Great Movie Scores

Kingp35

I know its been done a few times before but I would like to start a new thread anyway.

Basically I have really gotten into movie scores lately. I love them. My favourite is the Gladiator score by Hans Zimmer. I also have all three LOTR scores, Pirates of the Carribean, Batman Begins and Braveheart. I tend to prefer scores from epic and adventure movies for some reason as I think the music in them has everything, the slow tracks and the fast upbeat tracks.

Anyway I was wondering does anyone have any suggestions as to scores I should try get my hands on?

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

requiem for a dream and Pi are both pretty cool .. not exactly epic, but good music

Necronomicon

Yeah, Clint Mansell's score for Requiem For A Dream was cool. If you haven't heard it, try to get hold of it. I also like the LOTR and Gladiator scores. Can't really think of anything else.

TerrorFirmer

Nothing beats Star Wars.

But LoTR Is pretty good.

I love Basil Poledouris' Robocop and Starship Troopers themes also.

Kingp35

Does John Williams do Star Wars? I tend to like his stuff

monkeyfudge

The James Horner score for Star Trek II : The Wrath of Khan has always been a favourite of mine.

TerrorFirmer

Kingp35 wrote:

Does John Williams do Star Wars? I tend to like his stuff

Sure does.

Goodshape

monkeyfudge wrote:

The James Horner score for Star Trek II : The Wrath of Khan has always been a favourite of mine.

ah yes! that's a good alright. still like hearing the old wrath of khan tunes in the more recent films aswell.. wouldn't have thought of it.

Kingp35 wrote:

Does John Williams do Star Wars? I tend to like his stuff

yea, that and plenty of others (superman for example). all his stuff tends to sound pretty much the same, but good and powerful none-the-less.


not sure what I'd pick as my own favorite. needs more thought.

monkeyfudge

John Williams used to be great... but I think I got a bit sick of him after a while... in same way I'm pretty sick of Danny Elfman at this stage.

Oh.. don't forget Williams also did Indiana Jones and Jaws.

Another great composer to mention is Bernard Herrmann who did a lot of Hitchcocks stuff. Vertigo in particular is amazing... and lets not forget Psycho.

Rozie

It's not a Movie Score, but it's a movie style score; the Ultimate Spider-man video game. Apart from the annoying Techno-rock, it was some amazing "quirky orchestral" stuff and had some amazing incidental music. The Green Goblin chase scene was probably my favourite.

Batman Begins was pretty food too.

masteroftherealm

Not quite a score but rather a musical score would be magnolia based around aimee mann's tracks. amazing.

Richelieu

Jaws people!!
dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dunanaaaa! :P

garred

LOTR, Braveheart and of course Platoon.

Hagar

Dances with Wolves. Breathtaking, sweeping music.

Basq

LOTR and more recently 'King Kong' are both excellent!

madrab

lotr, platoon, omen, serenity, 2001, and of course donny darko

djkeogh

Braveheart's got some great music in it. I loved the soundtrack for Unbreakable as well.

Basq

madrab wrote:

serenity

Didn't think the music was good in it as it was in 'Firefly' but they did lose Greg Edmondson.

loz

last of the mohicans

madrab

yeah firefly had the better score but i still loved serenitys soundtrack

last of the mohicans is a really good score

best score in a tv series has to go to babylon 5

Mr E

I'm a big fan of Danny Elfmans Batman (1989) score (Its used in the animated series too).

I also really like Braveheart, Gladiator, and American Beauty.

Auvers

How about Sergio Leone spaghetti westerns, Musical scores from Ennio Morricone, movies like The Good The Bad and the Ugly, Fistful of Dollars, A Few Dollars More.

monkeyfudge

Oh... oh... another good one.

Basil Poledouris' score for the Conan films... wonderful stuff. His work on Robocop was good too.

TerrorFirmer

monkeyfudge wrote:

His work on Robocop was good too.

