BEST Film Scores

[Reznor2112]

My Top 10 (in no particular order)

1. Taxi Driver - Bernard Herrmann
2. Pain & Gain - Steve Jablonsky
3. TSN - TR & AR
4. TGWTDT - TR & AR
5. Take Shelter - David Wingo
6. The Rock - Hans Zimmer
7. Last of the Mohicans - Hans Zimmer
8. 28 Days Later - John Murphy
9. Dawn of the Dead - Goblin
10. The Grey - Marc Streitenfeld

[dlb]

I'm not much of a film score buff, but:

Elliot Goldenthal - Alien³

I have a really soft spot for that one!

As far as more recent film scores go:

Vangelis - Alexander
Robert Rodriguez etc. - Planet Terror
Clint Mansell - moon
Hans Zimmer - Man of Steel

And of course TR & AR - the social network

[Your Name Here]

Of Coarse

TR & AR - TSN & TGWTDT

Christopher Young - Sinister
Clint Mansel - Moon
Michael Oldfield - The Exorcist
John Carpenter - Halloween
Jonny Greenwood - The Master

on a side note I have to mention the use of other peoples music in movies to heighten a scene and the two masters at this are Quentin Tarrantino and Paul Thomas Anderson.

Paul Thomas Anderson for the scene in Boogie Nights where Dirk Diggler and his crew try to sell baking soda in a bogus drug deal at this rich guy's house while this asian guy keeps lighting firecrackers all while the rich guy is playing this horrible 80's music like Rick Springfield - Jessie's Girl and Night Rangers - Sister Christian. For me personally I loathe both songs but both of them ignite this scene of anxiety and panic.

Tarrantino from Reservoir Dogs to Pulp Fiction to Jackie Brown to using Bowie's Cat People (Putting Out Fire) in Inglorious Basterds. Tarrantino is the master at this, pulling obscure music to heighten a scene.

I know this thread is about film scores, but I felt compelled to mention this, I'm not trying to derail this thread.

[BRoswell]

Akira Ifukube-Gojira
Bear McCreary-Battlestar Galactica
Bernard Herrmann-Psycho
Brian Eno-For All Mankind
Charlie Clouser-Saw
The Chemical Brothers-Hanna
Cliff Martinez-Traffic/Drive/Contagion/Only God Forgives
Climax Golden Twins-Session 9
Clint Mansell-Requiem For A Dream/The Fountain/Moon
Daft Punk-Tron: Legacy
Dave Porter-Breaking Bad
David Julyan-Memento/The Descent/The Prestige
David Shire-Zodiac
The Dust Brothers-Fight Club
Ennio Morricone-The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly/The Thing
Francois Eudes-Chanfrault-High Tension/Inside
Goblin-Deep Red/Suspiria/Dawn Of The Dead
Hans Zimmer-The Thin Red Line/Inception/The Dark Knight Rises/Man Of Steel
Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard-Batman Begins/The Dark Knight
Howard Shore-The Silence Of The Lambs/Se7en/The Game/Panic Room
John Carpenter-Assault On Precinct 13/Halloween/Halloween III/The Fog/Escape From New York/Christine/Prince Of Darkness
John Harrison-Creepshow/Day Of The Dead
Jon Hopkins-Monsters
John Murphy-28 Days Later/28 Weeks Later/The Last House On The Left
John Murphy and Underworld-Sunshine
Johnny Klimek and Reinhold Heil-One Hour Photo
Michael Andrews-Donnie Darko
Nick Cave and Warren Ellis-The Proposition/The Road
Philip Glass-Secret Window
Pino Donaggio-Blow Out
Thomas Bangalter-Irreversible
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross-The Social Network/The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
Vangelis-Blade Runner
Wendy Carlos and Rachel Elkind-The Shining

[GibbonBlack]

as far as music matching the movie. Titanic by James Horner and Edward Scissorhands by Danny Elfman

[r_z]

uhm... Blade Runner, anyone?

