Dobos<\/p>\n

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\"\u041c\u0435\u043b\u043e\u0434\u0438\u044f\"<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

\u041c\u0435\u043b\u043e\u0434\u0438\u044f<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

18.<\/div>\n

Solaris<\/em> (1972)<\/h2>\n

Director Andrei Tarkovsky\u2019s movie is far less explicit a narrative than its source, the brilliant sci-fi novel by Stanis\u0142aw Lem. Solaris is a remote planet that human explorers have circled for centuries, hoping in vain to make contact with the evidently sentient but inscrutable ocean that covers its surface. Suddenly,\u00a0people from the deep recesses of each astronaut\u2019s memory materialize, flesh-and-blood ghosts that the crew call \u201cguests\u201d and that appear to be the planet\u2019s attempts to communicate.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The story behind the score is almost as fantastical. Entrusted not just with scoring the movie but creating \u201can overall conceptual idea for all the sound used,\u201d Eduard Artemiev turned to a Soviet synthesizer called the ANS that generates sound by a unique photo-electronic method: Composers \u201cdraw\u201d soundwaves which are turned into audio vibrations via a sophisticated system of rotating glass discs and light beams. The ANS supplied a panoply of microtonal intervals and dense polyphonic chords unachievable on other synths at that time. This palette of subtle shades and shimmering drones enabled Artemiev to depict the unsettled atmosphere on the space station, where the guests are driving their hosts out of their wits. But the queasy sound-vapors also suggest thought-waves from Solaris itself penetrating the minds of the astronauts, blindly striving to understand consciousness unfathomably different from its own vast self. \u2013Simon Reynolds<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> Eduard Artemiev, \u201cMain Title\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Nonesuch\"<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

Nonesuch<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

17.<\/div>\n

Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters<\/em> (1985)<\/h2>\n

Paul Schrader\u2019s biopic Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters<\/em> is a Japanese-language portrait of Yukio Mishima, the postwar writer and right-wing nationalist who captivated his nation before meeting a grisly demise, one that continues to bewilder historians to this day. Philip Glass\u2019 score is not so much preoccupied with Mishima\u2019s extremist ideals as it is with dramatizing the man himself, and the fact that Glass chose to adhere exclusively to Western tonalities only drives home the film\u2019s operatic nature. The minimalist\u2019s signature repetitive style allows him to use other elements, such as dynamics and instrumentation, to illustrate Mishima\u2019s life. \u201cOsamu\u2019s Theme (KYOKO\u2019S HOUSE)\u201d sees the primary string motif played on a jangly electric guitar, reflecting the more flamboyant early nature of his character, while the distinctly militaristic bent of \u201cNovember 25: ICHIGAYA\u201d drives home the somber nature of Mishima\u2019s final day on Earth.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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While Mishima<\/em> bombed at the box office\u2014being banned in Japan certainly didn\u2019t help\u2014themes from the\u00a0score live on, licensed for numerous documentaries and even featuring prominently in The Truman Show<\/em>. It remains an important work for Glass, who described it as a turning point in the development of his film-scoring technique. \u2013Noah Yoo<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> Philip Glass, \u201cOsamu\u2019s Theme (KYOKO\u2019S HOUSE)\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"I.R.S.\"<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

I.R.S.<\/p>\n

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16.<\/div>\n

Eraserhead<\/em> (1977)<\/h2>\n

The sounds featured in David Lynch\u2019s debut\u00a0film could easily be placed in both the score and soundtrack category, and yet they remain so\u00a0unusual that they arguably don\u2019t belong in either. Lynch and sound designer Alan Splet create a soundscape that plunges you deep inside the film,\u00a0where you feel\u00a0every\u00a0floorboard creak, gust of wind, rumbling smoke stack, churning radiator,\u00a0and electrical hiss. Eraserhead<\/em> is the amplification of background noise as its own art, where Lynch and Splet force your attention on sounds that would otherwise be ignored or deemed ugly and grating. The organ music of Fats Waller bleeds into dense atmospheres and clips of crying babies like a ghost from another realm, creating a confusing sonic voyage. Both \u201cambient\u201d and \u201cindustrial\u201d would become more frequently used music terms in the years after Eraserhead<\/em>\u2019s release and, over\u00a040 years on, its score\u00a0remains a template of experimentation, where the two genres coexist in harmonious discordance. \u2013Daniel Dylan Wray<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> David Lynch and Alan Splet, \u201cIn Heaven (Lady in the Radiator Song)\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Photo<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

