The Empire Strikes Back
John Williams, 1980
For the first Star Wars sequel, the Wagnerian bombast of Williams's music for the original was supplemented by melancholy romantic motifs and the darkly brilliant, dum-dum de-dum dum Imperial March.
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The Sound of Music
Rodgers & Hammerstein, 1965
Was there ever a more complete soundtrack? Probably not. From the goofy Lonely Goatherd to the elegiac Edelweiss, via the soaring title song, The Sound of Music is as invigorating as an Alpine climb.
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The Harder They Come
Various, 1972
Jimmy Cliff's buoyant title track and You Can Get it if You Really Want are the evergreen hits that helped turn pop audiences' ears to reggae, but the supporting acts, The Maytals and The Slickers, provide the mournful magic here.
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Trouble Man
Marvin Gaye, 1972
'There's only three things that's for sure: taxes, death and trouble,' Marvin Gaye sings on the opening track of this noirish, nervy and mainly instrumental soundtrack about a tough private detective.
Diva
Vladimir Cosma, 1981
Cosma's score, for a slick, super-stylish thriller about an opera singer who refuses to be recorded, introduced a new kind of ambient, keyboard-driven cool to soundtracks.
That Summer!
Various, Arista, 1979
The cream of Britain's original burst of post-punk chart stars - Ian Dury, Elvis Costello, The Only Ones, The Undertones - plus American interlopers (Patti Smith, Richard Hell) get their hits out.
The Payback
James Brown, 1974
Brown recorded his first great soundtrack for the gangster street saga Black Caesar. A sequel followed, but the director Larry Cohen rejected Brown's music - because it didn't sound like him. Brown released it as 'The Payback', an epic much-sampled eight-track double album that many regard as the funkiest thing ever recorded.
Help!
The Beatles, 1965
The Beatles spread their wings, from Lennon's Dylan-influenced You've Got To Hide Your Love Away to McCartney's orchestral manoeuvres for Yesterday. Faultlessly Fab.
Tommy
The Who, 1975
Surely the weirdest and most wonderful of all rock-opera movies, Tommy has the lot: Aretha Franklin, Keith Moon, Elton John… And the songs are all brilliant.
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The Big Chill
Various, 1983
Lawrence Kasdan's loved and loathed friends-reunited film did for Motown what American Graffiti had done for rock'n'roll a decade before.
West Side Story
Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, 1961
Jazz-propelled percussion, Shakespearean grandeur and great lyrics make for an edgy brilliance in Sondheim and Bernstein's breakthrough street opera.
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The Big Country
Jerome Moross, 1958
The old West never sounded so new, shimmering or so big as it did in Moross's score for this Gregory Peck film, as its success as a 1990s dance music sample demonstrated. Epic ain't the half of it.
Grace of My Heart
Various, 1996
The film may have verged on parody, but its soundtrack of 1950s and 1960s pop facsimiles is lovely, touching and fun and enough to pass for a long-lost Phil Spector project.
Kill Bill: Vol 1
Various, 2003
Quentin Tarantino's vinyl dealer does it again, throwing together Nancy Sinatra, panpipes, a 10-minute Latin version of Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood and a badass piece called Battle Without Honour or Humanity.
Once Upon a Time in the West
Ennio Morricone, 1968
The Michelin-starred masterpiece of spaghetti westerns found its musical match in Ennio Morricone's quirky, creepy and sweepingly emotional score.
The Godfather II
Nino Rota/Carmine Coppola, 1974
Just as Francis Ford Coppola's sequel is even more nuanced and resonant than The Godfather, so its score - in which Nino Rota's haunting theme is supplemented by new pieces by Coppola's father, Carmine - is even better.
American Graffiti
Various, 1973
For an unapologetically slight slice of nostalgia about the mythic power of rock?'n'?roll, American Graffiti had a massive impact. Its big, brilliant soundtrack of jukebox classics did all the work for it.
Wild Style
Various, 1983
Rap's Rock Around the Clock mythologised graffiti writers, downtown DJs and New York's emerging street sound. Its soundtrack captures the excitement and creative power of hip-hop's primal scenes.
