People often associate soundtracks with memorable melodies, resounding cues and grandiose orchestration – Francis Lai’s Love Story theme, Bernard Herrmann’s cue for the shower scene in Psycho, and Max Steiner’s Gone with the End theme are some examples in that order of very famous soundtracks, recognizable even by people who are not knowledgeable in the genre.

What makes a movie score famous? Sometimes the movie itself helps. If a movie gets public or critical recognition, chances are that the soundtrack will follow the same path. Sometimes mediocre movies hide great soundtracks inside them. Other times the soundtrack is relegated to the movie’s background, so it doesn’t get the deserved acknowledgement. Occasionally some movie composers get all the praise for their most famous works, which leaves aside other works different from their trademarks, but yet as brilliant as their celebrated compositions. This list focuses on soundtracks that for the reasons above mentioned are as not as popular as they should be.

20. All About My Mother – Alberto Iglesias

Pedro Almodóvar and Alberto Iglesias have teamed up for many movies since their first collaboration, The Flower of My Secret, in 1995. Iglesias has three Academy Awards nominations – The Constant Gardener, The Kite Runner, and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy – but one of his best works is this untypical score for Pedro Almodóvar’s All About My Mother. Mixing mute-trumpet phrases that evoke the sadness of Miles Davis’ Ascenseur pour L’Échafaud, beautiful string arrangements, and Astor Piazzolla-esque bandoneon parts, Iglesias could compose a remarking soundtrack, full of beauty and sadness like the movie.

19. Apocalypto – James Horner

Best known for his work in Titanic and his orchestral scores, James Horner’s soundtrack for Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto is an underrated beautiful score. Using a large collection of exotic instruments, such as the Tromba Marina, Swedish bark trumpets and Ugandan wildebeest horns besides synth pads, Horner could provide a tribalistic and primal feeling to the movie. The highlights are the use of Rahat Fateh Ali Khan as a one-man band voice provider and tracks that combine percussive explosions with bizarre horn squeaks.

18. Under the Skin – Mica Levi

Under the Skin soundtrack is a masterpiece on the art of displaying human feelings through the lenses of an inhuman creature. Mica Levi could create a soundtrack that sounds organic and robotic, just like Scarlett Johansson’s character in the movie. Inspired by avant-garde composers such as John Cage, Giacinto Scelsi, and Iannis Xenakis, Disney movies’ music and Dr. Dre, she could compose a groundbreaking masterpiece on her first score. Regarding unsettling music in movies, Under the Skin is in the same league as Stanley Kubrick’s selection of Penderecki and Ligeti for The Shining,

17. Tron – Wendy Carlos

Tron was a futuristic project made by Disney that revolutionized computer animation in movies. The film was a major flop during its release, but it slowly gained a cult status and many followers around the world. Nowadays its visual technical innovations seem outdated and uncouth, but the soundtrack still sounds good and visionary. The combination between synthesizers and orchestral music makes this soundtrack a great achievement in movie scoring, influencing many movie scores after.

16. The Ghost Writer – Alexandre Desplat

For this Hitchcock-esque thriller, the French composer Alexandre Desplat composed a score with a lot of influence from Bernard Herrmann Herrmann influence, mixed with Shostakovich and Philip Glass. Desplat is a successful and prolific movie composer with eleven nominations for Academy Awards. He usually resorts to sentimentality and melodies, which is not the case in The Ghost Writer.

Anxious bass clarinet ostinatos, scary fog horn melodies that refer to the sea in the movie, and electrifying percussion crescendo build until it releases tension on the title track. The whole score has a permanent feeling of apprehensiveness, as if someone is always lurking behind. There are many Herrmann-esque cues, but Desplat also puts his own imprint in many moments, using one of his specialties: beautiful counterpoints.

15. The Secretary – Angelo Badalamenti

The Little Italy composer is most famous for his works for David Lynch. His creepy soundtracks, using dark jazz and minimalist ambience, had contributed a lot to Lynch’s movies like Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks and Mulholland Drive. But in this sadomasochist tale by director Steven Shainberg, Badalamenti’s music differs greatly from his traditional scope.

Whereas Badalamenti’s music adds up a lot of tension and darkness to Lynch’s movies, here it is used to make things softer, as if the images on screen were already strong enough. The soundtrack works as a perfect background for the submission-dominance story of the movie, evoking also the tragedy and joy of Lee’s and Dr. Grey’s relationship.

14. The Birds – Oskar Sala

For his 1963 thriller about bird attacks, Alfred Hitchcock decided to not use any incidental music. Instead, he hired German electronic pioneer Oskar Sala to provide sound effects for bird calls and noises. The composer used an instrument developed by him and Friederich Trautwein called Mixtur-Trautonium, a predecessor of the modern synthesizer.

The sounds produced by the Mixtur-Trautonium are generated by saw-tooth oscillations of low-voltage neon lamps and can be varied with filters. It is an innovative soundtrack – precursor of many modern film scores that are filled with synthesizers, noises and electrical devices to explore sonorous and musical possibilities – and also strangely scary, it is almost impossible to notice that the birds violent squeaks are produced by an electrical device and not by a flock of angry birds.

13. Blow Out – Pino Donaggio

Brian De Palma’s homage to Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow Up was a major box office and critical flop but the movie is a great thriller about corruption and the art of cinema. Pino Donaggio had previously made two notorious scores for De Palma, Carrie and Dressed to Kill. Blow Out is on the same level as them, although not celebrated equally.

There are Pino Donaggio’s trademarks – the theme is a strikingly beautiful melody that repeats itself during different moments in the score with different arrangements – and thrilling moments, funky cues, and guitar driven instrumental pieces. The result is an eclectic soundtrack, embracing different genres and arrangements, without losing its unity and cohesiveness.

12. Punch-Drunk Love – Jon Brion

“I think what you actually want is the thing to feel like a musical, but nobody ever breaks into song,” Jon Brion told director PT Anderson when they were discussing the movie soundtrack. “Exactly!” the director said back to Brion. So then they made Punch-Drunk Love the ultimate anti-musical movie. This sardonic approach is seen throughout the whole movie, as if music and visuals were falsely leading the audience into the conception that the movie is a type of musical or romantic comedy.

Jon Brion is one of the most underrated soundtrack composers and Punch-Drunk Love can be considered his magnum opus. There are disturbing percussive moments that express the turmoil inside Adam Sandler’s character, Hawaiian melodies, cynical doo wop songs, easy listening cues- but the highlight is Overture, a track that mixes avant-garde noises, sad harmonium melodies, beautiful classical arrangements, jazzy interludes and the Punch-Drunk Love Theme, a beautiful melody that resembles Nino Rota’s Amarcord theme.

11. Kwaidan – Toru Takemitsu

“I wanted to create an atmosphere of terror. But if the music is constantly saying, “Watch out! Be scared!” then all the tension is lost. It’s like sneaking up behind someone to scare them. First, you have to be silent.”

Toru Takemitsu’s own description of his music for the Japanese horror Kwaidan emphasizes the importance of silence in the score. Differently from his more popular works of film music – which embody classical grandiloquence and beauty – the Japanese composer used silence and wood noises to provide the terrifying atmosphere for Kwaidan. Without his music, Kwaidan would be an excessively beautiful movie incapable of scaring anyone. Combining the Japanese folkloric instrument biwa, wood noises and silence, Takemitsu could create a groundbreaking masterpiece.

Soundtracks are often associated with classical musicians. In the 30s and 40s classical composers such as Max Steiner and Miklos Rozsa established the way soundtracks should sound. As time passed, jazz began to be incorporated into the genre by the likes of Quincy Jones and Lalo Schifrin, jazz musicians who brought a lot of eclecticism to soundtracks.