Photo by Mike Brooks\/DAL\/Voice Media Group via Getty Images<\/p>\n

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\"Vapor\"<\/span><\/div>\n
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Vapor<\/p>\n

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15.<\/div>\n

Dead Man<\/em> (1995)<\/h2>\n

For the past 50 years, Neil Young\u2019s primary electric guitar has been the customized 1953 Gibson Les Paul Goldtop he calls \u201cOld Black.\u201d Fans know the guitar\u2019s majestically overdriven tone from classic albums\u00a0like\u00a0Zuma<\/em>, Rust Never Sleeps<\/em>, and Ragged Glory<\/em>. But Old Black is featured in its purest form on the soundtrack for Jim Jarmusch\u2019s hallucinatory western Dead Man<\/em>. Young\u2019s low, ominous notes are inseparable from Robby M\u00fcller\u2019s striking black-and-white cinematography, lending an elemental pull to the increasingly strange odyssey of William Blake (Johnny Depp) and Nobody (Gary Farmer), Blake\u2019s sardonic Native American guide. Young improvised most of the score, conjuring up dreamy memories of Ennio Morricone\u2019s spaghetti westerns\u00a0and\u00a0the harsh twang of the \u201cRawhide\u201d TV show. It\u2019s both an authentic evocation of the American West and an ironic commentary, just like Jarmusch\u2019s film.\u00a0\u2013Tyler Wilcox<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Listen:<\/strong> Neil Young, \u201cDead Man Theme\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"London\"<\/span><\/div>\n
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London<\/p>\n

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14.<\/div>\n

The Third Man<\/em> (1949)<\/h2>\n

When The Third Man<\/em> hit theaters in 1949, Anton Karas\u2019 zither score was nothing short of radical. In an era dominated by swelling, orchestral film music, here was this strange instrument (sort of like an overgrown pedal steel guitar) making this odd sound (somehow circus-like and mournful at once) being played by an unknown Austrian used to performing at the houses of Viennese wine growers (where he would be compensated with a glass of white and some sausage). In modern terms, it would be like Christopher Nolan enlisting a busking kazoo player from the London Underground.<\/p>\n

But director Carol Reed\u2019s unlikely gamble paid off in more ways than one. Karas\u2019 zither instantly sets The Third Man<\/em> apart from its noir ilk, the instrument\u2019s mischievous twang complementing the movie\u2019s skewed, tragicomic tone. The score was such a hit with audiences that a single featuring its plucky main theme was rushed to market. It quickly sold more than half a million copies in England, a then-unprecedented achievement, and went on to become the third most popular record in America in 1950 (with a cover of the tune nabbing the No. 4 spot as well). Though dismissed as a mere fad at the time, the music of The Third Man<\/em> has endured ever since: The Beatles and the Band recorded their own versions of the theme, and the Lonely Island sampled it on a 2002 song about wanting to fuck a stork. Even now, it remains one of the most unmistakable film scores ever made. \u2013Ryan Dombal<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> Anton Karas, \u201cThird Man Theme\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Arista\"<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

Arista<\/p>\n

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13.<\/div>\n

Taxi Driver<\/em> (1976)<\/h2>\n

Martin Scorsese\u2019s Taxi Driver<\/em> depicts a seedy, sick New York through the eyes of Travis Bickle, a man on a mission to wash away the scum he sees staining the streets. Bernard Herrmann\u2019s score\u2014his last ever\u2014taps into the filthy underbelly that Bickle prowls at night in his taxicab. The arrangements are at once dramatic, malevolent, eerie, and romantic, capturing a spirit of the unknown that matches Bickle\u2019s endless cruising. Tom Scott\u2019s profoundly beautiful saxophone solo in the film\u2019s main theme embodies the potential of a city (and person) in conflict with itself. The music is the sound of the metropolis, as projected by Bickle. It ricochets between hope and beauty, desire and despair, romance and violence, all with a tangible atmosphere as thick as the engulfing steam emitting from the vents of the streets. \u2013Daniel Dylan Wray<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Listen:<\/strong> Bernard Herrmann, \u201cTheme From Taxi Driver\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Epic\"<\/span><\/div>\n
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Epic<\/p>\n