It's so disappointing that the best of the lot, Robocop II, is missing his score. Whats even more insulting is that it's back for the diabolical Robocop III

fade2black

The Rock, Thin Red Line - Hans Zimmer
Unbreakable & 6th Sense - James Newton Howard
Titanic - James Horner
K-PAX - Edward Shearmur
The Mission, Once upon a time in America, Untouchables, all the westerns - Ennio Morricone
Superman, AI, Jaws, Empire of the Sun, SAving Private Ryan - John Willliams
American Beauty, Shawshank Redemption - Thomas Newman

and more I can't think of now. Do a search and you'll find a thread where I probably suggested more.

monkeyfudge

MobileInfantry wrote:

It's so disappointing that the best of the lot, Robocop II, is missing his score. Whats even more insulting is that it's back for the diabolical Robocop III

Leonard Rosenman did Robocop 2 didn't he? I think him and Basil must be mates or something as their stuff is very similiar.

Rosenman did a good job with the Lord of the Rings (Animated) soundtrack.

Shirley Walker and Danny Elfman seem to have a similiar relationship. Although I think I prefer Shirley Walker these days... some of the places she took Elfman's Batman score in the cartoon series are amazing.

TerrorFirmer

monkeyfudge wrote:

Leonard Rosenman did Robocop 2 didn't he? I think him and Basil must be mates or something as their stuff is very similiar.

I'm not really sure to be honest, not too familar with Rosenman. I'm listening to the Robocop Theme by Basil this very moment, I find that even more so then John Williams, his stuff can sound so similar to his other work whilst still being....different.

It's remarkable how almost identical sections of the Robocop Theme are like the Starhip Troopers theme though.

dazmoriarty

CLASSIC MOVIE SCORES: Dark City, Aliens, The Village, 25th Hour, Amèlie, Blade Runner, Leon ('The Professional' to Americans who can't pronounce Leon), Michael Collins, One Hour Photo, Anything by Howard Shore (LOTR 1-2-3, The Cell, Panic Room, Ed Wood, The Game), Anything by John Williams Star Wars 1-6, Superman), Anything by Elliott Goldenthal (Alien3, Final Fantasy, Interview With A Vampire) anything by James Newton Howard (all M.Night Shayamlan's movies, Batman Begins)

CLASSIC TV SCORES: Battlestar Galactica (new show that is), Children Of Dune.

The Bollox

Casablanca that's a great score

monkeyfudge

dazmoriarty wrote:

CLASSIC TV SCORES: Battlestar Galactica (new show that is)

The old one was great too!

But I do enjoy the new one with the singing cylons.

dazmoriarty

The sexy female Cylons singing in Sumerian (or whatever)?!

You in Townsville?! Wow, was there last year - loved Magnetic Island! Aren't you up late?!

monkeyfudge

dazmoriarty wrote:

You in Townsville?! Wow, was there last year - loved Magnetic Island! Aren't you up late?!

Ha... no... I didn't realise it was an actual place. I'm in the Townsville that is a fictional city in the Powerpuff Girls.

dazmoriarty

Yep, it's in N.E. Australia:

www.townsvilleonline.com.au

bringitdown

Dancer in the Dark

DaBreno

Auvers wrote:

How about Sergio Leone spaghetti westerns, Musical scores from Ennio Morricone, movies like The Good The Bad and the Ugly, Fistful of Dollars, A Few Dollars More.

Aye, Ennio has composed some belters in his time. I saw a documentary on the making of Once upon a time in America, Sergio Leone would play Ennios music for that scene as the scene was filmed to convey the effect he wanted.
He did a very memorable tune for The Mission and a sweeping, bombastic score for the Untouchables.

Well worth tracking down a CD of his greatest hits.

fade2black

DaBreno wrote:

Well worth tracking down a CD of his greatest hits.

And there's at least 20 of them floating around.

Call Me Jimmy

loz wrote:

last of the mohicans

I agree, a truly great movie score.

One of the best scores in recant years has to be Michael Nyman's and Damon Albarn's score for Ravenous.

mike65

Jerry Goldsmiths for Star Trek the Motion Picture (1979) Tangerine Dream for Thief, Barry Devorson for The Warriors, Lalo Schifrin for Dirty Harry, David Shire for Taking of Pelham 123, Vangelis for Blade Runner.