Movie scores started to go in different experimental ways, there were orchestral cues, jazz cues, rock cues, bossa nova cues, pop cues, everything was possible. After the 60s, New Hollywood directors like Martin Scorses and George Lucas incorporated pop songs into movies. Easy Rider’s soundtrack became a huge success, consisting only of pop/rock songs. After that directors started to hire pop/rock artists to record songs for movies, such as Simon & Garfunkel in The Graduate.

Finally rock groups began to write incidental music for movies (Goblin, Tangerine Dream, Pink Floyd), creating new possibilities for the soundtrack genre. This list focuses on musicians who had a career in pop music before they started to work as soundtrack composers, achieving success creating instrumental scores for movies.

20. Air – The Virgin Suicides

Sofia Coppola’s tale about puritanism, repression, and depression is scored by the French duo Air, an influential indie-electronic group that has a special esteem for soundtracks. The score has its highlights when the duo decides to pay tribute to their heroes Michel Legrand and François de Roubaix, French film composers who had a knack for beautiful sad melodies, in tracks such as Playground Love and Highschool Lover.

19. Michael Penn and Jon Brion – Hard Eight

Michael Penn achieved some success in the late 80s with his single No Myth, but his career as a pop musician did not obtain the same fame as his brothers, actors Sean and Chris. Since the 90s Penn has been working on many soundtracks and his debut was for Paul Thomas Anderson’s neo-noir Hard Eight. The score is really sparse throughout the movie which doesn’t make it less important. Clementine’s Loop is a terrifying track that appears right on the first scene, anticipating the troubles there are about to come in this Casino-esque Story. The rest of the score contains interesting jazzy noir cliches with vibraphone and organ minor melodies.

18. Neil Young – Dead Man

Jim Jarmusch’s spiritual tale about the unlike outlaw, William Blake, and his Native American guide, Nobody, was scored by Neil Young, a notorious supporter of Native American causes and guitar noises. Using guitar, organ and lots of effects, the Canadian rock legend was capable of creating a very interesting soundtrack that offers a lot of intensity to the poetic atmosphere of the movie. Since the images and words carry a lot of meaning in the movie, the minimalist ferocity of the score helps to underscore the feelings on screen.

17. Dust Brothers – Fight Club

David Fincher intended to break new ground as he hired the famous duo of producers, The Dust Brothers, to create the soundtrack for his cult classic Fight Club. The duo created tracks filled with drum loops, electronic scratches and computerized samples to score Chuck Palahniuk’s book adaptation. The tracks sound robotic and repetitive – as the routine of the anti-hero’s life- and urgent and violent when he starts the Fight Club. The result is a nontraditional movie score that contributes a lot to the movie’s frantic aggressiveness and paranoia.

16. Arcade Fire – Her

Spike Jonze has always worked with pop artists in his career as a director, directing many videoclips, including some memorable work for Bjork and The Beastie Boys. Her was not the first time he hired a pop musician to compose a soundtrack, Karen O from The Yeah Yeah Yeahs did the soundtrack for Where the Wild Things Are, doing a fairly good job.

For the love story of a lonely man in love with his computer system, he called the Canadian indie group Arcade Fire. The result was a very beautiful score. Slow paced and melancholic, the score serves as a background for Joaquin Phoenix’s character’s lonely moments and reminiscences of his ex-wife, as well as tieing up the plot twists.

15. Mark Mothersbaugh – The Royal Tenenbaums

Wes Anderson is a notorious enthusiast of the use of pop songs in his movies. There are many examples of famous songs by pop/rock artists in his movies. When he resorts to incidental music, he usually hires Devo’s member Mark Mothersbaugh to compose it. Mothersbaugh has a long career in composing music for TV shows, commercials, and movies. In this tale about the eccentric family of depressed geniuses, the Devo frontman created some great tracks like 111 Archer Avenue, Mothersbaugh’s Canon and Sparkplug Minuet, that express the bittersweet feeling of the picture.

14. Serge Gainsbourg – Le Pacha

Gainsbourg composed many soundtracks in his career, but none could reach the same level of quality as his albums. Of course, the movies themselves were not masterpieces; he frequently worked as a composer for kitsch erotic French movies, especially in the 70s. Before that, in 1968, he composed two soundtracks for two “serious” movies: Manon 70 and Le Pacha.

Le Pacha stands out as Gainsbourg’s highlight as a movie score composer. The main track, Requiem Por Un Con, is classic Gainsbourg: hypnotic beat, great arrangement, and controversial lyrics. Psychastenie is an addictive instrumental groove with sitars. Joss à la Calavados is a jazz ballad that smells like a pack of Gauloises Gainsbourg had just smoked. The overall result is a great soundtrack mixing songs and incidental music.

13. RZA – Ghost Dog

Jim Jarmusch’s take on Jean Claude Melville’s Le Samourai is a movie that talks about ancient cultures and values. Transposing the Samurai story to a 90’s urban environment, Jarmusch chose Wu Tang Clan’s member RZA, a notorious enthusiast of Buddhist and Taoist values, to compose the soundtrack.

The result is a surprisingly good score, composed mainly of hip-hop instrumental beats, that add up a lot of value especially for the takes in which Jarmusch focuses on Forest Whitaker, whether he is driving a stolen car, practicing martial arts or resting with his pigeons. Much similar to Alain Delon in Le Samourai, Whitaker is a silent character, who says much more by not saying anything and RZA’s tracks contribute a lot to the expression of these moments.

12. Marvin Gaye – Trouble Man

After releasing the acclaimed What’s Going On in 1971, Marvin Gaye signed a new deal with Motown which allowed him to produce and compose the soundtrack of the movie Trouble Man. Following the success of Curtis Mayfield’s Superfly and Isaac Hayes’ Shaft, the Motown singer was another renowned soul artist who stepped in the soundtrack genre.

Marvin Gaye composed mainly instrumental tracks, jams played by The Funk Brothers. Trouble Man and T Plays It Cool are upbeat funky tracks that set the Blaxploitation tone of the movie. But the highlight is Cleo’s Apartment; starting with some atmospheric orchestration, the track turns into a beautiful soul lament, a vocal song without lyrics, in which Marvin Gaye can put all his emotion and soul.

11. Jonny Greenwood – Phantom Thread

Since their first work together in 2007, There Will Be Blood, Jonny Greenwood and Paul Thomas Anderson have been building up a partnership in the likes of Bernard Herrmann and Alfred Hitchcock, in which movies and soundtracks are almost an indistinct unity, given the level of synchronicity and dialogue between them.

The Radiohead guitar player used a 60-piece orchestra to create a lavish soundtrack. The arrangements are refined in order to serve the film. PT Anderson filming style usually does not allow original scores to be flamboyant or to overpass the scenes. When he wants music to be in the limelight, he tends to resort to pop music, which can be exemplified by some Boogie Nights scenes. Greenwood’s baroque compositions fit perfectly the movie’s tone and show a composer who has a lot to contribute to the genre.

Soundtracks often provide additional danger, mystery and scariness to a movie. This technique is mostly common in Horror movies or Thrillers in which hair-raising moments are essential parts.

Some movie scores became immortal because they were so spooky that only listening to them is enough to bring back the movie memory. Some are such masterpieces that without them the movies would not be as remarkable and creepy as they are. This list presents 20 movie soundtracks that are true classics in the art of scaring the audience.

20. Halloween – John Carpenter

John Carpenter took only 3 days to compose the soundtrack of his classic first Halloween. The 5/4 theme piece was something that he used to bash out on his bongos. The combination between 5/4 beat and piano provided the sense of urgency and evilness necessary to the score, along with his trademark the creepy synthesizer.

