At the Movies: The Best Scores!

[Zzzptm]

What are the soundtracks that just *make* the film for you? The ones you could play over and over, and even without the film rolling, you can experience the film along with the songs? That's this list!

We want overall scores on this list. If there's a great theme and a meh score, save it for the "best themes" list that will likely roll out once we're done here.

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I'm going to start off with one of my dear favorites, Elmer Bernstein's score for Robot Monster!

And once it starts, the greatness of the theme music commences! Elmer Bernstein had been blacklisted and was only able to get work on B-movie scores, and this is a B-movie sooooo bad it rivals Plan 9 From Outer Space as the worst of the worst. But that Bernstein score stands right out as perhaps the lone redeeming feature in a desert of terrible acting, terrible special effects, terrible script, and terrible everything else. And it's not a case of everything being so bad, it makes the score seem good: it really is that good. I remember watching this with my kids in a Golden Turkey festival and all of us remarking on the amazingly good music score. It was so good, we had to look up the composer and with a name like Elmer Bernstein, well, you don't forget that name!

It was only after that that we found out he hit the big time later on and did loads of blockbuster movie scores, including Ghostbusters... but this is where it started for him, and I LOVE the soundtrack! Great Halloween music, much of it!

[Charger]

So scores not themes!

Okay! That made things bit harder to be honest.

But I'm still gonna kick things off with an easy one here...although if I'd be doing this in order this might be number one on the list.

STAR WARS

Ofcourse the title theme is iconic on it's own but the whole score for the movie (or the whole series for that matter!!) is absolutely suberb. There are some really awesome little subtle parts that just almost fly by without you even noticing them but you'd sure as hell would notice if they were missing.

John Williams is without a doubt one of the greatest composers of our time...if not THE greatest.

I'm not gonna pick the theme for this one but I am gonna pick the March!

[Zzzptm]

^Star Wars is a total banger, I played the soundtrack over and over again when I was a kid. My favorite track was the Cantina Band music.

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

Star Wars was a good choice, I don't know Robot Monsters!

My first pick... before anyone else steals it!

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy

So I went with the trilogy but if I must pick one I'll go with the Fellowship which is just a nudge better than the other two.

I think this is still the only film soundtrack I have actually bought!

An Oscar won for Howard Shore!

[Charger]

^^
That is a great score for sure! And I was thinking about it but I knew your love for the movies and thought you'd be choosing it!

[Zzzptm]

My John Williams pick is Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which got him an Oscar nomination in 1978... along with his nomination for Star Wars!

My favorite part of the soundtrack is "The Dialogue" where Williams gives us a fugue for synthesizer and mothership. Playfully, he adds in a bit of his Jaws theme. 

[Charger]

^^
Oh...great one! It's been probably 30 years since I've seen that movie! Too bad it's not on any of my streaming services I would have watched it tonight!!


If KDC got away with a trilogy I'll do the same!

#2

THE DOLLAR TRILOGY by ENNIO MORRICONE!

The score on these movies is probably among the best ever made! It's like the music itself is telling a story.

Fistful Of Dollars, For Few Dollars More and The Good The Bad And The Ugly all have so iconic themes that it's kind of hard to pick one...I think for another top 10 I chose For Few Dollars More so I'll go with Fistful Of Dollars this time!

[Zzzptm]

Ahhh... the dollars trilogy! Yes! Great, iconic soundtracks for all of them!

Me, I'm sticking to one-off films, and my next choice is John Waters' 1988 classic, Hairspray!



Not the musical or the 2007 movie of the musical version, the original. It's full of great tracks from 1962, selected by Kenny Vance, who also did the soundtrack for Animal House - another film set in 1962 with a great soundtrack.

To be sure, two of the songs used in the film are from 1963, and Toussaint McCall's epic ballad "Nothing Takes the Place of You" came out in 1967, but it fits the period so very well, it just had to be there.

28 songs make up the soundtrack, and they're pretty much all bangers. List here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hairspray_(1988_soundtrack)

So get on out there and do The Bird!

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

Tsk, tsk... crosses The Fistful trilogy off his list!!

Pick number 2...

This is Spinal Tap



I really need to watch this again, it's been a while!