Best Movie Soundtrack

Well, in a non-audiophile sense, the Godfather III soundtrack is great. I also like the SEA OF LOVE, ROCKY IV, and TOP GUN...probably not what you were looking for though.

The movie "High Fidelity" has a great soundtrack - highly recommended - not high fidelity sound though :-)

"Dead Man Walking" (various), "Angela's Ashes" (John Williams), "The English Patient" (?), "Breakfast at Tiffany's (Mancini) and if you like Gilbert & Sullivan try "Topsy-Turvy".

Just watched "Almost Famous": Great movie, w/ great music. Just got Ennio Morriconie's "Melana", also great;anything by him,or John Barry. With 350 soundtracts to his credit;5 nominations,but no oscar; E M 's being up against "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon"" will be tough.

Try THE CRYING GAME, TRAINSPOTTING and EMPIRE RECORDS. For the record the soundtrack to CASINO ROYALE on vinyl was Harry Pearson's reference for several years.

Patriot Games is excellent if you like Celtic music and great bass. It is on RCA so the absolute phase is incorrect.

Does "Victory At Sea" count?

My favorite, by far, is the soundtrack to the movie, Alfie. A jazz fan will be mesmerized; Sonny Rollins at his absolute finest. Spanning a range of emotions seldom realized on one album. Joy, sadness, quickness, and absolute power(as only Rollins can deliver). I am a big jazz fan, and this is my second favorite jazz piece. Behind Kind of Blue of course.

"Legends of the Fall' by James Horned is excellant. Some people really dont like him but this is one of his best.."Tintanic" pales in camparision. It's aver emotional and rousing score. I never cared to see the movie but finally saw it just to see where the music lied. Turned out the film was pretty good too.

"Help", "A Hard Days Night", "Yellow Submarine"

I'm with Trelja, "Alfie" is an amazing jazz album even if does have Michael Caine and Shelly Winters on the cover. Also check out the "O Brother, Where Art Thou" 'track, it carried the movie. I've read that Gladiator is quite something. Michael Caine on the cover is one thing but Russell Crowe?

"The Saint" soundtrack not the score has lots of different types of music that I find interesting. Also I really enjoy the "Magnolia" soundtrack, has mostly Aimmie Mann songs with a few others there for support.

I'm not a HUGE soundtrack guy but there are a few I own that I enjoy alot. Gladiator is one of the best soundtracks I've heard in years! At this point, I should tell you that I define soundtracks as music written for a film, NOT a compilation of songs from the "period" a film is set in, i.e., Forrest Gump, Big Chill, etc. Other favs are "Last of the Mohicans", "The Natural", "Chariots of Fire", "Empire Strikes Back", "Patton" - and - while originally a Broadway production - "Jesus Christ Superstar".

Can't forget "The Pink Panther" - classic Mancini!

Hands down the best movie soundtrack in the history of movie soundstracks is Passion, Music from The Last Temptation of Christ by Peter Gabriel, don't buy anything else until you get this one.

Not necessarily a single best soundtrack, but I hope we wouldn't forget the film music of Bernard Herrmann. A good sampler to try would be Salonen's Los Angeles Philharmonic recording on Sony (SK 62700). A personal favorite would have to be "Taxi Driver", or any of the many Hitchcock movie scores which Hermann composed. Also check out the classic recording "Fantasy Film World of Bernard Hermann". Enjoy!

The sound track from Robin Hood (1939). The music by Krongold is matchless. Well, at least its great fun.

A few of the soundtracks that I enjoy quite frequently are; "Primal Fear", "The Last Of The Mohicans", "Shine", and "Armageddon" the score.

If you like classical music, "Imortal Beloved" about Beethoven has some wonderful performances.

Gotta go with "Gladiator" at present until I give the "C-Tiger,H-Dragon" a longer listen.

Any Morrocone fans: Get "Once Upon A Time In America" (or if not a fan/ you will become one). Not a bad movie either;Sergio Leone/ De Niro. Made in 1983. As good as "they " get.(the duo or the movie) Haunting and captivating themes.

Many of the better soundtracks have already been listed, so I'll just mention a few I like that could be overlooked:
1. "I Want To Live" -- jazz soundtrack by Gerry Mulligan for the movie starring Susan Hayward
2. "Chariots of Fire", with music by Vangelis
3. "'Round Midnight", jazz soundtrack by Dexter Gordon and others jazz greats
4. "Star Wars", soundtrack written by John Williams
5. A personal and sentimental favorite of mine: soundtrack from a 1957-58 Cinerama movie called "Windjammer". A variety of music, mostly vocal, with a strong Caribbean flavor.

Not real big on soundtracks, but "the Horse Whisperer" excellent

Music composed originally & specifically for a movie qualifies, in many opinions, as a "soundtrack"....rather than a collection of artists singing their songs. "Horse Whisperer" is kind of in between, Winoguy17, since I have not heard, for example, Iris Dement perform "Whispering Pines" anywhere else. This collection of songs used for Redford's fine film production is a delight...especially on HDCD...(one of the best realizations of the HDCD subcode to surface)....and I'm pleased that you posted it...RECOMMENDED!

'Requiem for a Dream' is a really good recent one. Angelo Badalamenti's 'Twin Peaks' and 'Lost Highway' are great. Trent Reznor produced sndtrks and, 'Trainspotting', and 'Doom Generation', also excellent. 'Showgirls' has some good cuts.

Check out Wild Things. I loved the music on the Gladiator soundtrack, but the palcement of instruments IMHO was awful. Therefore, I really don't listen to it anymore.

