A few of my favorites:
Radio Raheem and Public Enemy’s Fight the Power from Do the Right Thing
Two scenes from The Five Heartbeats:
Heart is a House for Love Breakdown begins at 2:14 but I recommend the whole clip. Note the woman squirming in her seat.
I Feel Like Going On Duck comes to church at Choirboy’s request. This is after Eddie’s downward spiral and the group had broken up. Eddie was the lead singer.
You try!
At the start of George VI’s first wartime broadcast in The King’s Speech, Beethoven’s Seventh starts to play softly in the background. The movement starts off softly, and builds as the king works his way through the speech, gaining confidence as he goes. A beautiful matching of music and action.
Gene Kelly Singin’ in the Rain. For the win.
Yeah pretty much anything with Gene Kelly EVER. Though I love everything from “White Christmas”.
Also this, from Disney’s “Newsies”: perhaps the most under-rated musical of all time? I understand this is a Broadway play now and I REALLY hope it makes it to San Francisco because I would LOVE to see it.
Sinnerman by Nina Simone in the movie The Thomas Crown Affair..
Excellent song matched up to a great scene.
I have a ton that I know will be posted, so I won’t bother. But I don’t think one of my faves will get a mention, so I will mention it.
I love this song so much. The slang is top notch, and makes me wish I was fluent in 1920s street jive. One of my favorite ‘hip hop’ songs.
A thousand times yes.
Fearless
If you are not familar with the movie…
The film opens just after a plane crash. It follows the survivors. Throughout the film, Jeff Bridges is suffering form PSTD. He takes crazy chances with his life and he has a few flashbacks to this scene but it isn’t till the end of the film that we see it in all it’s glory while Jeff Bridges is suffering an allergic reaction to eating a strawberry, which he knows he is allergic to them.
Any song from the original Blues Brothers. That movie kicked ass.
I loved the use of Layla with the discovery of the whacked mobsters in Goodfellas.
Etta James in “Pleasantville” has got to be up there.
Possibly the greatest production number ever filmed, and probably Busby Berkeley’s best, “The Lullabye of Broadway” The Lullaby of Broadway (Gold Diggers of 1935) - YouTube
My favorite-ever movie opening (also Busby!), with Charlotte Greenwood and a baby Betty Grable, from Palmy Days: - YouTube
God I love Carmen Miranda: CARMEN MIRANDA ON CHATTANOOGA CHOO-CHOO - YouTube
Perfect Day by Lou Reed in Trainspotting used during Renton’s O.D.
God Is Trying To Tell You Something in The Color Purple.
Only Love Can Break Your Heart in Leap Year. Touching moment.
The entire soundtrack for The Italian Job (the 2003 version)
I love Pick Yourself Up from Swing Time. Not a huge production with dozens of chorus girls, so perhaps deceptively simple. But that’s why it has to be perfect.
twofer:
Platoon, the Samuel Barber Adagio for Strings playing when Elias is running out of the forest and the choppers are already bugging out.
Immortal Beloved: Beethoven bashing away on a new piano, then resting his head on it as he plays some twiddly notes that resolve into the Moonlight Sonata
Three obvious classics as yet unmentioned are Also Sprach Zarathustra at the beginning of 2001, the Ride of the Valkyries in Apocalypse Now, and the opening theme from Star Wars.
But I think they all lose to a scene from Amadeus, I just can’t decide which one. Probably the dying Mozart dictating his requiem to Salieri, but possibly one of the opera performances with Salieri commenting, or Salieri reading the written music that Stanzi brought over and hearing it in his head (talking about the squeezebox, etc.)
Can I nominate the scene where Mozart totally pwns Salieri and his welcome march at the piano by repeating it by heart and “improving” it? So awesome!
“and after that, it’s just the same thing, over and over again…?”
And the flip side: Salieri playing tune after tune and failing to impress the guy until – “Yes, I know that! Oh, that’s charming! I’m sorry, I didn’t know you wrote that!”