19. Maniac – Jay Chattaway

This 80’s slasher classic achieved a cult status over the years due to its qualities and its excesses (graphic violence provided by the genius Tom Savini). The soundtrack is a brilliant low budget effort by Jay Chattaway. Hypnotic synth noises provide tense background for the murders committed by Frank Zito. Its theme is an incredible piece combining a beautiful flute melody, creepy music box lines and a dreamy bass line.

18. All the Colors of Dark – Bruno Nicolai

Bruno Nicolai was certainly not famous as his musical partner in many scores’ projects: Ennio Morricone. He did not have the same recognition as Morricone, Nino Rota, Riz Ortolani and other great Italian soundtrack composers, although he was an immensely talented composer.

This Giallo flick directed by Sergio Martino was not the best (as any of his movies were). However, the soundtrack is an absolute masterpiece. It is hard to imagine an instrument like a sitar, usually related to peace of mind, meditation, etc, used in a devilish way. Alessandro Alessandroni, who also played the famous “surf-rock” guitars for Ennio Morricone’s scores, plays it like a satanic raga. The incredible Edda Dell’Orso also provides wordless screams and moans adding up to the hallucinatory atmosphere of some avant garde dreamy tracks.

17. The Beyond – Fabio Frizzi

Legendary Italian director Lucio Fulci once proclaimed, “Violence is Italian art”. If that’s true, Fabio Frizzi is together with Fulci one of the best exponents of this art. Their partnership produced many horror classics such as Zombi 2, Sette Notte in Nero and Manhattan Baby. In terms of soundtrack, there’s no matching to The Beyond, a truly masterpiece of scariness.

The soundtrack is full of textures and there is a wide range of instruments providing diverse rhythmic patterns and moods. The scariest moments are the piano and synthesizer driven “Verso L’Ignoto”, the satanic chants of “Sequenza Canto e Orquestra”, the Goblin-esque creepy groove of “Sequenza RItmica e Tema”.

16. Nosferatu – Popol Vuh

Krautrock masters Popol Vuh have worked in many projects with director Werner Herzog. In Nosferatu, their music is originally from their album Brüder des Schattens – Söhne des Lichts. It is not a typical scary sound: the score is full of ambient music containing acoustic guitars, sitars, synthesizers and chants.

There is no leitmotif or characteristic melody; there is a constant feeling of loneliness, isolation and coldness. Much rather than causing sudden shock, it causes an uncomfortable feeling of fear in the audience.

15. The Boogeyman – Tim Krog

This score is a low-key classic gem from the 80’s. Taking from John Carpenter and Tangerine Dream pioneering with synthesizers, the movie soundtrack offers a vast array of possibilities with only analog synthesizers delay and reverse tape effects the score provides melodies and ambience for this sordid slasher, another great moment of synth horror in the 80’s.

14. Cape Fear – Bernard Herrmann

Bernard Herrmann’s score for this fantastic thriller starring the original “bad boy” of Hollywood, Robert Mitchum, is a masterpiece. Full of tense arrangements and interplays between strings and brass sections, Cape Fear soundtrack is such a masterpiece that even Elmer Bernstein used it in Martin Scorsese’s remake of the movie.

Bernstein was Herrmann’s friend and he was so much fond of Cape Fear’s soundtrack that he stated, “That first film was not up to the strength of that score. That score is a monument.” Along with Psycho, Cape Fear is the creepiest music Herrmann composed in his career as a soundtrack composer.

13. The Andromeda Strain – Gil Mellé

Along with Louis and Bebe Barron “Forbidden Planet” soundtrack, Gil Mellé’s Andromeda Strain is one of the most original electronic soundtracks ever made. However, differently from the Forbbiden Planet’s score, which only focus is providing alien sounds, Andromeda Strain’s score is completely creepy.

Mellé invented some instruments for this soundtrack (such as the Percussotron) and combined them with old moog synthesizers. The result is a non-musical score, a chilling avant-garde abstract masterpiece.

12. Shock – Libra

Italian horror legend Mario Bava hired the progressive rock band Libra to score what would be his last movie: Shock – Transfer Suspense Hypnosis. His original idea was to hire Goblin, the legendary band that scored many Dario Argento films. However, they were working with Argento at the time, so Bava hired Libra, a band that had 3 previous Goblin members in it.

The Soundtrack is a masterpiece, containing groovy tracks, delicate acoustic atmospheres up to completely dissonant and avant garde atmospheres. Shock’s score is in fact richer in varieties than Goblin soundtracks for Argento’s movies, which tended to be very concise sometimes.

11. The Keep – Tangerine Dream

German krautrock masters Tangerine Dream composed this soundtrack for a considered minor film in Michael Mann’s career. After the success of their partnership in The Thief, the Edgar Froese collective group composed the soundtrack for this Lovecraft-esque horror flick. Despite the movie quality, this soundtrack does a great job in tying up the messy final edition.

Tangerine’s Dream trademark (the slow synthesizer sound) is mixed with tons of ambience evoking mystery, tense drumbeats as in the amazingly creepy The Journey and even some scary Gregorian chant in Tangerine Dream’s version for the 1554 song Puer Natus Est Nobis.

Since the beginning of movie industry there has been a constant effort towards the evolution of soundtracks. First there were small orchestras which played live some classical pieces while the movie was projected.

Then original soundtracks started to be composed by pioneers such as Victor Herbert. In the 30s and 40s the soundtrack industry flourished and names such as Max Steiner and Eric Korngold became famous. The soundtracks of this period were characterized by strong orchestration and they were frequently based on recognizable melodies.

The emergence of composers like Bernard Herrmann and Miklos Rozsa triggered the evolution of movie scores towards more complex arrangements and experimentations. In the 50s names like Henry Mancini and Alex North revolutionized soundtracks incorporating elements of jazz and popular music. The rise of New Hollywood in the 60s and 70s spread out the scope for soundtracks, expanding the possibilities of composition to a new level.

This article will focus on this period (50s/60s/70s) because these decades were the apex of the soundtracks revolution and they gave shape to the format of soundtracks that is still in vogue nowadays.

20. Assault on Precinct 13 – John Carpenter

Played only with synthesizers and a drum machine, this score is the proof of the superiority of creativity over budget. Borrowing influences from Ennio Morricone western’s sound, Lalo Schifrin’s action scores and Jimmy Page guitar riffs, this soundtrack fits perfectly into a low budget groundbreaking movie.

Carpenter recorded it in 3 days, using 5 synthesizers which had to be reset after playing. Hans Zimmer once stated that this is his favorite film score and it influenced a lot of musicians, in rock and electronic music scene. It’s hard to imagine any artist that did so much with so little like John Carpenter.

19. American Graffiti – Various

Not only original soundtracks revolutionized the genre. It’s impossible to imagine this George Lucas classic without songs like “Green Onions” by Booker T and The Mg’s, “Since I Don’t Have You” by The Skyliners and “Johnny B Goode” by Chuck Berry.

Filmed as a tribute to baby boomers and their “Cruises”, American Graffiti portraits how “teenage culture” and mass consumption products started to develop in American Society. Radio was a very important part of that, playing Rock N Roll, Rhythm n’ Blues and Doo Wop songs that were the trademark of this generation. It is also important to mention the participation of Wolfman Jack, the legendary radio DJ who serves as narrator and guide of the soundtrack.

18. Easy Rider – Various

Whereas American Graffiti soundtrack served as homage and Nostalgia (a 70s movie representing the 50s generation), Easy Rider soundtrack perfectly portrayed the voice of the sixties generation. It was one of the first movies to completely rely on previously recorded songs rather an Original Soundtrack.

Songs like “Born to be Wild” by Steppenwolf became a hymn to the Hippies generation, representing the freedom of the countercultural movement. There also memorable tracks by The Band, The Byrds and Jimi Hendrix, always trying to express the rebellion feeling through rock n roll.