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12.<\/div>\n

Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai<\/em> (1999)<\/h2>\n

Pigeons taking flight are a recurring image in Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai<\/em>. They ascend at will, leaving the ground\u00a0as well as Ghost Dog, a reticent hitman and pigeon-keeper, behind. The birds are one of his few connections to the world beyond contract killings. There is no envy in his eyes as he watches his pigeons lift off, but there is longing, and RZA\u2019s spare score fills the distance between Ghost Dog\u2019s melancholic gaze and the freedom he can\u2019t attain.<\/p>\n

Skeletal and swaying, RZA\u2019s compositions are hypnotic dirges. Chimes, bells, and guitar plucks drift over brusque kick drums like\u00a0spirits over water; dulled gongs and chords echo into chasms of rumbling bass. As Ghost Dog stoically carries out his masterful hits, the score voices his inner peace. His life is a loop but it is not a bore. The soundtrack to the film is more lively than the score, and features voiceovers from the film and crowd-pleasing Wu-Tang team-ups, but it trades character for action. There can be freedom within constraints, and in his minimal compositions, RZA finds it for Ghost Dog and for himself. \u2013Stephen Kearse<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> RZA, \u201cSamurai Showdown\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Null\"<\/span><\/div>\n
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Null<\/p>\n

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11.<\/div>\n

The Social Network<\/em> (2010)<\/h2>\n

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross\u2019 first full-length film score is a masterpiece of gloomy, menacing atmospheres, full of long guitar drones and glitchy, digital textures that capture the turbulent birth of Facebook and its irrevocable shaping of modern society. Drum machines and sequencers set a precise pace on some tracks, while a lonely piano strikes the emotional counterbalance\u00a0elsewhere, offering peals of both hope and\u00a0sorrow.<\/p>\n

Reznor has said director David Fincher requested a \u201csynthetic landscape\u201d \u00e0 la Blade Runner<\/em>, and that influence is apparent. Like Vangelis\u2019 masterwork, The Social Network<\/em>\u2019s score is a shadowy character that lurks in the backdrop of the film\u2019s most arresting scenes, lending tension to the tedium of start-ups and stockholders. \u201cWhen we were creating these ideas… we thought, \u2018This could be the sound of an asteroid hitting the Earth at the end of humanity,\u2019\u201d Reznor said of the score in 2011. He had no idea how right he was. \u2013Noah Yoo<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Listen:<\/strong> Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, \u201cIn Motion\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Var\u00e8se<\/span><\/div>\n
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Var\u00e8se Sarabande<\/p>\n

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10.<\/div>\n

Halloween<\/em> (1978)<\/h2>\n

John Carpenter, the Renaissance man of horror, didn\u2019t just help pioneer the slasher film genre with\u00a0Halloween,<\/em>\u00a0he also created one of its most iconic scores. Bernard Herrmann\u2019s climactic, stabbing strings for Psycho<\/em> may have set the tone for scary film composition, but Carpenter\u2019s music chases the listener with the sense of a never-ending nightmare\u2014fitting for its seemingly invincible,\u00a0purely evil villain, Michael Myers, who\u2019s\u00a0still stalking and murdering today. It\u2019s the kind of score that confirms that you\u2019re not just being paranoid\u2014there really is<\/em> someone lurking behind you in the shadows. This creeping dread can be found throughout the film, but it\u2019s in the frequently-sampled main theme that fear is most potent, and then it\u2019s multiplied as the sparse melody becomes layered with more piercing synths. Grab a kitchen knife and run. \u2013Kristen Yoonsoo Kim<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> John Carpenter, \u201cHalloween Theme – Main Title\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Enterprise\"<\/span><\/div>\n
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Enterprise<\/p>\n