[thevoid99]

OK,

Hans Zimmer-The Thin Red Line
Ennio Morricone-anything he did w/ Sergio Leone like The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly, Once Upon a Time in the West, and Once Upon a Time in America
Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross-The Social Network & The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Ed Tomney-Safe
Zbigniew Preisner-Trois Coleurs Trilogy and The Double Life of Veronique
Alexandre Desplat-Girl with a Pearl Earring, Fantastic Mr. Fox, and Moonrise Kingdom
David Mansfield-Heaven's Gate
Wendy Carlos-A Clockwork Orange
Jonny Greenwood-There Will Be Blood & The Master
Cliff Martinez-Drive & Only God Forgives
Alberto Iglesias-All About My Mother, Talk to Her, & Che
Clint Mansell-Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Wrestler, Black Swan, & Moon

[fillow]

TR&AR - both scores
Brad Fiedel - Terminator 1 & 2
Clint Mansell - The Fountain
Angelo Badalamenti - Lost Highway & Twin Peaks
Howard Shore - LOTR (The Fellowship of the Ring only)
Cliff Martinez - Contagion
The Dust Brothers - Fight Club
Philip Glass - Koyaanisquatsi
Bill Conti - Rocky
Don Davis - The Matrix (all of them)
Alan Silvetstri - Jurrasic Park & Predator

I also don't know how I can't mention such movies like Lost in Translation, Natural Born Killers, Trainspotting, Jackie Brown, Snatch, despite them not not being scored by a single composer or a group.

[GibbonBlack]

Alan Silvetstri - Jurrasic Park & Predator

Jurassic Park is John Williams

[eversonpoe]

clint mansell (performed by mogwai & kronos quartet) - the fountain
mogwai - zidane & les revenants
cliff martinez - solaris
john carpenter - the fog & assault on precinct 13
nick cave & warren ellis - the proposition
massive attack - danny the dog
nathan johnson - brick
TR & AR - the girl with the dragon tattoo
mark mothersbaugh & seu jorge - the life aquatic (yeah, i'm including the bowie covers because they're fantastic)
rachel's - music for egon schiele

absolute favorites in bold

[fillow]

Jurassic Park is John Williams

My bad. Props to him then!

[frankie teardrop]

seconded
blade runner
christine (my favorite carpenter, though assault is a close second)
terminator
edward scissorhands
the exorcist
the shining
the proposition
twin peaks
suspiria

not yet mentioned
robin guthrie & harold budd- mysterious skin
thomas newman- less than zero
coil- hellraiser (not used, but brilliant)

[HurtinMinorKey]

Pink Floyd, Echoes: for the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Star Wars, (no one said this already???)
Fight Club, (maybe the best ever)

TGWTDT is a great album of music, but terrible as a soundtrack.

[Demogorgon]

anything by Elliot Goldenthal; the "Alien3", "Final Fantasy", and "Interview With the Vampire" scores stand out in particular. Also, Graeme Revell's score for "Pitch Black" fit the mood perfectly.

[sheepdean]

A few of my faves not mentioned:
Book of Eli - Atticus Ross
The Artist - Ludovic Bourgi
Therapist - Barry Adamson
Star Trek: The Motion Picture - Jerry Goldsmith

[Reznor2112]

TGWTDT is a great album of music, but terrible as a soundtrack.

Really? Not being a fan boy, but I think it works WONDERS as the score to the film.

[ltrandazzo]

Let's see...

John Williams - Superman / The Empire Strikes Back / Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade
Ennio Morricone - The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly / For a Few Dollars More
Hans Zimmer - Inception / The Da Vinci Code / The Dark Knight Trilogy / Man of Steel
TR & AR - The Social Network / TGWTDT
The Dust Brothers - Fight Club
Jerry Goldsmith - Star Trek: The Motion Picture / Star Trek: First Contact
Michael Giacchino - Star Trek / The Incredibles / Lost
James Newton Howard - Snow Falling on Cedars
Bear McCreary - Battlestar Galactica
Nino Rota - The Godfather Part II
David Julyan - Memento / The Prestige
Clint Mansell - Requiem For a Dream / Moon / The Fountain
Howard Shore - Lord Of The Rings / The Hobbit / Seven
Danny Elfman - Batman
John Carpenter - Halloween
Cliff Martinez - Solaris / Drive

[Camille]

The 6 disc Blade Runner Esper 'Retirement' Edition - 25th Anniversary Culmination is simply breathtaking and well worth checking out, as is the 212 track Angelo Badalamenti & David Lynch Twin Peaks Archive.
Other good ones are the anniversary editions of Carpenters Halloween and Halloween II. The Halloween III Season Of The Witch score is very good too, lovely and dark and electronic.