17. Kill Bill Vol.1&2- Various

The use of previous released music gained a whole new level in Quentin Tarantino’s work. Instead of using popular or classical music only, Tarantino put songs from other music scores on his movies.

Compositions from Bernard Herrmann, Luis Bacalov, Ennio Morricone and Quincy Jones were side by side with rap, funk, Japanese and punk music. Tarantino is obviously a great connoisseur of cinema, and despite some criticism over his work, it’s important to notice how interesting and influential is his “post modern” approach to soundtrack.

16. Sorcerer – Tangerine Dream & Keith Jarrett

One of the most important revolutions in the soundtrack realm is the use of electronic music. The evolution of technology allowed artists such as Tangerine Dream, Giorgio Moroder and John Carpenter to use a heavy load of synthesizers in order to create ambience and mood for films.

One of the seminal works in this field is the soundtrack to William Friedkin’s Sorcerer(1977) by German band Tangerine Dream. They managed to create menacing moods that fitted perfectly to catastrophic aura of the movie. It’s also important to notice that pieces from the album “Hymns/Spheres” by Keith Jarrett were also included in the soundtrack.

15. 2001: A Space Odyssey – Various

When it comes to the use of non original soundtrack, it’s hard to defeat 2001 A Space Odyssey. This Sci-Fi classic was meant to be a nonverbal experience, according to Stanley Kubrick. Initially he had assigned Alex North, a frequent collaborator, to write a score for the movie. Kubrick didn’t like the final result and decided to use only classical music in order to emphasize the mystery and beauty of the images.

Johann Strauss’ “The Blue Danube” is used as an association Kubrick made between spinning motion of satellites and the waltz dance movement. “Also Spretch Zaratrusta” by Richard Strauss is used both in beginning and in the end of the movie giving a grandiose mood to the eternal cycle of life.

It’s also important to note that along with traditional classical music, Kubrick used two pieces by the modernist composer Gyorgy Ligeti: “Atmospheres” and “Lux Aetherna”, enhancing the mystery and causing perplexity to audiences with the juxtaposition of beautiful images and enigmatic music.

The 60s was a revolutionary period for cinema. It was the beginning of The New Hollywood, a pivotal era that changed the whole industry. All around the world filmmakers like François Truffaut, Jean Luc Godard, Michelangelo Antonioni, Federico Fellini, Ingmar Bergman, Akira Kurosawa and Roman Polanski were producing challenging pictures in consonance with the social and political vicissitudes of the decade.

Soundtracks were obviously influenced by the inter-related changes of the 60s. Composers like Ennio Morricone, Lalo Schifrin and John Barry produced new types of movie scores, each one of them creating a particular style and approach to work. Pop music began to gain more space in pictures culminating in Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider, a Soundtrack that permeates collective consciousness even nowadays. Even the old school artists such as Elmer Bernstein were affected by the effervescence of the 60s.

20. Nino Rota – Otto e mezzo

Federico Fellini often puts autobiographical elements in his movies like in Amarcord and I Viteloni. In Otto e Mezzo the autobiographical elements almost cross the limits in a fictional confusion. Nino Rota’s soundtrack serves as the background for the daydream atmosphere of the movie. Carlotta’s Gallup is a frantic circus jazz that serves as a metaphor for the tightrope that is the life of the director.

19. Bernard Herrmann – Cape Fear

It’s hard to tell which one is creepier: Robert Mitchum’s acting or Bernard Herrmann’s Soundtrack. In this masterpiece, Hermann delivers a soundtrack that has evil all around it, just like Max Cady. Cape Fear is all about a crescent non-resolved tension between Max Cady and Sam Bowden. It’s a simple F# downscale, but Bernard Hermann gives something you will never forget, counselor.

18. Serge Gainsbourg – La Pacha

Serge Gainsbourg is the epitome of the Bohemian French: chain smoker, alcoholic and gallantly talented. He is widely famous for his Je T’aime (Moi non plus) duet with Jane Birkin, but his career as a soundtrack composer was very prolific and interesting. La Pacha was certainly one of his best works as a soundtrack composer.

Requiem por un com (Requiem for a asshole) is an hypnotic groove with the aggressive poetry that only Serge could deliver. Psychastenie is a psychedelic Hindu frenzy, a track that is even present in Psychedelic Hindu collections.

17. Riz Ortolani – Mondo Cane

Mondo Cane is certainly the most famous “Mondo” movie ever made. This genre consisted of documentaries displaying bizarre and grotesque situations and traditions around the world. Created in Italy, these documentaries mainly had original scores provided by Italian composers like Ennio Morricone (Il Malamondo is an example) and Riz Ortolani.

This Soundtrack shows an eclectic attempt of songs as backtracks for diverse situations happening on screen. There are beautiful melodic moments as the famous “More (Mi guardare in Cuore)”, funny moments like “Raggazze i Marinai”, terrifying like “Gli Squali” (about some fishermen who “revenge” themselves from sharks in a grotesque way) and there is also Tarantellas and typical Italian music giving off the “Mondo” aura.

16. John Barry – Midnight Cowboy

As Frederic Jameson would say, Midnight Cowboy is a terrific postmodern movie. Adapting the cowboy cliché of John Wayne into a new urban reality, the story subverts the characteristics of the Western hero making him a gigolo in New York. The soundtrack contains three elements: country music (represented by “Everybody’s Talking”), psychedelic jams (The Groop and Elephant’s Memory, mainly played at the druggy-hippie party scene), and John Barry’s atmospheric music (definitely the most outstanding of them).

The Midnight Cowboy Theme is a timeless masterpiece, a song that encompasses the melancholy and languidness of John Voigt and Dustin Hoffman’s characters. The remarkable harmonica is played by Toots Thielemans. American seminal alternative metal band, Faith No More, did a very interesting cover of the song in their 1992 album Angel Dust.

15. Sato Masaru – Yojimbo

Sato Masaru became very famous for his soundtracks for TV Series “Gojira”, mostly known as “Godzilla”. In “Yojimbo”, he mixes Henry Mancini Jazz with Japanese instruments to create a soundtrack that is as refreshing and interesting as the movie. The “Yojimbo Theme” accompanies Toshiro Mifune smart tricks with tension and malice, always permeated by a sense of fun.

Incredible to notice that a few years later Yojimbo served as an inspiration for Sergio Leone to create “A Fistful of Dollars”. American classic cinema (Nicholas Ray and Howards Hawks) inspired Kurosawa and American Music (Jazz) inspired Sato Masaru. Later, the cycle was closed. There are also some brilliant ambient music moments, mixing Free Jazz with Oriental percussion.

14. Kristof Komeda – Rosemary’s Baby

Rosemary’s Baby theme is perhaps the scariest lullaby ever written. Sang by Mia Farrow herself, the song is a perfect background for Baby Satan’s birth. Kristof Komeda also includes some jazz themes in this soundtrack, his specialty. Along The Night of The Hunter and The Omen, Rosemary’s Baby soundtrack is a somehow minimalistic effort using the human voice as an instrument to scare the hell out of the audience.

13. Elmer Bernstein – The Great Escape

The Great Escape Soundtrack is a reminiscent of the big orchestral sounds typical of Hollywood soundtracks before the 60s. Elmer Bernstein did a very interesting work for The Man with the Golden Arm, creating a jazzy soundtrack very influenced by Ravel and other classical composers.

In The Great Escape he delivers his typical grandiloquent sound, with a idiosyncratic motif that repeats itself in various forms. This movie also marks the meeting James McQueen and Charles Bronson, two of the biggest actors of the 60s and 70s.

12. Maurice Jarre – Lawrence of Arabia

Lawrence is a gigantic epic (more than 200 minutes) and influenced a generation of movie makers (Steven Spielberg and George Lucas) who took inspiration from the adventurous saga present in the movie.