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9.<\/div>\n

Shaft<\/em> (1971)<\/h2>\n

Few films are as inextricably linked to their music as Gordon Parks\u2019 Shaft<\/em> is to Isaac Hayes\u2019 compositions. \u201cTheme From Shaft\u201d is so woven into the fabric of\u00a0pop culture\u00a0that it might invite more parody than reverence now, but nearly 50 years ago,\u00a0it\u00a0revolutionized how music could be used in film. Before Shaft<\/em>, soundtracks were collections of popular songs, while scores were designed to accompany action and dial up drama. Hayes\u2019 take on Shaft<\/em> blended the two approaches, creating an experience that worked in theaters and also on radio and record players\u2014and\u00a0in the process, topped\u00a0the charts.<\/p>\n

Though Shaft<\/em>\u00a0was Hayes\u2019 first film score,\u00a0he was uniquely equipped for the task. A multi-instrumentalist, producer, arranger, vocalist, and songwriter, he was one of the architects of the funk and R&B sound of Stax Records, and knew how to create something massive from the ground up. When tasked with dramatizing Shaft<\/em>\u2019s scenes, he enlisted his home team\u2014the Bar-Kays, the Isaac Hayes Movement, and the Memphis Strings & Horns\u2014and drew from a palette of styles that told the story of where black music was and where it was going. Jazz, R&B, rock, blues, funk, and nascent disco are all present and vital. The album would cement Hayes as a star and earn him an Oscar for Best Original Song\u2014the first for an African-American composer.\u00a0The greatest testament to its impact remains the theme, still\u00a0purring in our heads today. \u2013Timmhotep Aku<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Listen:<\/strong> Isaac Hayes, \u201cTheme From Shaft\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Photo<\/span><\/div>\n
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Photo by Matt Lief Anderson<\/p>\n

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\"Unicorn\"<\/span><\/div>\n
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Unicorn<\/p>\n

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8.<\/div>\n

Psycho<\/em> (1960)<\/h2>\n

\u201cHe only finishes a picture 60 percent,\u201d Bernard Herrmann said of Alfred Hitchcock. \u201cI have to finish it for him.\u201d The composer worked with Hitchcock on a number of films, and though he may have written a richer score in Vertigo<\/em>, nothing\u00a0else remains as iconic as\u00a0Psycho<\/em>. You could argue that Herrmann didn\u2019t \u201cfinish\u201d Psycho<\/em>; he made<\/em> it. Hitchcock must have thought so, too, because he doubled Herrmann\u2019s fee.<\/p>\n

Accordingly, people say that Psycho<\/em> invented slasher movies, but really Herrmann did, and he did it with a single string cue. Nothing in the famous shower scene\u2014not the pulling back of the curtain, not the shot of the killer\u2019s knife poised high, and not Janet Leigh\u2019s scream as the knife digs repeatedly into her flesh\u2014cuts as deep as those violin shrieks. Slasher movies, and the gruesome way they play on your nerves, gushed forth from this inciting wound; think of the string screeches as Jason emerging from Camp Crystal Lake at the end of Friday the 13th<\/em>, or the stabbing lurches of the Jaws<\/em> theme. They are little pieces of the DNA left in Psycho<\/em>\u2019s blood trail. \u2013Jayson Greene<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> Bernard Herrmann, \u201cTheme From Psycho\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Fontana\"<\/span><\/div>\n
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Fontana<\/p>\n

