# Best and Worst Movie Scores and Soundtracks **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 28, 2006, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-worst-movie-scores-and-soundtracks/358517 "2006-05-28T05:15:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Arien](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Arien](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arien)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2006, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-worst-movie-scores-and-soundtracks/358517/1 "2006-05-28T05:15:34Z")
I don’t really think about movie music too much but I like the music from Pirates of the Caribbean and Gladiator. In fact, the score for PotC reminds me in places of the Gladiator soundtrack. I guess it’s the horns. Oh, and I like the music from the Lord of the Rings movies, of course, especially the chanting bits. Although I do find the hobbit theme a little twee. I’m a little embarrassed to admit it, but I always secretly like it when O Fortuna gets used in a trailer, even if it’s for some dumb action movie. Yes, I know it’s a horribly overused piece. As for dislikes, I remember not liking the music for Troy, it just seemed derivative. I rented it and watched it on a 19" tv and it’s not a great movie to put it mildly, so that probably had an effect too. So what do you guys like or hate? ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2006, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-worst-movie-scores-and-soundtracks/358517/2 "2006-05-28T05:28:12Z")
I have many soundtracks I like. Some of the movies are very different though, so it’s like comparing apples and oranges. In no particular order: Chariots of Fire The Wind and the Lion Lawrence of Arabia The LOTR trilogy of movies A Man For All Seasons and, strangely enough, the music from both Conan movies. ---
**Author:** ![Rodgers01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2006, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-worst-movie-scores-and-soundtracks/358517/3 "2006-05-28T05:30:50Z")
John William’s scores are always popular, and deservedly so. The soundtrack for “E.T.” is excellent, not to mention “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “Indiana Jones,” “Star Wars,” and “Jurassic Park.” I think Bernard Herrman is considered by many to be the best composer for the movies. He did everything from “Citizen Kane” to “Psycho” to “Taxi Driver.” The zither score for “The Third Man” is a personal favorite. The score for “The Land Before Time” is actually pretty good too – I heard a track from it once out of context of the movie and was surprised how good it was. ---
**Author:** ![Zahava424](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/76d3ee/32.png) [@Zahava424](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zahava424)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2006, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-worst-movie-scores-and-soundtracks/358517/4 "2006-05-28T05:33:49Z")
There are some great songs on the _Sleepless in Seattle_ soundtrack. The Joe Cocker version of “Bye Bye Blackbird” comes to mind. ---
**Author:** ![Achren](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/898d66/32.png) [@Achren](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achren)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2006, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-worst-movie-scores-and-soundtracks/358517/5 "2006-05-28T05:35:01Z")
Badelt (POTC) and Zimmer (Gladiator) [work together](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0046004/bio) and Zimmer produced POTC. As for me, I’m basically a Thomas Newman fangirl, though I don’t own the score for Jarhead. I also like Rachel Portman (Chocolat, Legend of Bagger Vance), James Horner (though his recycling can drive me crazy at times), Mark Isham, Carter Burwell, Jerry Goldsmith _stops_ Let me do worst moments in scores since I just mentioned James Horner’s recycling madness and want to vent a bit. There’s this track, I don’t know where the first version is (Searching for Bobby Fischer maybe?) but it’s used with robotic noises for the opening titles of Bicentinnial Man and used with Charlotte Church? vocals for the opening titles of A Beautiful Mind. I laughed and people looked at me, “What’s so funny about opening titles?” they wondered. Sigh. Another, er, great Bicentinnial Man moment is this scene sometime around a wedding. James Horner also scored a little know movie called Braveheart which has a very recognizable theme. Horner uses the first half of that theme with a different ending in Bicentinnial Man. The movie was bad enough, but suddenly my mind was filled with this image of Mel Gibson and all his men running over the scene. Fun times! [random story] I’ve got a friend who passionately loves this cue from Dragonheart and tears up or cries everytime she hears it. Guess which bit gets used all the time in trailers? [/random story] ---
**Author:** ![HoldenCaulfield](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/22d042/32.png) [@HoldenCaulfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoldenCaulfield)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2006, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-worst-movie-scores-and-soundtracks/358517/6 "2006-05-28T05:41:28Z")
One thing that made me laugh several times over three films was Howard Shore recycling some of his Dogma score in the LOTR trilogy. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2006, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-worst-movie-scores-and-soundtracks/358517/7 "2006-05-28T13:39:07Z")
Jaws music was integral to the movie.more than any i have ever heard. ---
**Author:** ![Poysyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Poysyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Poysyn)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2006, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-worst-movie-scores-and-soundtracks/358517/8 "2006-05-28T14:35:31Z")
I thought the soundtrack to Bram Stoker’s Dracula was excellent and have since heard some of the pieces used in other films. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2006, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-worst-movie-scores-and-soundtracks/358517/9 "2006-05-28T14:54:41Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > Jaws music was integral to the movie.more than any i have ever heard. I once read that the score for the 1933 version of King Kong was the first movie in which music was composed to exactly fit, at some points at least, the movement on the screen. If you watch the movie as the village chief begins descending several steps towards the film crew you will notice it. Today this is a common practise, but apparently it wasn’t then. ---
