The overture from The Marriage of Figaro is also used in Trading Places, which is somehow appropriate, as the story in the opera is that of a servant who gets the better of his employer.
So I guess that means no Allegro Non Troppo, then?
*To Fly *put Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major back on the map.
I was referring to the music used in the Godzilla HALO jump scene, previously posted.
I’m going to nominate Dennis Hooper’s death scene in True Romance, with Délibes’ Flower Duet in the background.
It's an amazing scene, really. All about the contrast.The 1812 Overture from “V For Vendetta.”
Another great classical music scene: Debussy’s Clair de Lune in Ocean’s 11. It’s a terrific use of music to convey emotion.
I’m the first to suggest this? Really?
Death in Venice. Mahler’s third and fifth symphonies. And I don’t even much like classical music.
j
My favorites – 2001, Fantasia, Fantasia 2000, Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon have already been mentioned. I’d just like to point out that Kubrick didn’t use classical music before 2001 (have a look at The Killing, Paths of Glory, Spartacus and Dr. Strangelove again), and he originally didn’t plan on using it in 2001, but he used classical pieces as “place holders” in the print while Alex North, who composed the score for Spartacus, wrote original music for 2001. Kubrick ended up liking the classical music better.
The North score has been recorded a couple of times. I’ve got a copy. Much as I like his stuff, I think Kubrick made the better choice.
Also a note about another piece of often-used music – the second movement from Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. It’s been mentioned once above as being in The King’s Speech, but it ends up in a lot of places. I just heard it on TV this week in some TV show. It’s also the end music in Zardoz and in Mr. Holland’s Opus
Ride of the Valkyries - Wagner
Apocalypse now.
[quote=“casdave, post:50, topic:815535”]
Ride of the Valkyries - Wagner
Apocalypse now.
[/QUOTE]From the OP:
I listened to the director’s commentary track for that once, and I think he said he chose Clair de Lune because it was used during a similar bonding scene among the astronauts in The Right Stuff. I can’t find the it on youtube, but the astronauts are at a big welcoming party in Houston watching a fan dancer, intercut with Chuck Yeager making a record flight at Edwards that almost killed him.
Also in Trading Places.
Platoon: Adagio For Strings by Barber (does Barber count?)
Raging Bull: Cavalleria Rusticana
It wasn’t a great film, but it’s one I thought was pretty good, anyway. Knowing, starring Nicolas Cage, played Beethoven’s 7th Symphony, Second Movement, “Allegretto” as Cage’s character slowly drives his truck through the madness of New York as the world comes to an end.
Let’s go for four, I posted this somewhere else very recently:
Henry PURCELL - Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary
Another favourite is Bach’s Third Orchestral Suite Air in After Hours (1985) love the music, love the film.
The downside is that films using classical music don’t necessarily ruin the pieces, but they do hijack your imagination and memories of them.
That’s the one I wanted to mention, but now someone else has beaten me to it. I feel that much more sad.
I can’t believe I didn’t think of this already.
Ravel’s Bolero in 10.
I don’t know anyone who knew that song before the movie.
[Raises hand]. My parents had it on a record that I played over and over as a little kid in the '60s.
What, seriously? 
Bolero was written in 1928, and there has hardly been a day since then when it wasn’t wildly popular.