A score can turn a good movie into a great movie. The composers take the film and heighten the emotion scene by scene and note by note. What are your favorties?

My top 10

Fellowship of the Ring
Shawshank Redemption
Finding Nemo
Batman
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Star Wars
Last of the Mohicans
Taxi Driver
Superman
The Natural
Dances With Wolves
E.T.
Rudy
Lawrence of Arabia


The Spiderman theme is the worst that I have heard in years. It was such a letdown. Shame on you Mr. Elfman!

A few that come immediately to mind:

Psycho Bernard Herrmann It is so difficult to imagine the shower scene without the score that it is hard to believe the (perhaps apocryphal) story that Hitchcock considered not using any music. What Herrmann did with the score to Psycho was so original and so integral to creating the mood of the film that I have tried to take those lessons with me every time I design sound for the theatre.

Forbidden Planet Louis & Bebe Barron I give a great deal of well-deserved credit to Bernard Herrmann for his use of the theremin in The Day The Earth Stood Still, but if my mandate is to cite examples that make an enormous difference scene by scene and note by note, the entirely electronic score to FP has to be cited. If Herrmann's score to Psycho influenced the way I think about using music in the theatre, FP encourages me to think about all of the wonderful things that make sounds OTHER than musicial instruments.

'Round Midnight Herbie Hancock What my three examples bring to the table is a clearly unconventional attitude towards scoring a film. Herrmann brought the music to the forefront moreso than ever before, the Barrons produced in essence a non-musical score, and Hancock had the vision to recognize that the story of expatriate jazz musicians could be scored no better scene to scene and note to note than by recording actual jazz musicians (no small number expatriates themselves) creating music live on film. He supplemented with a small amount of conventional scoring and in one instance the music was dubbed out of necessity, but on the whole Tarvernier's story of musicians and the art they create features just that happening live, as the story unfolds.

Now Playing: "Concerto for Viola, Op. 37" Miklos Rozsa (perf. New Zeland Symphony Orchestra/James Sedares)

I'm going to mention scores here, trying not to repeat any earlier mentioned ones. I'll list some favorite composers and their scores at the composer thread. These are mostly REAL OLD. You guys will cover the newer stuff.

1. "Days of Heaven" Ennio Morricone
2. "Conan the Barbarian" Basil Poledouris
3. "The Big Country" Jerome Moross
4. "Jaws" John Williams
5. "The Devil and Daniel Webster" Bernard Herrmann
6. "The Guns of Navarone" Dimitri Tiomkin
7. "Planet of the Apes" (1968) Jerry Goldsmith
8. "King Kong" (1933) Max Steiner
9. "The Adventures of Robin Hood" (1938) Erich Wolfgang Korngold
10. an unusual five-way tie between:
"Alexander Nevsky" Sergey Prokofiev
"The Best Years of Our Lives" Hugo Friedhofer
"Straw Dogs" Jerry Fielding
"An Almost Perfect Affair" Georges Delerue
"The Black Stallion" Carmine Coppola

This message has been edited. Last edited by: mark f,

I have ROUND MIDNIGHT but haven't watched it yet.

Herrmann's PSYCHO score is superb, of course. As is TAXI DRIVER's.

Having never really paid serious attention to film scores (least of all their authors), I'm proposing some, though:

-Sakamoto's THE LAST EMPEROR
-Someone's ERASERHEAD
-Someone's SUSPIRIA (a Dario Argento's film)
-Someone's HALLOWEEN (the main theme is toweringly achieved but I can't seem to recall the rest of the soundscape)

The score to Suspiria is by the group Goblin. My brother used to play that soundtrack (and other Goblin albums) on vinyl over and over again so much that my dad used to periodically burst in on him to tell him to "turn that damn thing off!"

Halloween is by John Carpenter himself, and it is a spare score with the main theme repeating often.

Eraserhead has three music credits: original score- David Lynch, original songs- Peter Ivers, other music- Fats Waller.

thanks, my knowledgeable friend.

My favorite score of all time is from Forrest Gump. Music by Alan Silvestri and other great tunes from 60's-80's.
I found this great site for musical instruments

My all time favorite score is from Mars Attacks by Danny Elfman. In fact I have the opening titles tune in my head know. lol

Martian leader