Mike.

vannistelrooy10

Rocky 1 and 3, the warriors

mewso

Auvers wrote:

How about Sergio Leone spaghetti westerns, Musical scores from Ennio Morricone, movies like The Good The Bad and the Ugly, Fistful of Dollars, A Few Dollars More.

Once Upon a Time in America is his best imho.

fade2black

musician wrote:

Once Upon a Time in America is his best imho.

Joint first place with The Mission. I urge you to get his live DVD filmed in Italy, a great piece of Christmas Day viewing.

Vokes

Michael Nyman's score for Gattaca is just beautiful.

While technically not a 'movie' score (but it really is), Harry Gregson-Williams' score for some of the Metal Gear Solid games are brilliant.

Loved the Man on Fire score, again by Harry Gregson-Williams.

And most recently Antonio Pinto's score for Lord of War has stood out for me, particularly the theme thats playing when Yuri is bringing his brother home at the end.

Retr0gamer

SofaKing wrote:

While technically not a 'movie' score (but it really is), Harry Gregson-Williams' score for some of the Metal Gear Solid games are brilliant.

He only did a handleful of tracks. The vast majority are by the Konami in-house composers.

One that hasn't been mentioned that I liked was Fight Club.

The Akira soundtrack as well was something else. Not really listenable to but really suited the film.

Anything Joe Hisaishi has done for Studio Ghibli has been excellent especially the Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away score.

Not a film but wait until you hear Koi Otani's score for Shadow of the Colossus. It really is superb and is as good as if not better than any orchestral score for a film.

I also admire the amount of effort that went into making the stunning soundtracks for Panzer Dragoon Saga and Orta. The composers Saori Kobayashi and Mariko Nanba had to make instrument sounds that sounded alien, like no instrument known, and yet still familiar. The fact that the soundtracks are two of the best ever written is a testament to the talent of these two composers especially Saori Kobayashi.

Iceman_5000

Thomas Newmans' Shawshank Redemption and Green Mile scores are quality.

Litcagral

Brief Encounter - Rachmaninov's second piano concerto I think?

hefty_langer

in my opinion a score that you will not find too commonly is "The big white", it stars robin williams and the music is mainly by the eels, fantastic soundtrack...

whiskeyman

Iceman_5000 wrote:

Thomas Newmans' Shawshank Redemption

This score is simply beautiful.
Having bought it a while ago, I've realised how many other films and TV documentaries use a lot of the key score pieces.
I guess it's even more brilliant given it's my favourite ever film, and even listening to it evokes all the moments.

Kingp35

I actually really liked James Newton Howards King Kong soundtrack. It seemed to fit the movi very well indeed. It might be worth a listen

I write some film music in my spare time....and spend most my time listening to it. for me there are a couple of genius' that stand out

Ennio is the first - i saw him in the royal albert hall a couple of years back, one of the best experiences of my life. As already said his western trilogy, once upon a time's, Mission, and the one with James Coburn can remember the name, cinema paradiso, the professional, moses. Also Ipecac records are releasing a double cd of his best more rare work soon that would be a great pick up. One of my fav's is a cd called 'Psycho Morricone' which has a collection of some of his disturbing stuff which is a must have.

The theres jerry goldsmith who died sadly last year - The Omen is just brilliant, Under Fire, The man from uncle, Gremlins

My fav soundtrack is Conan, the music describes the created world of the time to perfection really improving the film. I never get bored of this it just transports me to images of Conan killing all in battle!

Lalo Shifrin as mentioned is class with Dirty harry, black widow and a few others

Honourable mentions to Phillip Glass, Angelo Badalamenti, Bernard Hermann, john barry (bond) The Insider soundtrack. the four above all have a style of their very own same as the guys ive already mentioned which for me separates them from the names like zimmer, Elfman, Horner, Howard who are all top notch but not original enough for my liking!