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid
Bob Dylan, 1973
Dylan's lazily strummed soundtrack, where banjos bounce and Knockin' on Heaven's Door makes weariness sound wonderful, spoke volumes.
Pulp Fiction
Various, 1994
Classics from Kool and the Gang, Dusty Springfield and Al Green are accompanied by lesser-known, but no-less-great, soul-'n'-surf grooves and snippets of Tarantino dialogue on this definitive document of 1990s retro-cool.
One from the Heart
Tom Waits/Crystal Gayle, 1982
Tom Waits writes beautiful songs, but makes a racket when he sings them. Here he sticks to the piano and lets Gayle sugar-coat his picaresque brand of romance.
The Mission
Ennio Morricone, 1986
Roland Joffe's epic historical tale starred Robert De Niro and Jeremy Irons and some glorious scenery, but still owed its emotional impact to Morricone's cascading score.
Alfie
Sonny Rollins, 1966
Cilla's great version of the title song doesn't feature on this record, but Rollins's saxophone makes up for it. His riffs on the Bacharach-David scene are definitively swinging and Sixties, but somehow timeless, too.
Where Eagles Dare
Ron Goodwin, 1968
'Broadsword calling Danny Boy.' The cable car scene. The fabulous Clint Eastwood/Richard Burton double act. And Ron Goodwin's ominous, brass-heavy score. A combination so perfect you can't see this film too many times.
The Lord of the Rings trilogy
Howard Shore, 2001-2003
Listen to just a few bars of Howard Shore's epic Wagnerian score and you're back there: revolting orcs, improbably gorgeous New Zealand landscapes, hairy-footed Hobbits, 'My Precious', the luminous Arwen?…
The Draughtsman's Contract
Michael Nyman, 1982
A soundtrack has made it only when it becomes the backdrop to daytime television. For most of the early 1990s, if a documentary wanted to evoke the spirit of traditional England, it used Nyman's music written for Greenaway's first (and only) really popular film..
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Breakfast at Tiffany's
Henry Mancini/Johnny Mercer, 1961
Moon River is now better known than the film it first appeared in. It's sung by Audrey Hepburn, who said, when a studio executive tried to have it cut, 'over my dead body'.
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Secrets and Lies
Andrew Dickson, 1996
Yes, yes, excellent directing and acting, brilliant dialogue. But take another listen. The music, plastered over almost every join, is a match for all that happens on the screen. Sinewy, achey, stringy. Perfectly moving with the scenario.
Withnail and I
David Dundas, 1987
Because it was produced by George Harrison, Withnail and I remains one of few films with licence to include a Beatles track (While My Guitar Gently Weeps). The achingly elegiac score is the work of Lord David Dundas, the son of the Marquess of Zetland.
Ghost World
Various, 2001
It begins with a rumbling, jangling 1960s Bollywood dance number, Jaan Pehechaan Ho, but Terry Zwigoff's film mostly noses around the world of blues, jazz and calypso from the 1920s and 1930s.
Dr No
Monty Norman/John Barry, 1962
The film that introduced not just the 'dang danga dannnng dang dang dang dang' James Bond theme, but also Honey Ryder singing Underneath the Mango Tree.
Goldfinger
John Barry, 1964
So perfectly judged are all John Barry's Bond scores that they could fill half this list. But this, performed by Shirley Bassey, is surely The One.
Midnight Cowboy
John Barry, 1969
Long after people have forgotten this Oscar-winning period piece starring Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman, they'll still be humming the theme tune.
Chariots of Fire
Vangelis, 1981
Quite what a 1980s synthesiser score by a New-Agey Greek composer had to do with British athletes in the 1920s is anyone's guess. But golly, it worked!
The Magnificent Seven
Elmer Bernstein, 1960
Whenever there's a Simpsons episode with a western theme, the music it uses is Elmer Bernstein's swooping, stirring orchestral score for The Magnificent Seven. That's how definitive it is.
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Gladiator
Hans Zimmer and Lisa Bourke, 2000
A bit Spanish, a bit North African, a bit weirdo, a bit Holst, this is unlike the music you'd expect in a film set in Imperial Rome.
E.T.