Ry Cooder's Paris, Texas. For that matter, any of his soundtracks.

I second Amiee Mann's "Magnolia." If you like Lucinda Williams and you haven't heard this, or seen this crazy movie, you should fix that.

The soundtrack I listen to most is from "Waking Ned Devine." Music by Shaun Davey. Very, very good. (Excellent movie as well.)

Ry Cooder is bad to the bone. I would almost watch that mediocre movie "Southern Comfort" again, except I don't have to 'cause I bought "Music By Ry Cooder" which gives me my fix on his excellent movies scores.

Enjoy!

Charlie

The "Dazed and Confused" soundtrack is top notch!

Toy Story - Randy Newman
Princess Bride - Mark Knopfler
Braveheart
Get Shorty - John Lurie
Waiting to Exhale
Blues Brothers
Repo Man
“Yomutha” on Brother from Another Planet
Pulp Fiction

Hope Floats...really. Tracks by Bryan Adams, Garth Brooks, Bob Segar, the Stones...

great for sharing a glass (or bottle) of red wine with the one you love (or hope to be by the end of the cd)...

Message in a Botttle and City of Angels are good bets as well. Rain Man has some cool tunes on it. For the Love of the Game is enjoyable as well.

Excellent thread! Here are mine:
1. Ascent the Scaffold (Miles Davis)- not only is this a very sexy soundtrack, it is an undeservedly neglected Jazz masterpiece. The CD (Fontana) sound is just okay, however, soundtrack has been re-released on Vinyl (a must, esp. for Miles Davis/Jazz afficianados)
2.The Big Blue: skin-tinglingly good. I only wish they would bring out a 24/96, SACD or vinyl remaster
3.Diva: uses a few tracks from the opera La Wally, but the title music by Vladimir Kosma is quite beautiful (nice reverb effect). Other pieces on soundtrack can be skipped over
4. Lost Highway (esp.David Bowie tracks)
5. Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence (chinese compositions with David Bowie vocals)
6."White-Heat" by Jazz at the Movies Band: a collection of Film Noir soundtracks. An LP was recently released which is better than the CD. Again, mandatory for Jazz fans
7.Alfie
8.Eric Korngold and Rosza movie scores
Many more - these are a good start.
Thanks to all for sharing.

If your talkin' about a good compilation of enjoyable music, then I dig: "Repo Man", "Pump Up The Volume" and "Married To the Mob"

I finally located a copy of "Diva" and it is every bit as good as I remembered. Still searching for a copy of "Black Orpheus".

Hungryear, I forgot all about Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence. I have it, most excellant music, the movie is most depressing tho. Think I'll go dig it out and listen....

Not much on soundtracks. Hi Fidelity & Dazed and Confused ( as listed above ) are good simply for remembering that time / era in my life. I wouldn't really call them "soundtracks" as i would normally think of soundtracks though.

Since i do like Celtic music, i'll have to dig up Patriot Games and Waking Ned Devine. On that same track, i've listened to Braveheart more than a few times. Surprised that nobody else mentioned it. I loved the movie too.

Since both i and my girlfriend like Peter Gabriel, we'll probably pick up the "last temptation of Christ" also. Thanks for the tips folks.

While not really a "soundtrack", some of the same music that they use in their stageshow can be found on Blue Man Group's CD entitled "Audio". With a "big drum" that is measurably taller than ANY man, you can count on bottom end that can REALLY shake the house. Besides that, it's worth the purchase just to see some of the funky homebrew PVC based instruments that they've created. Mostly percussion based, specific cuts on the disc work well to test / show off specific traits of your system also. I would not recommend "cranking" this up the first time that you listen to it unless you have complete confidence in the reliability of your system. Better to give it a listen and THEN adjust the volume accordingly. Sean
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For pure sound quality. The Professionals..Hatari Mckenna's Gold...The 7th Voyage of Sinbad..Yhe Ghost and Mrs. Muir...Pink Panther...Casino Royale all on vinyl of course.

Again, I'm mostly disappointed by soundtrack albums....didn't care for the cheesy dialogue clips on Gladiator. Also, I don't think that the music has any soul on it's own...it was written for the movie it sounds like.

One movie soundtrack that I do love is The Mission. I also liked the soundtrack from Schindler's List. I remember that Platoon had a good one as well Those have to be the best to my feeble knowledge.

"Genghis Blues", blue me away.

i picked up this cd (the remastered version) based on a recommendation in "ultimate audio". i was blown away with the quality of the music. relaxed, yet detailed, it made me want to listen to the songs over and over, even though some of these songs i've heard so many times i've almost become immune to their brillance. it makes me want to tell the people repsonsible for this gem to just go off and finish remastering the whole beatles catalog. i'd buy every single cd if they did. great, great stuff.

I agree with many of the past. Here are some more good ones:
"Rushmore" -- an eclectic combination of original score and compilation (mixed sound quality too -- the original score is high quality)
"Until the End of the World" -- Wim Wenders film w/ original songs by U2 and others
"Groove" (if you like rave music)
"Pulp Fiction" -- just a compilation, but it's so good that I can't believe nobody's mentioned it
"Mo Better Blues" -- Catchy jazz (it's definitely not Miles, but it's pretty good)

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Black Orpheus.

Thin Red Line.

koyaanisqatsi by philip glass

I hate to be nostalgic, but the remastered "Sound of Music" DVD has some of the most beuatiful music of all time -- a true classic that I recently rediscovered.