Yeah that is a beautiful piece by Morricone. I also like his score for Once Upon A Time In The West.
My favorites include :
The Ghost and Mrs Muir (Bernard Herrmann)
Conan the Barbarian (Basil Poledouris)
The Dead Zone (the original Cronenberg film - Michael Kamen)
La Grande Illusion (Joseph Kosma)
Bram Stoker’s Dracula (Wojciech Kilar)
All of Herrmann’s work (in particular the Hitchcock scores: Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho - pure genius). And Chaplin’s own score for Modern Times.
Oops - it seems you meant best “piece” - not best score - sorry for my previous post
:smack:
OK, I may have to turn in my man card on this one, but I think Lara’s Theme (Somewhere My Love) from Dr. Zhivago is a really beautiful song. The balalaikas really make it.
Does Radiohead’s “Exit Music” count?
The main theme from Once Upon a Time in the West is unbelievably good, especially in the lead up to Fonda’s face filling the screen after 30 minutes, and again in the “loving brother” flashback near the end. Cheyenne’s Theme is good as well.
The last 2 tracks on the soundtrack to ** The Good, The Bad and The Ugly**, as well as the main theme, are also superb. In fact, I’m going to get the vinyl out now to listen to them before I go out.
The theme from Schindler’s List has always struck me as particularly beautiful (and rather un-John Williamsish).
The theme from Cosmos from Vangelis’ "Heaven and Hell" album is incredible. Not sure if it was specifically written for the program, though.
Honorable Mentions:
"Stayin’ Alive" from Saturday Night Fever still makes me dance
Lara’s Theme from Dr. Zhivago is gorgeous
The score to the movie version of Otomo Katsuhiro’s Akira involves a bunch of disparate motifs & moods, from traditional action-adventure music to prayer, & climaxes with Tetsuo’s “Requiem,” a giant synthesis of Eastern & Western funeral motifs as well as motifs from other parts of the soundtrack. Man, that just gets to me whenever I listen to it, & I didn’t like the movie that much.
Horner’s opening music from The Rocketeer. Disney folks must’ve loved it, too, because they lifted it for a lot of unrelated trailers.
The aforementioned theme to The Magnificent Seven ny Elmer Bernstein
A whole stack of John Williams stuff – **Star Wars, Superman, Jurassic Park, Harry Potter.
Practically the entire ouevre of Bernard Herrmann – **Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, Jason and the Argonauts, ** a whole stack of Alfred Hitchcock and Ray Harryhausen movies. And he did the music for Citizen Kane and Psycho.
It has become a cliche over the years, but Randy Newman’s theme from The Natural still gives me goosebumps. I was about 10 when that movie came out and I think it was the first “classical” music to really register with me.
I’ll 2nd Peter Gabriel’s Passion work as well.
The title song (and in fact, all the other musical numbers in the film) predate the movie by about two decades.
I’d definitionally win the thread by bringing up Miles Davis’ score to Louis Malle’s Ascenseur pour l’échafaud (Elevator To The Gallows); the movie wouldn’t exist without it, so we’ll toss it right out.
I’m going to pick Anton Karas’ zither music to Carol Reed’s The Third Man; it is both playful and sad, cheerfully tinny and paranoia-inducing at the same time. A close runner up is Vangelis’ work on Blade Runner and Elmer Bernstein’s music iconic music for The Great Escape. John Barry’s distinctive work on the Bond series and elsewhere also deserves mention, as does John Williams’ themes in Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Empire Strikes Back, and Lalo Schifrin damn near everywhere in the Seventies. Michael Giacchino’s work on The Incredibles is a pastiche of Barry, Schifrin, and other jazz-influenced composers of the Sixties and Seventies, but a very adroit one; I can listen to this all day.
Stranger
There are a lot of pieces from films that I like, but the first one that sprang to mind was the setting of Non nobis Domine from the Kenneth Branagh Henry V.
I keep missing it when it’s on, but isn’t it usually translated as “Lift to the Scaffold”?
I also like the theme from The Odd Couple.
The theme to The Pink Panther was pretty memorable.
For me, it would have to be the music from Avalon. The link contains parts of the main theme, but I couldn’t find a clip from the very end with the entire song, perhaps because it would spoil the movie, but it is a beautiful arrangement with a choir and orchestra. Cool movie, too.
Aw, hell, there must have dozens of favorites of mine…but the first one that came to mind (not even the best, neccesarily!) was “Escape” from Plunkett & Macleane.
Perfect “charging to the rescue” music.
i came in just to say that
As I recall, Mrs. Robinson was finished for The Graduate, so it counts, and it’s a great song.
Henry Mancini’s “Love Theme from Romeo & Juliet” for the 60’s R&J film is one of the most haunting pieces of music I’ve ever heard.
“The Last of the Mohican’s Main Theme” - though it can be argued it was ripped off of “The Gael”
“[Star Wars] Imperial March” - Now I know what you’re going to say, but Holst’s version was the Dylan track of “All Along the Watchtower”…so I think it counts.
The main theme from Requiem For a Dream was pretty badass, clearly illustrated by its liberal use in the LoTR trilogy.