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Movies with Good Soundtracks


Tenucha
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So I was working at Universal Studios....

j/k

This thread is actually what the name implies... What are movies with good soundtracks worth checking out (or avoiding)?

This could be past forgotten films/ soundtracks or under appreciated and overlooked movies/ soundtracks or the more obvious soundtracks that everyone should already know are good.

This is to kinda help filter bad movie soundtracks from the good ones... or to make it known that the soundtrack that plays during the movie is better/ worse then the OST available for purchase.

I'll start by pointing out that the 300 soundtrack is epic and powerful.

Worth buying

Bourne Ultimatum has a really good score available... My favourites being the ones you could get in trouble with the law for while driving to it :3

Worth buying (I got it the next day after I saw the movie)

Resident Evil: Extinction had a better soundtrack for the movie. Parts of the score (done by Charlie Clouser) reminded me of both the original score by Manson in the first film and of some of the games ambient backgrounds, both of which were welcoming to my ears (and the driving force behind my purchase of the album). The movie also contained "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" which was an unusual yet fitting and welcomed song to hear while the convoy was cruising through the desert wastelands of Nevada.

The soundtrack available for purchase itself is, unfortunately, not as great as it could have been. In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida is missing all together but there is a fairly good "remix" cover of White Rabbit/ Go Ask Alice (which does play during the movies closing credits) by the group Collide (its the SPC ECO Mix according to the OSTs tracklist). The female vocals on this song sounded like it coulda have been Milla Jovovich (she is a singer and it would have been welcomed had she done some vocal work on any of the albums) however wasn't. The score, the reasson I wanted the album, vary in length but seems to be between 20sec to 45sec in length... there are 4 pieces of the score through out the album (similar to the first movies soundtrack where the 4 original tracks were kept at the end of the album). They are woth the listen but needed to have been a bit longer. The rest of the album are power and speed metal acts with yelling, banshee and demon screaming and the likes... There are a few good songs but overall it can get to be a little much.

Only worth it if you can get a reduced price on the album but even that may be a little more then what its worth.

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Generally, movie soundtrack don't catch my ear as much as videogame music. But there are a few movies which featured some kick-ass music...and I'm not talking about only the licenced stuff. Sure, getting popular bands' music in a movie is essential to some, but I'd rather listen to original compositions and original band tracks made especially for the movie.

Back to the Future Trilogy has awesome soundtracks. Three of the very few movies in which its music jumps up and grabs you.

Another Trilogy with some pretty epic music is Lord of the Rings. The main theme just doesn't get out of your head.

Also, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children has one hell of a soundtrack. Fans can relate to it more since it contains remixes of FF7 music. Still though, like Back to the Future, the music of this movie is exceptionally good.

The Man Who Framed Roger Rabbit had some catchy music, too.

And last but not least, Requiem for a Dream. Man, the music in this movie is so fucking excellent. Combines lots of styles, very moody and moving. I honestly can't imagine this movie without its soundtrack. The main theme is especially very cool. After all, it's been featured in a lot of other movies and trailers other than Requiem. That alone says something.

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I'd always loved that soundtrack to the movie The Time Machine. The newer remake (2001 - 2002, somewhere in there?), by Klaus Badelt...Very beautiful soundtrack, even if the movie wasn't all I'd hoped it'd be.

One of the more awesome new scores to a recent movie was the recent Danny Boyle one, Sunshine. That movie had this incredible, futuristic celestial horror kind of music to it...Extremely hard to describe, but a great score for a great movie. Shame I don't know anybody else who's seen it.

Hmm...what else? 28 Days Later, along with its sequel, both had great soundtracks...Very atypical of the kind of music I'd expect to hear from such a violent zombie series. Loved it though :)

Can't think of anything else off-hand, but ah well. I betcha nobody here was going to say Sunshine though ;)

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One of the more awesome new scores to a recent movie was the recent Danny Boyle one, Sunshine. That movie had this incredible, futuristic celestial horror kind of music to it...Extremely hard to describe, but a great score for a great movie. Shame I don't know anybody else who's seen it.