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7.<\/div>\n

Ascenseur pour l\u2019\u00e9chafaud<\/em> (1958)<\/h2>\n

Miles Davis recorded the score to Louis Malle\u2019s Ascenseur pour l\u2019\u00e9chafaud<\/em> (released as Elevator to the Gallows<\/em> in the U.S.) in 1957. Its open-ended modalities point forward to the jazz giant\u2019s groundbreaking 1959 LP Kind of Blue<\/em>,\u00a0and even to the ghostly proto-ambient atmospherics of In a Silent Way<\/em>, released just over a decade later. Malle\u2019s film is a noir thriller, with pitch-black subject matter\u2014adultery, murder, claustrophobia. The bleak, lonely sound of Davis\u2019 muted trumpet matches the stark black-and-white imagery perfectly, and the short, near-fragmentary nature of the compositions allow Davis to break out of the hard bop confines of the 1950s. Taped with a pickup band of Parisian jazzers and the ace drummer Kenny Clarke, Miles\u2019 mostly improvised score provides a sense of almost unbearable tension, whether the musicians are lingering on a doomy, morphine-drip bassline or racing along to the skitter of Clarke\u2019s deft high-hat work. Adding music to film brought out some of Davis\u2019 most inspired and adventurous playing. \u2013Tyler Wilcox<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Listen:<\/strong> Miles Davis, \u201cG\u00e9n\u00e9rique\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Columbia\"<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

Columbia<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

6.<\/div>\n

A Clockwork Orange<\/em> (1971)<\/h2>\n

Wendy Carlos\u2019 score for\u00a0A Clockwork Orange<\/em> was designed to disorient. Stanley Kubrick\u2019s film takes place in a dystopian future, and\u00a0its main character, the sociopathic youth Alex, is obsessed with the music of Beethoven\u2014the sound of the distant past. Carlos was the perfect composer to articulate this temporal instability; in her massively popular and groundbreaking 1968 album Switched-On Bach<\/em>, she showed how ancient music\u00a0could be updated with forward-looking electronics. Armed with a battery of synths and the assistance of her regular producer and collaborator Rachel Elkind, Carlos crafted a dense and tonally slippery world that reinforced the essential horror of the film, sometimes by offering creepily cheerful counterpoint. Great art, the film suggests, is just as easily embraced by monsters, and this uneasy irony comes through in both Carlos\u2019 electronic re-imagining of classical themes (\u201cThe William Tell Overture,\u201d Beethoven\u2019s Symphony No. 9<\/em>)\u00a0and in original compositions, like the slowly unfolding and brilliant opener \u201cTimesteps.\u201d Hearing it now, almost 50 years\u00a0after\u00a0its release, amplifies the record\u2019s confusion in the best possible way. It remains an inscrutable and rewarding puzzle. \u2013Mark Richardson<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> Wendy Carlos, \u201cTimesteps\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Photo<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

Photo by Angelina Castillo<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
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\"Capitol\"<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

Capitol<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

5.<\/div>\n

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly<\/em> (1966)<\/h2>\n

The flickering two-note coyote bay. The vaulting trumpet fanfare. The click-clack rhythm of horses, wagon wheels, and, later, gargantuan steam engines: Ennio Morricone\u2019s theme for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly<\/em> is a musical metonym for the American West, a cultural artifact as tied to that\u00a0mythology as the\u00a0Red Rocks of Sedona\u00a0and John Wayne. In fact, half a century later, it\u2019s difficult to imagine\u00a0high noon\u00a0without Morricone\u2019s signature melody.<\/p>\n

Sergio Leone intended\u00a0his film to be a studied\u00a0yet hyperbolic send-up of western films,\u00a0in which\u00a0a triangle of outlaws outrunning the Civil War (as heard in the immortal lament \u201cThe Story of a Soldier\u201d) search for treasure, culminating in a wonderfully absurd graveyard confrontation. Morricone responded by synthesizing\u00a0the genre\u2019s storytelling tropes\u2014insistent motion, arid twang,\u00a0outsiders\u2019 impressions of Native American music\u2014into dense\u00a0sonic pieces that pull at tension until it snaps and amplify drama until it overflows.\u00a0They\u2019ve never been outdrawn. \u2013Grayson Haver Currin<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Listen:<\/strong> Ennio Morricone, \u201cThe Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (Main Title) (II Buono, II Brutto, II Cattivo)\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
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\"Astralwerks\"<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