The Soundtrack Theme starts with brilliant combination of a Edgar Varése-esque rhythm pattern denoting chaos and fear. Then it transforms into a Mid Eastern melody, like founding an oasis in the desert. There are also sections with military drum marches evoking the Arab army that Lawrence commanded.

11. Various – Easy Rider

Revolutionary is maybe the best word to describe this movie. Easy Rider was one of the first movies to use a completely prerecorded soundtrack composed of pop/rock songs exclusively. Artist like Steppenwolf, The Byrds, Jimi Hendrix and The Band became automatically related to the movie and the spirit of a generation. Steppenwolf’s Born to be Wild is until nowadays an anthem for motorcyclists everywhere.

The Pusher, by the same group, is a sort of Grateful Dead-esque drug-fueled song, talking about Drug abuse and the preservation of Soul, whatever that means. Jimi Hendrix’s If 6 was 9 is a psychedelic masterpiece, confronting hippies and white collars views of the world. The Love Revolution has been over for years, but the free-will spirit of this soundtrack will always follow those who weren’t “born to follow”.

In his great book Easy Riders and Raging Bulls, Peter Biskind explains how the 70s were a revolutionary period that somehow “saved” the Hollywood industry. The decade introduced a new vision of cinema headed by directors like Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas. As for Soundtracks, it wasn’t different. The decade presented new forms of music in cinema.

The 60s were the beginning of this revolution. The social and cultural changes had a tremendous impact on movies and Soundtracks. By the end of the 50s, Soundtracks were almost exclusively formed by Classical and Jazz arrangements, written by composers such as Max Steiner and Miklos Rosza.

The 60s saw new artists like Ennio Morricone, Quincy Jones and Lalo Schifrin mix their Jazz and Classical formations with any possible genre and experimentations. These changes started during the 60s, but they only reached their peak in the 70s.

20. Summer of 42 – Michel Legrand

This poignant theme is perhaps only comparable to the Thomas Crown Theme in therms of melodic beauty.

Legrand was a master at creating unforgettable melodies based on a gentle mixture of Cool Jazz and Orchestration. Here is another case of a soundtrack more remarkable than the movie itself. Legrand even won an Oscar for Best Original Music in 1971.

19. Mary, Queen of Scots – John Barry

John Barry once said that he couldn’t imagine a soundtrack composer that doens’t about melody while creating the score. It’s hard to imagine a Barry composition primarily not in terms of melody. His works range through several genres like jazz, popular and classical, but all have the same trademark.

In this Historical Drama, Barry’s Soundtrack delivers the grandiloquent tone for the story of a nation. It is one of his best works in the 70s and quite different from the scores he became famous for: 007 and The Midnight Cowboy.

18. The Midnight Express – Giorgio Moroder

Giorgio Moroder can be defined as a Discoteque Quincy Jones: an enormous talented producer that always stayed behind the curtains creating challenging and unique music. His soundtracks are masterpieces of seminal electronic music.

Taking from Kraftwerk’s electronic fixations and adding robotic grooves, Moroder produced tons of music with diversified layers for movies like Scarface and The Midnight Express. On this Alan Parker prison break thriller, Moroder created a very eclectic sound, although always embodied with his specific elements.

17. The Harder They Come – Various

Reggae nowadays is considered a mainstream music genre. Many bubblegum pop artists like Rihanna, Lily Allen and Magic! have strong reggae influence. But things were a little bit different in the 70s.

Along with Bob Marley’s Catch A Fire, The Harder They Come opened many doors for reggae artists outside Jamaica. Jimmy Cliff turned into a popular artist after the movie, scoring his songs in other soundtracks.

The movie was heavily influenced by the atmosphere and violence of Blaxpoitation genre. The Soundtrack presented to the general public works of artists like Jimmy Cliff, Toots and The Maytals and Desmond Dekker. Even in the reggae field, it was an eclectic attempt: it contained elements of others genres as Ska and Rocksteady.

16. Suspiria – Goblin

Italian band Goblin mixed Pink Floyd progressive grandiloquence and Ennio Morricone’s grotesque sounds to create masterpieces for Horror Movie Scores. In this Dario Argento cult classic, they deliver a scary and mystic soundtrack, suggesting a witch ritual landscape.

The Suspiria Theme is divided in two parts: the first one is a frenzy crescendo of mandolin chords, primal percussions and demons voices; the second is a Prog Rock apotheosis of guitars and synthesizers.

15. Rocky – Bill Conti

Rocky’s soundtrack combined Michel Legrand’s typical sad piano ballads, John Barry’s orchestral arrangements and funky-disco elements of Lalo Schifrin and Quincy Jones.

Bill Conti later revealed himself not to be as original as his influences, but in Rocky his music helped the Movie achieve its blockbuster status. Gettin Strong Now is a timeless piece, a track that can be heard in gyms and martial arts academies all over the world.

14. Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion – Ennio Morricone

It’s hard to decide between the two collaborations between Ennio Morricone and Elio Petri in the beginning of the 70s: Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion and The Working Class Goes To Heaven.

Morricone composed two of his most climatic scores for Petri’s political masterpieces. The Italian composer says that he felt the need to create a grotesque sound mixed with popular elements for this score. He used “peasant” instruments like Mandolin and the Jew’s Harp. The result was a mix of bizarre synthesizer sounds, a whistling melody and tension all over the place.

Although complex and diverse, the Soundtrack has a simplistic element that reached its peak in Morricone’s work for John Carpenter in The Thing, in which only two cords (E and F) build an eerie atmosphere.

13. Saturday Night Fever – Bee Gees and David Shire

Saturday night Fever starts with the Bee Gees Staying Alive along with images of Tony Manero walking on the streets of Brooklyn. He chases girls unsuccessfully. He is not a big shot on commercial time.

Finally, he gets home and posters on his walls show his heroes: Bruce Lee, the figure that represents the outsider (chinese) fullfilling the American Dream and Rocky Balboa, the Italian Stallion, just like Tony, an Italian-American trying to prove he is a winner. Flashes of the dance floor and the Discotheque environment starts to appear on screen. On the dancefloor, Tony is a winner, a popular guy praised for his abilities.

Saturday Night Fever, just like American Graffiti, is the perfect portrait of a generation and the style of a certain time. The bedroom scene is so epic that was later imitated by PT Anderson in Boogie Nights. There are amazing disco songs by Bee Gees and KC & The Sunshine Band, mixing up tempo funky beats with mellow ballads like How Deep is Your Love.

12. Jaws – John Williams

George Lucas and Steven Spielberg created in the 70s their blockbuster style of filmmaking with the help from mesmerizing compositions by John Williams.

Taking from Bernard Herrmann’s scary and simplistic style in Psycho, John Williams created a score that is until nowadays associated to tension and danger. He mimics the shark’s heartbeat with two-note crescendos that are also related to breathless anxiety.

11. Dirty Harry – Lalo Schifrin

This Soundtrack is the perfect sample of Lalo Schifrin’s work: a Jazzy atmosphere combined with whatever the Argentinean composer wants to put in it.

Lalo did a great job in Steve McQueen’s Bullitt in the 60s, but in the 70s he went to a new level of originality with his works in Dirty Harry and Enter The Dragon. Lalo’s music was thrilling and exciting, the perfect match for heroes like Clint Eastwood and Bruce Lee.

“It’s always fun to talk about jazz,” says Clint Eastwood. That’s an undeniable fact. Jazz is amazing and unique genre, which influenced the development of other ones as rock, funk and rap. Despite being labeled nowadays as something “vintage”, Jazz is a “recent” form of music.

It was born in the turn of the 19th Century to the 20th, becoming a popular genre through the hands of Louis Armstrong, the starter of it all. Armstrong helped Jazz integration into American society, due to his acceptance in white audiences.

