Of course it’s “Ecstasy of Gold”, by Ennio Morricone, from “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”. Every instrument in the orchestra used, in a wonderful interweaving. A work of genius.
Followed closely by “Takeoff”, the theme from “The Rocketeer”, by James Horner. A lovely, evocative, and soaring nostalgic piece.
The opening them from The Stunt Man by Dominic Frontiere. For years, it was used by other movies as a placeholder for their trailers.
The musical background to the St. Crispin’s Day Speech from Kenneth Branagh’s Henry IV by Patrick Doyle.
The entire score of Lawrence of Arabia.
Theme from The Magnificent Seven.
Theme from The Great Escape.
Theme from Patton.
Theme from The Battle of Britain.
Theme from ***Midway ***(1976).
Theme from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
Theme from A Fistful of Dollars.
Theme from For a Few Dollars More.
Theme from Once upon a Time in the West.
“On the Street Where You Live,” “Why Can’t the English?”, and “Wouldn’t It be Luverly?” from My Fair Lady.
“Das Panzerlied” from Battle of the Bulge.
Various things from Star Wars (the movie; the first one, not the whole bloody series of movies).
Theme from Superman.
And of course the greatest soundtrack ever: Heavy Metal.
Theme from The Big Country.
Those are the kinds of movies I’d think of. Add* Flash Gordon* to that list.
:smack: Oh yeah, I agree Flash Gordon should be on there; good catch Tripolar!
Theme from Goldfinger.
Theme from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
“The James Bond Theme.”
“We Have All the Time in the World” from OHMSS.
Theme and rest of the score from Chariots of Fire. Chariots of Fire • Main Theme • Vangelis - YouTube
Music from Amadeus, but of course that’s cheating, they got it all from a musician long dead…
I’ll agree wholeheartedly with Horner’s score for The Rocketeer, one of mt favorite pieces of movie music. Disney apparently agreed – they re-used the music for several trailers. I was just listening to this yesterday in my car, over and over.
I’m not as fond of the theme to The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly as you, though .
Others have listed some of my other faves:
The original Star Wars theme by John Williams
The Magnificent Seven by Elmer Bernstein
Superman by Williams
The Theme to Jurassic Park by Williams
A LOT of scores by Bernard Herrmann – Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, North by Northwest, The Day the Earth Stood Still
Kubrick’s choices for 2001: A Space Odyssey (I’ve listened to Alex North’s score that wenmt unused; I prefer the classical music)
FRanz Waxman’s score for Bride of FRankenstein
and, for coimpletely different reasons, Louis and Bebe Barron’s “Electronic Tonalities” score for Forbidden Planet.
Really. I have it on CD and listen to it in my car. Please note that it does NOT use a Theremin (although Hermann’s score for Day the Earth Stood Still does)
Do we only count original music? If not, the best uses of classical music were “An der schönen blauen Donau” and “Also sprach Zarathustra” in “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “Ritt der Walküren” in “Apocalypse Now”.
Performance (1970)- soundtrack
Repo Man (1984) - soundtrack
Theme from The Green Slime (1969)
No, that would be Maximum Overdrive because, since all the music is by one composer, it can fairly compete with the usual suspects - Horner, Williams etc.
Bullitt by Lalo Schiffrin
There are a lot of great ones mentioned already, but I’ll try to add a few that I love:
Roll Tide from Crimson Tide Link
Concerning Hobbits from Fellowship of the Ring Link
Promontory from Last of the Mohicans Link
A New Life from The Truman Show Link
Summer Overture from Requiem for a Dream Link
So Was Red from Shawshank Redemption Link
Ice Dance from Edward Scissorhands Link
The Indiana Jones theme
Incidentally I didn’t link to any video, only music.
oh brother, where art thou
westside story
Alien Jerry Goldsmith
Blade Runner Vangelis
Long Riders Ry Cooder, David Lindley
A Hard Day’s Night - The Beatles (John Lennon’s masterpiece, IMO)
The Thing (1982) - Ennio Morricone