John Williams, 1982
As with so many Williams scores, resistance to the E.T. theme music is useless. Every time you hear it, you think of E.T. in the basket as the bicycles soar skywards. And you want to cry.
Jaws
John Williams, 1975
'Duh dum. Duh dum. Duh dum. Dumdumdumdumdumdum?…' Without that insidious Williams score, he's just a silly, rubber animatronic fish.
Blade Runner
Vangelis, 1982
How could you possibly come up with a soundtrack to match a sci-fi masterpiece so stylish and melancholic and noir? Vangelis did.
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Trainspotting
Various, 1996
Unlike Irvine Welsh's sordid novel, the Danny Boyle film version made heroin look rather fun - aided by a stonkingly cool, mostly upbeat soundtrack including Iggy Pop, Leftfield and Underworld.
Assault on Precinct 13
John Carpenter, 1976
Carpenter's tense thrilling urban classic about a lonely cop station holding out against villains was rendered all the more scary by the moody, hugely influential, minimalistic synthesiser soundtrack.
The Dambusters
Eric Coates, 1954
Eric Coates had just composed a march in the style of Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance when the call came from the producers: did he have anything suitable for their new film, The Dambusters?
The Ipcress File
John Barry, 1966
Cynical, downbeat, unheroic, The Ipcress File was the thinking man's anti-Bond. So, too, was John Barry's sinuous, slyly menacing score.
Reservoir Dogs
Various, 1992
On the so-bad-it's-good principle which would see him revive the career of John Travolta, Quentin chose some of the worst songs from the Seventies - notably Stuck in the Middle With You by Stealers Wheel - and made them hip.
Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence
David Sylvian and Ryuichi Sakamoto, 1983
Featuring an unlikely David Bowie as a Japanese POW, Nagisa Oshima's film is now best remembered for its melancholically beautiful soundtrack.
Jean de Florette
Jean-Claude Petit and Guiseppe Verdi, 1987
The easy, wheezy, maudlin lyricism of its soundtrack appears to contain a sort of Gallic shrug, a low-level grumpiness, in those self-pitying head-turned-down phrases.
Badlands
Carl Orff, 1973
Terrence Mallick's early masterpiece about two young lovers (facing page) on a mindless killing spree wouldn't be half so resonant without its lilting glockenspiel score.
Dancer in the Dark
Björk, 2000
Björk's ingenious songs build from nothing. Assembly-line noises or freight-train chugs coalesce into Bolero-like heads of steam, her melodies soaring above it all.
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In the Mood for Love
Various, 2000
The directing and music all look West. And back. It's Hong Kong, 1962. Shigeru Umebayashi and Michael Galasso's humid valse triste frames the tragically frozen couple perfectly.
Underground
Goran Bregovic, 1996
A lardy (but lithe) Serbian oom-pah band and their rapid-fire music struggle on through the mud and testosterone of this women-tossing, chicken-kicking film. A riot.
Fanny and Alexander
Schumann, 1972
'Piano Quartet in E major' - music that, like the film, hangs precariously between a child-like reverie and materialised terror.
Psycho
Bernard Herrmann, 1960
Minimal instrumentation (Hermann deployed only the string section), maximum impact: Psycho's violin stabs were crucial to the notorious shower scene's power.
Easy Rider
Various, 1969
Dennis Hopper picked the music from his own collection, and it's a fine selection of late-1960s rock from The Band, The Byrds (singing Dylan), The Jimi Hendrix Experience and Steppenwolf.
Amadeus
Mozart, 1985
Probably the finest film ever made about classical music. As one of the characters says: 'It seemed to me that I was hearing a voice of God.'
Bridge Over the River Kwai
Alford/Arnold, 1957
Colonel Bogey was the definitive anthem of cheery British defiance during the Second World War, so became a natural to be whistled by the prisoners in David Lean's classic
Topsy-Turvy
Various, 2000
People complained about this film. 'There's too much music,' they whined. That's because it's a film about Gilbert & Sullivan's music.
The Graduate
Simon and Garfunkel, 1968
Director Mike Nichols wanted Simon and Garfunkel to record several tracks for his new film. The pair were busy touring and managed only one, but quite a one: Mrs Robinson. The rest of the soundtrack was padded out with previous releases.