Jazz had grown so big that it had its own dialectics: avant-garde x establishment, west coast x east coast and white x black. Musicians like Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie gave sophistication to an art that then was only considered for “black people”.

The Bebop movement was the revolution that ignited the fire in which Jazz burned, spreading across the world and expanding its horizons over the US boundaries. Jazz was not something exclusive for black and American people. Chet Baker, Gerry Mulligan and Dave Brubeck were amongst many white, middle-class male Jazz musicians.

In Cinema, Jazz first became popular for its association with Noir movies. Dark lights, shadows, mystery and underground environment were a perfect context for jazz musique. Elmer Bernstein once said that movies turn to jazz “when someone steals a car”. It’s a genre that was often related to junkies, criminals, potheads, alcoholics, outsiders and black people.

Nowadays Jazz is often linked with clean white people from Woody Allen movies. In Whiplash, JK Simmons refers to it as “Starbucks Jazz”. Another part of the problem is a quote from Frank Zappa: “Jazz is not dead, it just smells funny”. That talk started when Miles Davis was in a huge ego trip in the end of the Seventies. Jazz declined and lost its geniuses one by one. The last one was Ornette Coleman. Is Jazz fading that fast?

It’s hard to tell, but there are living musicians who carry the torch and keep the ball rolling. And movies are an important part of that. John Zorn baptized his hardcore-jazz band Naked City as a tribute to the Noir movie from 1948. He is still alive and making pretty interesting jazz music in his projects. Angelo Badalamenti writes brilliant jazz soundtracks to David Lynch. Jazz is, has been and always will be alive and well. One only has to look for it.

20. A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)

New Orleans is the birthplace of many jazz , blues and funk artists. And it’s also where the story happens. A city filled with madness and sensuality. The soundtrack of Alex North enhances those feelings into songs filled the swing and malice.

The title track is similar to the classic “I Put a Spell on You” by Screamin Jay Hawkins , with an intriguing range suggesting a crossroads with the devil on the next corner.

19. Breathless (1960)

Jean Luc Godard did the Nouvelle Vague tribute to American cinema and culture. There are many references from Humphrey Bogart to Doo Woop and Lucky Strike cigarettes.

An incredible jazz soundtrack composed by Martial Solal, a French cat that even played with Django Reinhardt once. Very Atmospheric and intriguing, the soundtrack is also a European view about a typical American art.

18. Farewell My Lovely (1975)

The Conversation and Saturday Night Fever are probably David Shire’s most famous works in the 70’s. Both of them have jazz elements, but the former has a huge classical music influence and the latter is based on Disco music. That was not the case in Farewell My Lovely, a new noir production based on Raymond Chandler’s novel of the same name. Robert Mitchum plays brilliantly Philip Marlowe, giving a nocturnal voice and adding a cynic sense of humor to him.

David Shire’s soundtrack is the definitive Marlowe soundtrack. This Soundtrack later influenced another neo Noir movie: Body Heat. John Barry took elements from Shire and composed his outstanding soundtrack for the sexy thriller starring William Hurt and Kathleen Turner.

17. Smog (1962)

Italian film directed by Franco Rossi. It’s not famous; it’s even hard to find it to buy anywhere. However, despite this, it’s a very original movie. And, above all, it has a superb soundtrack.

Composed and played by Piero Umiliani and Chet Baker. the duo had previously worked together in I Soliti Ignoti (1958), a comedy filmed by the master of Italian humor, Mario Monicelli. In Smog their collaboration reaches its peak in a moody and climatic jazz, representing the beautiful musical production Chet Baker had in his Italy years.

16. Whiplash (2014)

Whiplash may not have the support of purists and diehard fans of jazz music, but it’s a very interesting example of nowadays cinema approach to an art that is sometimes seen as vintage and old-fashioned. Miles Teller tries to overcome his own limitations to turn out to be one of the best drummers in the jazz world. Becoming Buddy Guy in your twenties is not a piece of cake. The harder the stick hits the snare, the harder life ricochets it back.

The soundtrack composed by Justin Hurwitz does a very good job accompanying the frantic rhythm of the movie, as it would be required by the teacher played by J. K. Simmons. There are also standards of old jazz, including Caravan, a composition by Duke Ellington that was recorded with this dream team: Max Roach on drums, Charles Mingus on bass and Duke Ellington at the piano.

15. The Wild One (1953)

Elmer Bernstein once observed that movies turn to jazz “when someone steals a car”. He was referring to the soundtrack of The Wild One, a classic Marlon Brando movie.

Composed by the great Leith Stevens, the soundtrack was played by a band formed by West Coast Jazz cats, including Shorty Rodgers as a trumpet player. This movie was a landmark for Jazz in Cinema, as it puts outsiders and ghetto-esque figures together with Jazz music.

14. Taxi Driver (1976)

Taxi Driver was the last work of Bernard Herrman’s career. Maybe the composer already knew that because he died only 2 hours after finishing the last recording for the movie soundtrack. At that time, his style was different from the one he became famous for, mostly in Alfred Hitchcock movies. The Jazz language was how Hermann spoke back then.

The jazzy soundtrack portrayed Brickle’s unstable mood in a subterranean away. Tracks as “Thank God for the Rain”, “Cleaning the Cab”, “I Still Can’t Sleep”, “They Cannot Touch Her (Betsy’s Theme)” reveal feelings that corroborate their names. Travis sometimes hates hookers, dealers, pimps and junkies.

Other times he thinks about Betsy, his platonic love. But he is always alone. That sense of solitude permeates the whole movie and soundtrack, showing that there is a little Travis Brickle inside of every contemporary man.

No kind of music can offer more range of rhythms, melodies and harmonies than classical music. Complete in all musical elements, classical music often ends up being labeled as superior or elite art. These labels mix up more than help to understand music as a whole, ultimately leading to confusion and prejudice, segmenting the area for a restrict class lovers and connoisseurs.

Judging by the amount of available analysis on popular and classical music in films, it is natural that the former is more discussed than the latter. Popular music has repetitive identification signs as verses and choruses, relying on clichés of gender and repeated patterns that make memorization and understanding easier for the public. But what about a movie like Brief Encounter by David Lean, which uses Rachmaninov’s Second Concert for piano repeatedly to the point it becomes a motif?

The use of classical music in a variety of ways, including popular music approach, is a feature of many filmmakers like Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese and Lars Von Trier. Different aspects like contrasts, juxtapositions and enhanced visual information induce the audience to feel the resulting product (sound + image) as a whole and it often transforms the entire piece into something inseparable.

In a survey conducted in England by a classical music radio, it was found that Rachmaninov’s Second Concert for piano was known not for its name, but as the “Brief Encounter Theme”. It’s almost impossible to dissociate the sun rising in 2001 Space Odyssey from Richard Strauss’ music.

Classical music often participates directly in the film, serving as a backdrop and an accomplice to the climax scene. Alfred Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much, features a scene in which Doris Day and James Stewart try to prevent an assassination at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

The orchestra conducted by Bernard Herrmann plays a major role in a scene that has mute dialogues. Only the crescendo of the orchestra is enough to show the characters apprehension and the consequent climax at the same time of the clash of cymbals.

In addition to its musical use, classical music also offers a list of interesting characters and life stories for movie scripts: troubled human beings, visionaries and musicians struggling with political background. Classical music deserves special attention when movie soundtracks are analyzed: the richness and variety of its productions makes it plausible to use it in all film genres.

20. Fantasia

Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring took 25 years to be acclaimed by the general public. It was only in 1938 when Walt Disney heard the piece and thought that it was the right choice for Fantasia, an experimental cartoon telling the history of life on earth. The Rite was used as a background for the extinction of Dinosaurs.