Astralwerks<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

4.<\/div>\n

The Virgin Suicides<\/em> (1999)<\/h2>\n

In her filmmaking breakthrough, Sofia Coppola turned Jeffrey Eugenides\u2019 dark, dirty novel\u00a0The Virgin Suicides<\/em>\u00a0into a love story of sorts\u2014between teenagers Lux (Kirsten Dunst) and Tripp (Josh Hartnett), and also between\u00a0five beautiful, doomed sisters and their haunted admirers. Coppola met her tonal match in the French electropop duo Air, who agreed to write a score as long as they could approach it like an album. The result proved just as bold and cosmic as Air\u2019s classic debut, 1998\u2019s Moon Safari<\/em>, but with a stronger air of mystery, vis-\u00e0-vis \u201970s prog\u00a0influences, insistent synths, and cryptic lines of film dialogue. The Lisbon girls are like\u00a0a surreal daydream when set to \u201cPlayground Love,\u201d featuring an intoxicating sax solo and a drowsy, sexy performance by Phoenix\u2019s Thomas Mars. When that same melody recurs by piano on \u201cHighschool Lover,\u201d its coolness has turned wistful and heavy, consumed by lingering questions the boys are afraid to ask. \u2013Jillian Mapes<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> Air, \u201cCemetery Party\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Nonesuch\"<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

Nonesuch<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

3.<\/div>\n

There Will Be Blood<\/em> (2007)<\/h2>\n

Starting with a title that promises violence as directly and ominously as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre<\/em>\u2014another cinematic nightmare about unsustainable consumption in the American West\u2014writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson treats his adaptation of muckraker Upton Sinclair\u2019s novel Oil!<\/em> as a tale of demonic possession. The demon in question, though, happens to be money. So if Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood\u2019s original music for There Will Be Blood<\/em> sounds like the score for a horror movie, that\u2019s because it is.<\/p>\n

Leadoff track \u201cOpen Spaces\u201d is the tell here. Despite long string phrases that evoke the wide landscapes crossed by\u00a0the misanthropic oil magnate Daniel Plainview,\u00a0the mood is not openness but dread. \u201cFuture Markets\u201d and \u201cProven Lands\u201d clatter and pulse with infernal-engine energy. \u201cHenry Plainview\u201d hums like flies on a pig\u2019s head. Strongest of all, the title track is a two-minute masterpiece of jump scares and screeching cacophony in the lineage of Psycho<\/em> and The Shining<\/em>. Greenwood creates a soundtrack for a haunted hotel where the elevator doors gush crude, and the killer\u2019s ax is embedded in the earth itself. \u2013Sean T. Collins<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Listen:<\/strong> Jonny Greenwood, \u201cThere Will Be Blood\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Milan<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

Milan \/ Rough Trade<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

2.<\/div>\n

Under the Skin<\/em> (2014)<\/h2>\n

Though\u00a0Mica Levi cites her childhood love of Disney films as\u00a0an inspiration for her first film score, Under the Skin<\/em> contains nothing approaching conventional songcraft or leading cues, dwelling instead in unsettling shards of gray. She has also likened the effect of her incessant, microtonal viola-playing to a beehive\u2014though it is more malevolent than that, evoking the way Japanese honeybees swarm around an intruding giant hornet and cook it to death.<\/p>\n

From this menacing shudder emerges leering shrillness and disembowelling slurps, flooding sensations that simulate organs swelling with blood. That sense of simulation is key: Director Jonathan Glazer\u2019s extraterrestrial protagonist is disguised as a human woman unsettled by their emotions, a confusion Levi captures by making her sexiness uncanny. (Fitting, also, that the score was partially inspired by strip club music.) Jonny Greenwood\u2019s\u00a0work for There Will Be Blood<\/em> inspired a run of dissonant scores: Under the Skin<\/em> represents its apex. \u2013Laura Snapes<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> Mica Levi, \u201cCreation\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"EastWest<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