Can't think of anything else off-hand, but ah well. I betcha nobody here was going to say Sunshine though ;)

Hell yes. Thanks for reminding me of this movie. I LOVED the movie itself A LOT, and the soundtrack really fit the overall space theme. At times, it was very relaxing and atmospheric...and at others, it gets incredibly intense...overall, the soundtrack flows really well with the scenes.

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I will now quote everyone in the thread.

Peter Pan. THe new one, not the disney cartoon version.

QFE. James Newton Howard kicks ass hard just for the flying theme in that movie, it was orchestral badassery i such a thing is possible. If it wasn't, he made it possible.

Requiem for a Dream.

Did the Kronos Quartet score the whole movie, or just the Summer Overture? Cuz that song is the sauce, at least.

I love James Newton Howard's soundtrack to The Village. Solo violin is featured so heavily that it almost sounds like a violin concerto.

One of my best friends is a violinist, and the girl who played all the solo violin for that movie asked him to do a solo with her. His music teacher (more like mentor at this point, he's been playing for 16 years) told him not to because he wasn't experienced enough, and he didn't, and he'll probably regret it for the rest of his life. I think his teacher was a fucking hack. SHE asked HIM to do it. He should've ignored the guy. Grrr.

The Rock has some killer music that sounds like MGS2 -- not surprising, given that Gregson-Williams had a hand in the score for both.

That soundtrack owned. I guessed it was Gregson-Williams without knowing the first time I saw that, he's just that distinctive.

Also, Gladiator has sweet music. Holy cow, it's good.

Have you noticed that the raging chorus for Pirates of the Caribbean sounds almost exactly like the raging chorus from the opening battle scene in Gladiator? I think Hans Zimmer realized how awesome that bit was after the fact, and when he helped Klaus Badelt with pirates, he slipped that in there to give it the treatment it deserved. That Kinda makes Maximus Jack Sparrow's father, which is cool in a really nerdy way.

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Absolute must Have original motion picture soundtracks:

- Broken Arrow (starring- John Travolta, Christian Slater)

- The Last of the Mohicans (starring- Daniel Day-Lewis, Madeleine Stowe)

- The Rock (Starring- Sean Connery, Nicholas Cage)

- Gladiator (Starring- Russel Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, Connie Nielsen)

- Days of Thunder (Starring- Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman)

- Braveheart (Starring- Mel Gibson, Sophie Marceau)

- Miami Vice (Starring- Colin Farrell, Jamie Foxx)

- The Last Samurai (Starring- Tom Cruise, Ken Watanabe, Koyuki)

- Mission Impossible II (Starring- Tom Cruise, Thandie Newton)

- Top Gun (Starring- Tom Cruise, Kelly McGillis, Val Kilmer)

- Pretty Woman (Starring- Richard Gere, Julia Roberts)

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Peter Pan - got that one. very awesome. Actually, some more James Newton Howard scores to check out include Disney's Dinosaur (a MUST have), and his M. Night Shyamalan's stuff - Village, Signs, Lady in the Water.

For those of you who liked Gladiator's OST, check out Crimson Tide's as well.

Jurassic Park, one of my favorites. Disney's Beauty and the Beast has some really pretty orchestral stuff. (I'm not so much hot on the sing-along stuff :P)

I have the Bourne Supremacy OST, and nearly verbatim, they pretty much reused it for Bourne Ultimatum. But still very good. John Powell is another favorite composer of mine, right up there with J.N.H., John Williams, Zimmer, Elfman, James Horner, etc.

Ennio Morricone's "The Mission" OST is beautiful too--pretty powerful movie as well. Worth checking out.

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Generally, movie soundtrack don't catch my ear as much as videogame music. But there are a few movies which featured some kick-ass music...and I'm not talking about only the licenced stuff. Sure, getting popular bands' music in a movie is essential to some, but I'd rather listen to original compositions and original band tracks made especially for the movie.

Also, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children has one hell of a soundtrack. Fans can relate to it more since it contains remixes of FF7 music. Still though, like Back to the Future, the music of this movie is exceptionally good.

The Man Who Framed Roger Rabbit had some catchy music, too.

And last but not least, Requiem for a Dream. Man, the music in this movie is so fucking excellent. Combines lots of styles, very moody and moving. I honestly can't imagine this movie without its soundtrack. The main theme is especially very cool. After all, it's been featured in a lot of other movies and trailers other than Requiem. That alone says something.