In fact, the choice made a lot of sense: the piece was perfect for the rise and fall of species, with all its variations of mood and intensity. The Rite became famous to the popular audience through Disney’s work, although Stravinsky disliked this point of view “The number of people who consume music … is of no interest to me. The mass adds nothing to art.”, once he said.

Well, maybe that is true in the perspective of the art quality in itself. However, it is very important that The Rite became famous to a larger number of people. Stravinsky work shocked and confused the audience when first exhibited in Paris. Nowadays, it is considered the Beethoven’s 9th symphony of 20th Century.

19. Manhattan

Woody Allen has used mainly two kinds of music in his movies: jazz and classic. The former was the theme of Sweet and Lowndown, a tribute to legendary jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt. Jazz is also a hobby for the director: he plays clarinet in a a band. But Classical music has also space in the body of work of this postmodern film genius. It has been used many times in his movies with different purposes and approaches.

Manhattan’s soundtrack synthesized these two passions, in the form of the American composer who best represents that combination: George Gershwin. Manhattan’s first scene is a beautiful and sweet homage to New York featuring a black and white filming, an ironic-neurotic-hesitating background narration and the sound of Rhapsody in Blues by George Gershwin, a piece that combines the grandiloquence of orchestral arrangements and the subtle moods of jazz.

18. The Shining

The Shining is considered to be one of the most ambitious movies made by one the most grandiose filmmakers ever: Stanley Kubrick. It’s the work of a bored genius, someone who had subverted all genres and paradigms and was aiming at something that was beyond perfection. Meticulously planned and filmed, The Shining has multi-levelled meanings in each scene and can be described as the Finnegan’s Wake of cinema.

The use of Classical music in it is absolutely planned and it contrasts with Wendy Carlos minimalist soundtrack made specifically for the movie. In The Shining, classical music is used mostly to emphasize the malefic and disturbing atmosphere of the Hotel.

Penderecki, Bartok and Ligeti serve as backgrounds for scary moments like the bathroom scene, the torrent of blood at the elevator or at the moment when Wendy finally discovers the content of Torrance’s writing (“That’s not writing, that’s typewriting”, said Truman Capote about Jack Kerouac… the same could be said about Torrance’s “book”).

Jack Torrance is swallowed by his historical condition: a damned alcoholic semi-writer. But, whereas Hemingway and Fitzgerald were full-writers, Torrance is just a postmodern flop, both as individual or as a writer: a neurotic and paranoid person on the verge of destruction. Kubrick’s use of classical music puts even more frightening anticipation for the movie’s climax, emphasizing that the phantom of historicism haunts America everywhere.

17. Platoon

This Vietnam War movie is full of antagonism and opposites : Sargeant Barnes x Sargeant Elias, Idealism x Pragmatism, White x Black , Junkies x Squares and Pacifism x Belicism. This dialectical clash ultimately represents the death of the American Dream, a reccurring theme during the Vietnam War Years. The movie portrays intrinsic conflicts of American Society acting in a foreign environment, in a reality much more cruel and savage than in the cities of the US.

Whenever the American Dream dies, Samuel Barber’s Addaggio for Strings is played. Franklin Delano Roosevelt died on 12th April 1945. The Addaggio for Strings was played in American radios. Besides being played in the background of the scene in which Sgt. Elias dies (brilliant acting by William Defoe), Barber’s music serve as a theme for the whole movie: the death of the American dream, in its freedom and collective nature; due to the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandals and many social-political convulsions happening at that time.

16. The Big Lebowski

Coen brothers’ neo noir comedy has an outstanding soundtrack, blending different genres and artists like: Bob Dylan, Yma Sumac, Gypsy Kings, Kenny Rogers and Creedence Clearwater Revival. But that’s not the issue here, dude.

Mozart’s Requiem is a piece that represents sadness and urge: it is the last composition of the Austrian genius and it is a Funeral Mass. It is used in a scene which Mr. Lebowski tells the Dude about Bunny’s kidnapping and how important she is to him.

The Requiem serves as a perfect soundtrack to a tragic atmosphere and it’s contrasted with the Dude’s spontaneity (“Mind if I do a J?” he politely asks before lighting up a joint). In this case, classical music serves as a rhetorical element, emphasizing the feeling that Mr. Lebowski wants to pass to Dude. And it works. Dude takes it seriously and the briefcase scene with Walter is a hilarious finishing of the whole farce.

15. The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Bartok, Ravel and Janacek are considered modern classical composers. Despite this label, what characterizes them most is the fact that they mix traditional European music with the innovative techniques of Modernism.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being, adapted from Milan Kundera’s book, is a mix of these two characteristics: a new country struggling with its old traditions. Daniel Day Lewis and Juliette Binoche perfectly portray a couple, the former resembling the new characteristics (mainly his “free love” persona) and the latter a traditional Czech woman, monogamist and conservative.

The Soundtrack is only composed by Leos Janacek’s works and it’s a beautiful homage to a composer that represented perfectly the historical moment of the movie. Milan Kundera even had his own term for this kind of art: “Anti-Modern Modernism”

“A human being cannot decipher more than two different levels of sound at the same time. I’m not speaking of just music. Physically, the brain cannot receive more than two sounds at a time. If a director mixes in the general sound column dialogue and the sound effects as well as the music, the human ear cannot distinguish the music. What one hears is a very confusing noise.” – Ennio Morricone

When the expression “Soundtrack composer” comes to mind, it’s hard not to think of Ennio Morricone at first thought. The “Maestro” built a body of work that is spread across more than 500 movies.

The Rome born composer became notorious because of his works in Spaghetti Westerns, most notably his partnership with Sergio Leone, which reinvented the Western genre. Choosing a gritty, organic and sparse sound instead of exaggerated orchestrations of most Westerns traditional soundtracks, Morricone created his own style adding whips, gunshots, whistles and electric guitars to create a narrative element in music.

Leone’s direction put Morricone’s music in the spotlight, as a fundamental protagonist of the narrative, serving as a rhetorical element to emphasize emotions and feelings that were not clear in a story starred by subtle, laconic heroes like Clint Eastwood. Long scenes featuring the music and close shots at the characters transformed some excerpts of the movies in a pre-form of a Video Clip, combining sound and vision in another level, adding significance and semiotic meaning to the images.

Morricone’s influence on modern pop culture can be seem in the way soundtracks are perceived as a part of video creation, in works of Wong Kar-Wai and Quentin Tarantino, both of them using Morricone’s tracks as an important element of the movies. Separated from the movie, the music still has meaning to the listener.

When somebody hears The Good, The Bad and The Ugly theme, a western movie automatically enter their minds. More than an element in the movie, Morricone’s music became a major role on a par with The Man with No Name.

After graduating from a Music School in Italy, he worked for RAI (Italian State Broadcast channel) and produced works both in the Popular and Erudite world, composing for Italian popular artists (Rita Pavone, Gianni Morandi, Gino Paoli, amongst others) and playing the trumpet with the Gruppo di Improvvisazione di Nuova Consonanza, the first free form improvisation collective that worked avant-garde techniques by John Cage, Miles Davis’ electric jazz experimentations and robotic grooves similar to German Kraut Rock band Can.

In the musical field, Morricone’s scores cover Classical, Pop and Avant-Garde. Elements like classical music orchestrations, catchy melodies, surf guitars, voice used as an instrument, Pan Flute, Jew’s harp, Ostinato and strange percussions became his trademarks.

The Morricone Sound was born in The Dollars Trilogy, but went beyond any limit of music or film genre, displaying an eclecticism that influenced a generation of musicians like Yo-Yo Ma, Hans Zimmer, John Zorn, Mike Patton and rock bands like Muse, Pixies, Metallica and Primus.