EastWest \/ Audio Fidelity<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

1.<\/div>\n

Blade Runner<\/em> (1982)<\/h2>\n

It\u2019s shocking to consider that Blade Runner<\/em> did not get nominated for the Best Picture Academy Award, or any other major Oscars. Equally bewildering is the fact that Vangelis won Best Original Score for 1981\u2019s conventionally pretty Chariots of Fire<\/em>, but wasn\u2019t even honorably mentioned for his far richer contributions to Blade Runner<\/em>. Vangelis composed the score live, improvising as scenes from the film unfurled onscreen in his London recording studio. \u201cEverything was composed with the images,\u201d he\u00a0said in 2007, adding that \u201cthe reason I wrote the score is that I was very<\/em> impressed with this film.\u201d There is a palpable sense of awe trembling through his every keystroke, as well as a subliminal sense of competition\u2014a drive to not only match the majesty before his eyes, but maybe even surpass it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Before Blade Runner<\/em>, electronic soundtracks for science fiction movies painted the future as cold, sterile, emotionless, as hostile to humanity as Saturn\u2019s liquid hydrogen surface and diamond rainstorms. Vangelis broke with these accumulated clich\u00e9s, draping Blade Runner<\/em>\u2019s scenery with droopy pitch-bent synth tones of unexpected warmth and wetness. From the colossal, thudding pillars of percussion that open the film, through the mystic yearn of \u201cRachel\u2019s Song\u201d to the climactic twinkles of \u201cTears in Rain,\u201d everything is drenched in reverb\u2014an effect as atmospheric and seductive as director Ridley Scott\u2019s over-reliance on shadow and drizzle.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s impossible to imagine this film without its music, so intertwined are the sounds and the visuals.\u00a0Although the movie takes place in a 21st-century Los Angeles teeming with flying cars and huge, animated billboards advertising a fresh start in the off-world colonies, the music is steeped in aching nostalgia as much as disorienting futurity. And that\u2019s just right for a film that, for all its stunning special effects and storyline about androids gone AWOL, is rooted in the archetypes of 1940s film noir and hardboiled detective fiction: Deckard as the cop with the tough exterior and the big soft spot, Rachel equal parts vamp and broken-winged angel. Ghosts of older styles haunt the edges of the score, from jazz and blues to the crooned 1920s pastiche of \u201cOne More Kiss, Dear.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are also pungent aromas of ersatz exoticism, like the keening quasi-Arabic wails in \u201cTales of the Future\u201d and the vaguely Eastern cavalcade rhythm of \u201cAnimoid Row.\u201d We don\u2019t know quite where or when<\/em> we are with Vangelis\u2019 score, which mingles ancient and modern, East and West\u2014perfectly matching this futuristic West Coast that resembles a Pacific Rim hybrid of Shanghai and Santiago. It\u2019s a tomorrow\u2019s world more vividly imagined than filmgoers had ever before encountered, and Vangelis filled every corner of this space with life as strange and lonely as our own. \u2013Simon Reynolds<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/strong> Vangelis, \u201cTears in Rain\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Contributors:<\/strong> Timmhotep Aku, Stacey Anderson, Andy Beta, Sean T. Collins, Grayson Haver Currin, Ryan Dombal, Jayson Greene, Marc Hogan, Stephen Kearse, Kristen Yoonsoo Kim, Jeremy D. Larson, Jillian Mapes, Quinn Moreland, Simon Reynolds, Mark Richardson, Zach Schonfeld, Philip Sherburne, Laura Snapes, Matthew Strauss, Tyler Wilcox, Daniel Dylan Wray, Noah Yoo<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n

Source URL: https:\/\/pitchfork.com\/features\/lists-and-guides\/the-50-best-movie-scores-of-all-time\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lists & Guides The 50 Best Movie Scores of All Time From Eraserhead to Batman, Under the Skin to Blue Velvet, these are the greatest original compositions for film By Pitchfork February 21, 2019 From left to right: Halloween photo copyright Compass International Pictures, Jackie photo copyright Fox Searchlight Pictures, Ghost Dog photo copyright Artisan […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[54],"class_list":["post-1254156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-pitchfork-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1254156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1254156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1254156\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1254156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1254156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1254156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}