No mention of the Carpenter and Holworth score for Escape From New York? It's worth it for the title track alone and is also available as an expanded version too.

[fillow]

Oh, I totally forgot to mention:

Danny Elfman - Men in Black 1 & 2

and a few ones that usually count as artist's album rather than a soundtrack
Bjork - Selmasongs (Dancer in the Dark)
David Bowie - The Buddha of Suburbia
65dos - Silent Running re-score
Biosphere - Insomnia
Paul Oakenfold - Swordfish

[Vertigo]

Personal favourites...

First three Alien films. And as jaw-dropping as Goldenthal's Alien 3 score is, my preference descends in the same order as the film chronology. Resurrection's main theme is perfectly evocative, but most of the score is as generic as the film it supports.
Akira.
The Terminator.
Donnie Darko.
Superman.
Predator.
Blade Runner.
Godfather.
The Social Network.
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
Moon.
Saturday Night Fever.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.
Daredevil (yes).
Loved the first Matrix's perfectly judged backdrop of dirty techno, but not so keen on the score (original and otherwise) for the rest of the trilogy.


Missing some obvious greats up there, like Jurassic Park and Star Wars, but they don't strike such a strong personal chord (despite JP being a film I can pretty much recite from memory).

[Conan The Barbarian]

Wow no love for Basil Poledouris?

He is responsible for IMO the greatest score ever which is Conan The Barbarian.

He is also responsible for Robocop and Starship Troopers to name a few.

[r_z]

Nolan's movies seem to be incredibly popular around those shores, which might add to Zimmer's reputation, but in my opinion Elfman's and Goldenthal's scores for Batman are much better than Zimmer's (same goes for Batman, Returns and Forever as movies).

[Jinsai]

because it's worth mentioning, people should check out the score to the recent remake of Maniac.
not sure if I'd recommend the movie really, but the soundtrack is awesome.

[Alexandros]

I second most of the soundtracks listed so far.

I'd like to add two:

-25th Hour
-Old Boy (the original, haven't seen the US version to judge it)

[onthewall2983]

http://www.echoingthesound.org/commu...Film-Composers

*cough*

[Krazy]

I'm not great at this either, just throwing in my $0.02 in.

- Not gonna put in "music" scores in here, such as The Crow. (Way to easy to judge that way)
- The Dark Onight really stood out to me for some reason.
- Regarding TR/AR, TGWTDT destroys TSN in my opinion. TSN kinda felt like Ghosts leftovers (not necessarily a bad thing) inserted into spots, and TGWTDT fealt like the music was made for the mood and movie. That's the one that should've been Oscar worthy.

Carry on.

[Jinsai]

Riz Ortolani just died today. He was great.

[Millionaire]

Two electronic scores I dig:
Chemical Brothers - Hanna

Massive Attack - Danny the Dog

[cahernandez]

Right now I'm at work, sitting in a cubicle, listening to the Inception soundtrack. I've got to say, a normal day at the office feels a lot more epic with this on my headphones. I kinda feel like I'm part of a big-budget action film! You should try this one day.

[Toadflax]

Maybe this should be a separate thread, but I wanted to share some video game scores I love and listen to on a weekly if not daily basis while at work:

Mass Effect 3
Call of Duty: Black Ops II (got it for TR's theme, of course, but absolutely love the rest of it)
Portal
Portal 2: Songs To Test By
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Assassin's Creed III
Quake (obviously)

I haven't even played ME3 or CoD:BOII, but the scores are kickass regardless.