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Dogville
Various, 2004
Lars von Trier strips everything back for this bookish, moralising film. Handel, Albinoni and Pergolesi pop up, as does Vivaldi's Nisi Dominus, which effortlessly cranks up the tension.
A Hard Day's Night
The Beatles, 1964
Writing for The Beatles' first soundtrack was an all-Lennon-McCartney affair (facing page). The flinty, swaggering songs marked the beginning of the end of their smiley moptop phase.
The Good the Bad and the Ugly
Ennio Morricone, 1966
Twangy, surf guitars, strangled-death-cry yodelling, gun shots and Alessandro Alessandroni's virtuoso whistling: Morricone's score is surely the most bizarre, haunting and memorable in movie history
October
Shostakovich, 1928
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, Dmitri Shostakovich dashed off a brilliant score for Eisenstein's Soviet polemic.
Koyaanisqatsi
Philip Glass, 1983
Good film music needs good bass notes. Minimalism has some of the best. Without Glass's creeping bass, Koyaanisqatsi would not be much of a film.
The Jungle Book
Richard M Sherman and Robert B Sherman, 1967
The Bare Necessities, I Wanna Be Like You, Trust in Me. The greatest, funniest and most enduring of all Disney soundtracks.
Blue Velvet
Angleo Badalamenti, 1986
Badalamenti's work on Blue Velvet - a world packed with little but dense undergrowth - sinks deep into your consciousness like sand onto a sea floor.
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Crimes and Misdemeanors
Schubert, 1989
A man has hired a hitman to kill his wife. The hitman follows her home. Schubert's trembling, gasping, wide-eyed final quartet shadows every step back in a moment of sublime horror.
Manhattan
George Gershwin, 1979
Woody Allen shows us the New York cityscape to the indolent beat of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue and presents it as if it was the first time anyone had ever thought of it. Well, in 1979, Allen was the first one to think of it.
A Clockwork Orange
Various, 1971
We all remember Ludwig van's mooged-up ninth. But less well known is the touching moment when Alex returns from prison to find himself replaced, chaperoned by Rossini's William Tell Overture.
Bodysong
Jonny Greenwood, 2003
Simon Pummell's experimental British film was scored by Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood, the consummate multi-instrumentalist.
Stand By Me
Various, 1987
Rob Reiner's coming-of-age story has a memorable selection of tunes - the Chordettes' Lollipop, Jerry Lee Lewis's Great Balls of Fire and, of course, Ben E. King's Stand By Me.
Superfly
Curtis Mayfield, 1973
You might recognise Freddie's Dead and Superfly, the two hit singles from the album, which is one of the most important concept albums of the 1970s.
Gone With the Wind
Max Steiner, 1940
The composer Max Steiner, godchild of Strauss, pupil of Brahms and Mahler, could jerk a tear with every flick of his pen.
The Wicker Man
Paul Giovanni, 1973
Rediscovered and lavishly re-released in 2002, this uniquely spooky collection of folk motifs sounds like it's cursing you with every sinister, hurdy-gurdy note.
My Fair Lady
Frederick Loewe, 1964
Surely no musical has elicited as many polished gems as Loewe's musical.
South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut
Matt Stone and Trey Parker, 1999
The title is all innuendo; the songs, made for the big-screen version of the television show, are less delicate. They pay brilliant and bawdy homage to the golden show tunes.
The Wizard of Oz
Hyman Arluk and Yip Harburg, 1939
From the first step on the Yellow Brick Road to the Oscar statuette that awaited at the end of Over the Rainbow, the composer and lyricist really did do magic.
Purple Rain
Prince, 1984
Prince's psychodramas and kinky compulsions remained a minority peccadillo until the release of Purple Rain, but his semi-autobiographical musical radically fused rock and dance.
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Dead Presidents
Various, 1999
The soundtrack was a rather more soothing and spiritual affair than the film, stuffed with glorious nuggets from the golden age of soul.
Waiting to Exhale
Various, 1996
The cream of black female pop stars, from Mary J. Blige and Brandy to Aretha Franklin, each took on one of the songs that express an arc of love, loss and reconnection all by themselves.