**Author:** ![ColonelDax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/71e660/32.png) [@ColonelDax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ColonelDax)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2006, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-worst-movie-scores-and-soundtracks/358517/10 "2006-05-28T15:07:22Z")
The \*Repo Man \* soundtrack rules. Black Flag’s “TV Party,” Burning Sensations doing “Pablo Picasso,” a Spanish version of “Secret Agent Man,” and of course Iggy Pop handling the title theme - what more could one ask for? The long out-of-print \*Atomic Cafe \* soundtrack also is excellent. ---
**Author:** ![Rodgers01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2006, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-worst-movie-scores-and-soundtracks/358517/11 "2006-05-28T16:06:57Z")
It’s really kind of amazing how much the score can effect how you perceive a movie. In a film class in college we once watched a cheap-o DVD version of a silent movie (“Metropolis” I think?) that had a soundtrack that was obviously just a bunch of public domain classical music tracks laid down one after the other with no relation whatsoever to what was going on in the movie. But even then, the feel of the music had a great effect on how you felt about what was going on on the screen. There was a rather scary part in the movie where a girl is being abducted (?), and the music at the time was Mendelssohn’s Italian Symphony. So instead of seeming creepy and sad and scary, it was adventurous and rousing and scary. I’m sure a different track of music would have given a completely different feeling, without necessarily lessening the impact of the movie. ---
**Author:** ![Rachael\_Rage](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/71c47a/32.png) [@Rachael\_Rage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachael_Rage)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2006, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-worst-movie-scores-and-soundtracks/358517/12 "2006-05-28T16:42:35Z")
Peter Gabriel’s “Passion” (for _The Last Temptation of Christ_) is a big favorite of mine. I listened to it for years before I ever saw the movie. I rarely notice the score while I’m watching the movie, which usually means the composer is doing his/her job. The one time I remember a score really annoying me, almost to the extent of putting me off the movie, is Michael Kamen’s for the first _X-Men_. ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2006, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-worst-movie-scores-and-soundtracks/358517/13 "2006-05-28T16:47:22Z")
The original _Bad News Bears_ used music from _Carmen_ to brilliant comedic effect. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2006, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-worst-movie-scores-and-soundtracks/358517/14 "2006-05-29T00:26:24Z")
> [@Poysyn](#): > > I thought the soundtrack to Bram Stoker’s Dracula was excellent and have since heard some of the pieces used in other films. Especially the vocalizations by one of my favorite human beings, Diamanda Galas. There have been some great film scores over time–Korngold’s\* The Adventures of Robin Hood; \*Copland’s \*Of Mice and Men; _Herrman’s_ The Day the Earth Stood Still \*and _Psycho_; Bernstein’s \*The Man with the Golden Arm; \*Mancini’s \*Pink Panther; \*Morricone’s Spaghetti Westerns; Corigliano’s \*Altered States \*and _The Red Violin_ . . . man, too many to keep going. Here are the soundtracks/scores I have bought recordings of: _Beetlejuice_ (a friend who’s in the CSO said, “sounds very Russian”) \*In the Heat of the Night The Rapture The Stuntman The Umbrellas of Cherbourg Natural Born Killers \*(awful movie; great soundtrack) \*Purple Rain Pulp Fiction \* ---
**Author:** ![Talon\_Karrde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Talon\_Karrde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Talon_Karrde)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2006, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-worst-movie-scores-and-soundtracks/358517/15 "2006-05-29T00:53:04Z")
The Magnificent Seven has a great score. ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2006, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-worst-movie-scores-and-soundtracks/358517/16 "2006-05-29T04:45:48Z")
I have the soundtracks from **Donnie Darko, Master and Commander, Trainspotting, and Hamlet [2000], Eyes Wide Shut, Lost in Translation, Blade Runner, and Brokeback Mountain**. All different and all very good. They really need to redo the **Ladyhawke** soundtrack, though, as people here have mentioned before. The synthesizers–by Toto!!-- just don’t work in what is supposed to be a 13th century story. ---
**Author:** ![Critical1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@Critical1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Critical1)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2006, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-worst-movie-scores-and-soundtracks/358517/17 "2006-05-29T05:01:49Z")
one of the worst was the score (if you can call it that) from Ladyhawk. ugh ---
**Author:** ![interface2x](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c0e974/32.png) [@interface2x](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/interface2x)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2006, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-worst-movie-scores-and-soundtracks/358517/18 "2006-05-29T16:48:03Z")
> [@Arien](#): > > As for dislikes, I remember not liking the music for Troy, it just seemed derivative. You might know this already, but the soundtracks for both **Troy** and **Gladiator** include vocals by [Lisa Gerrard](http://www.lisagerrard.com/). ---
**Author:** ![scott62](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea5d25/32.png) [@scott62](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scott62)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2006, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-worst-movie-scores-and-soundtracks/358517/19 "2006-05-29T21:09:33Z")
I can’t believe nobody has mentioned the Reservoir Dogs soundtrack. Stuck In The Middle With You is the defining song in the film. Little Green Bag is pretty good as well. ---
**Author:** ![BabaBooey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/dfb087/32.png) [@BabaBooey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BabaBooey)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2006, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-worst-movie-scores-and-soundtracks/358517/20 "2006-05-29T21:40:15Z")
I think the **Rocky** soundtracks are probably the greatest things ever created by man. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-worst-movie-scores-and-soundtracks/358517.md?page=2)