Advent Children I thought was a great soundtrack with alot of original compositions and the new versions of classic songs were so powerful... I loved it.

Roger Rabbit's soundtrack was/ is exceptionally good due to what they did... they took the cartoon aspect and the old 50s style detective noir and seamlessly blended it into an epic (Ya, I said epic) and catchy score!

Interesting you referenced the original sources name (I think it was a novel)

Requiem for a Dream is a movie I still need to see but the well known title theme is just SOO good!

And I do fully agree with you about the score... thats kinda more what this topic is about... but for Resident Evil (which I mentioned in my first topic) there are alot of band music and most of it are not in the movie... The song names seem relevant to the series (I'm So Sick, Losing, One Love, White Rabbit, Paralyzed, Contagious etc) however the music is not so much.

I was really hyped for the TMNT soundtrack after seeing the movie in theaters. I was impressed with the fact there was a theme and there was a score and it changed through the movie... made it feel a bit more "mature" rather then popcorn kid fare by just having a buncha licensed songs playing.

However there are no OST score available for TMNT and its soundtrack is a buncha pop groups and some rap on it, ultimately pretty lame in my big especially when these are MTV type fare groups whom I dont listen to...

Amazingly enough if you pay attention... alot of the same groups appear on multiple soundtracks... I believe, like, half the bands on TMNT are also on the Transformers soundtrack as well...

Queen of the Damned. The soundtrack was the ONLY good part of the movie.

Really? I had owned it at some point and eventually got rid of it.

I liked that they did bring in a buncha "metal" type groups to cover the songs in movie that John Davis had sung so it atleast had a different feel.

I think Static X is the only group of that soundtrack who I own CDs from and do occasionally listen to lol

I mostly agree with most of what's already on the list plus one unmentioned and another barely known movie title:

Rush - The entire soundtrack was done by Eric Clapton. Calming, yet climatic at the same time.

The Matrix - Other than the obvious tracks, Rob Dougan's "Clubbed to Death" is really good.

Rob Dougan is the man... I'm still trying to find Furious Angles again...

I skipped mentioning Matrix 'cus it was a 'lil too obvious heh.

It is a killer soundtrack and I love how they released seperate score and "music from and inspired by" discs for all but, like, the 3rd movie or so

Peter Pan - got that one. very awesome. Actually, some more James Newton Howard scores to check out include Disney's Dinosaur (a MUST have), and his M. Night Shyamalan's stuff - Village, Signs, Lady in the Water.

So he's the only reasson to own anythign with M Nights name on it, eh? ;)

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Shaun of the Dead - Great soundtrack full of English groups all from the movie... very fun. Best part is how the entire CD blends together like one night club/deejay mega-mix where the end of the song will blend into dialog from the movie and back into another song. It is a top favourite album of mine (I had to import it).

The "You Got Red On You: Shaun of the Dead suit" which is basically a 10min cut of original score is almost a bonus to have since it is all the original score from the movie as one song.

Highly recommend this album.

I'm still trying to get the import Hot Fuzz album since its playlist is different from the domestic version

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Just off the top of my head...

I really dug the soundtracks to Kill Bill Vol. 1 & 2. Ennio Morricone, Zamfir, Luis Bacalov, Isaac Hayes, Tomoyasu Hotei, and many others... Just an amazing amount of talent.

Also...

Pulp Fiction

The Twilight Samurai

A Better Tomorrow

Jaws

Star Wars

Indiana Jones trilogy

Romeo + Juliet

The Godfather trilogy

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Back to the Future trilogy

2001: A Space Odyssey

Psycho

Chinatown

The Seven Samurai

Amadeus

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg

Interstella 5555

Terminator II

and practically all Miyazaki films (Joe Hisaishi's the man)

I'll add more later.

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I didn't care for the Pirates 2 OST. The problem was that every last song lightly referenced the theme, but never once in the movie did they just full on play the theme, with the exception of the credits. The theme was never on the OST, except in remix form, which means the longest theme cut available is the final track from the OST for the first movie. That clocks in at a little over a minute and a half.

:puppyeyes:

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