Goodfellas
Various, 1990
Bobby Darin, Muddy Waters, Aretha and Eric Clapton provide a bizarre, brilliantly judged, sardonic counterpoint to the violent, trouble-stricken lives of the New York gangsters the film depicts.
Taxi Driver
Bernard Herrmann, 1976
The sleazy sax and melancholy, late-night mood of the score, Herrmann's last, was an inspired accompaniment and a worthy final flourish.
Paris, Texas
Ry Cooder, 1982
Working for a German director and inspired by a long-dead Texan bluesman, virtuoso rock guitarist Cooder created the definitive audio evocation of dusty, wide-open Americana.
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Juno
Various, 2007
The Moldy Peaches' Kimya Dawson stamps the film with her brand of folky indie pop.
Oliver!
Lionel Bart, 1968
'Food Glorious Food', 'Oliver!', 'Oom-Pah-Pah': some of the jauntiest tunes ever writte. So pity the children who read Dickens for the first time after seeing this and find it's far from all showtunes.
Apocalypse Now
Various, 1979
You could just mention Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries blasting out of the helicopters in one of cinema's most perfect marriages of sound and image. But what about The Doors, making the walls close in on the opening scene?
Buena Vista Social Club
Various, 1999
Ibrahim Ferrer and Compay Segundo's sublime vocals completely conjure up the world of pre-revolutionary Havana.
Shadows
Charlie Mingus, 1959
An extraordinary jazz score by Mingus, brought in by John Cassavetes. Mingus got depressed and only produced the full score two years after the film was released.
Some Like it Hot
Marilyn Monroe, 1959
Any collection of soundtracks needs a bit of Monroe, so what we're talking about here is her breathy, heartbreaking performance of I Wanna Be Loved By You.
The Life Aquatic
Seu Jorge 2004
Wes Anderson enlisted the Brazilian singer Seu Jorge, who's also in the film, to put a bossa nova-pop twist on early David Bowie - no, not a terrible idea.
Mirror
Bach, 1975
Like all of Andrei Tarkovsky, this is a film with a heavenward gaze. Music from Bach's two Passions ease our eyes up.
High Noon
Dimitri Tiomkin, 1952
'Do not forsake me, Oh my darlin?' are the soft words that open High Noon. What this quietly shattering music demonstrates is that, when the film requires it, understatement is just as valuable a resource as flash.
2001: A Space Odyssey
Various, 1968
It seems so obvious now. The grace of the station in space, slow-pirouetting to the pretty lilt of Strauss's Blue Danube. But at the time the film's scope and originality must have been staggering.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Richard O'Brien, 1975
Richard O'Brien's loony tunes work best when accompanied by Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon et al's outrageously camp visuals, but the soundtrack's still a hoot.
Grease
Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey, 1978
When John met Olivia. Their duets, You're the One that I Want and Summer Nights, like every one of the teenage-angsty tunes, make for the ultimate high-school musical.
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Various, 2000
The American South lends itself to a cracking soundtrack of 1930s bluegrass, country and gospel.
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
Michel Legrand, 1964
Legrand's delightful, jazzy romantic score and songs are the perfect complement to the candy-coloured gorgeousness of the film.
Singin' in the Rain
Nacio Herb Brown, 1952
Umbrellas are all right but Gene Kelly twirling round a lamppost to the strains of Herb Brown's glorious music is a high point in the history of musicals.
Cabaret
John Kander and Fred Ebb, 1972
Just listen to Wilkommen and Cabaret and forget the fact that the stirring theme of Tomorrow Belongs to Me makes you feel like bit of a Nazi.
Lawrence of Arabia
Maurice Jarre, 1962
So stirringly epic and evocative that after just the opening chord, you're gagging for a drink of water.
Fargo
Carter Burwell, 1996
Burwell's sunless soundscape, elegiac in breadth and tender in sentiment, is a perfect canopy to this harsh North Dakota world.
Fantasia
Various, 1940
The Sorcerer's Apprentice, conducted by Leopold Stokowski, on instruments played by the Philadelphia Orchestra is sublime.
Tags : Soundtrack, TV show, Film, Movie