1. A Fistful of Dollars (1964) by Sergio Leone

This movie was groundbreaking for Spaghetti Westerns. Leone’s violent and cynical camera gave birth to two legends: Clint Eastwood and Ennio Morricone. Eastwood based a career on his The Man With No Name character and Morricone became the official Spaghetti Western soundtrack composer after the movie.

The movie is loosely based on Akira’s Kurosawa Yojimbo, which had an amazing soundtrack composed by Masaru Sato, a result of a combination between Western music and Henry Mancini. Mixture was also the formula for Morricone’s soundtrack, which transformed an arrangement made by Morricone himself to Peter Tavis sing Woody Guthrie’s “Pastures of plenty” into a Movie Theme.

“He [Leone] seemed to know exactly what he wanted, and some of my music, which he had listened to, already contained a grotesque, slightly comic irony, which suited the Clint character.” – Ennio Morricone

Leone hired Morricone, who had worked as a soundtrack composer in some westerns before. He knew Morricone since childhood (both studied at the same school), and the partnership extended until his last movie. A Fistful of Dollars was a box-office success with the public and started an era for Spaghetti Westerns genre and Morricone’s soundtracks.

Western movies after A Fistful of Dollars had two options: hire Morricone or hire someone to make a Soundtrack that Morricone would make. Luis Bacalov’s famous Django theme (Django,1966, directed by Sergio Corbucci) can be said as one example. In Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained, Bacalov’s song is side by side with Morricone’s tracks on the soundtrack.

“In the late sixties and seventies you couldn’t see an Italian movie without Ennio Morricone’s music, which sometimes is memorable and sometimes is just a repetition of a movie that you have seen before, it was a kind of big factory.” – Bernardo Bertolucci

Having low budget to compose the tracks, the Italian composer replaced an Orchestra for juxtapositions of uncommon sounds, evoking the wilderness in the scenario. The theme seemed to carry, in the form of galloping drums, the bravery and cunning necessary to survive in a world like that.

2. The Battle of Algiers (1966) by Gillo Pontecorvo

His first work with Gillo Pontecorvo, this score is manly formed by Military March drum snares, serving as a background for a piano and brass instruments that alternate in a growing tension evoking the clash between the French Army and National Liberation Front (FNL).

The soundtrack is composed by different pieces of music, including pieces influenced by Arabic music like “Ali’s theme”. The curiosity here is the fact that Morricone composed the soundtrack together with Pontecorvo, which was a contract clause. This work expanded Morricone’s musical horizon, showing that he was not limited to Western Spaghetti’s clichés, producing a soundtrack that was filled with different elements and moods: seriousness and climatic tension produced by repeated notes on a piano dialoguing with trumpets.

The main theme is not as sparse as his Western Spaghetti’s soundtrack, but dense and loaded with intensity at every moment. The marching drums are protagonists both at the beginning and end of the song, evoking the Military tone of the movie and the highly-charged atmosphere.

The Theme Song from the movie was later used in Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglorious Bastards”, in the scene where Brad Pitt rescues Sgt. Hug Stiglitz from a Nazi prison. Pontecorvo and Morricone later worked together in another political classic from the Italian director, “Queimada!” starring Marlon Brando.

3. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1966) by Sergio Leone

The ultimate Spaghetti Western, this movie is recognized to be a masterpiece of cinema, carrying the five stars necessary to validate a classic: Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Eli Wallach, Leone’s camera and Morricone’s music. The film is considered to be the capolavoro of the Dollars Trilogy.

Sergio Leone subverted the Western genre even more after A Fistful of Dollars and A Few Dollars More: the three protagonists are not plain heroes/villains, with only good or evil intentions. They vary according to the opportunity; even at War (the bridge explosion scene), they demonstrate individualistic traits and intentions.

The Soundtrack contains two masterpieces instantly recognized by every movie fan: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly and The Ecstasy of Gold. The former is a classic Western Spaghetti composition with martial Drums alternating 3 and 2 hits, sounds emulating coyotes and a crescendo. The latter is an epic piece, used by Metallica for opening their shows, with a superb soprano apotheosis, dialoguing directly with the ecstasy of the three characters in finding the Gold.

4. The Big Gundown (1966) by Sergio Solima

This cult western classic featured two elements from The Good The Bad and The Ugly: the Bad (a.k.a. Lee Van Cleef) and a Morricone score, based on elements similar to those present in Leone’s movie.

A surf music guitar riff gives the tone to a beat that resembles a horse galloping. This movie’s title was used by John Zorn on his homage to Morricone “The Big Gundown”, a reinterpretation of Morricone’s works through the experimental lens of Zorn’s music.

5. Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) by Sergio Leone

“When I begin a theme in a certain key, say D minor, I never depart from this original key. If it begins in D minor, it ends in D minor. This harmonic simplicity is accessible to everyone.” – Ennio Morricone

Two tracks from this movie became an entity themselves: The Theme Song and The Man with the Harmonica. The former is a divine melody played by violins that grows into a Soprano epic. The latter is a one key song played by a harmonica starting with the emptiness of the desert developing into a violent explosion.

The song is the theme of Harmonica (Charles Bronson) and it is amazingly explored by Leone in the Bar Scene, when there is a shadow/light effect combining with the apotheosis of the song. British rock band Muse uses it as an opening for the track Knights of Cydonia, which is a Morricone influenced epic-rock.

6. The Sicilian Clan (1969) by Henri Verneuil

This score gave expression to the Morricone Gangster sound, later used in Once Upon a Time in America and The Untouchables. This one got him away from the Western Spaghetti sound and introduced his choice for traditional melody over unusual noises.

The theme song is a classical music piece with a very distinguished melody all along the way, instead of the experimentations with noises and instruments from the Western Movies.

7. Love Circle (1969) by Giuseppe Patroni Griffi

This soundtrack is extremely rich in styles and genres, varying from Euro Pop, Bossa Nova and Western Music experimentations. The movie’s theme is a Bossa Nova derivate from Morricone’s love for Brazilian music. In the documentary “Il Malamondo”, Morricone started to create tracks heavily influenced by samba and bossa rythms, like “Muscoli di Velluto”.

Later this was beautifully explored in “Samba in Tribunale”, from “Il Gatto” by Luigi Comencini. Morricone also worked with Brazilian composer Chico Buarque in “Per un Pugno di Samba”, when Buarque was living in Rome due to extradition from Brazil’s military Regime.

The theme track features a beautiful melody sang by Edda Dell’Orso over an electric and acoustic guitar, a Bossa Nova beat and a piano (that later on the song repeats the catchy melody sang by Edda), operating in the same way as some variations in Morricone’s westerns themes. Rich Happening is another interesting track, featuring noise experimentations with sitars and percussion.

8. Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970) by Don Siegel

This Western directed by Don Siegel featured Dollars Trilogy star, Clint Eastwood. The theme is a unique and extraordinary piece, something that goes above all genres and can only be identified as Morricone’s music. The tension between the heavenly flute melody and the malevolent acoustic guitar produces the beauty of the track.

There is also a strange noise emulating a mule sound and choirs evoking liturgical songs. This piece was later used by Quentin Tarantino in Django Unchained and by Hans Zimmer who made a version of it for Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.

9. Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (1970) by Elio Petri

This Political-Crime thriller is directed by Elio Petri and featured Morricone’s score a partnership that was later repeated on The Working Class Goes to Heaven. It’s the story of a conservative police inspector (Gian Maria Volonté) who kills his mistress and subsequently tries to incriminate himself. It’s a study of Corruption in Italy, a subject that is still relevant nowadays. Morricone composed an ominous, atmospheric and intricate soundtrack for this one.

The major theme uses Avant-Garde elements reminiscent of Morricone’s work with Gruppo de Improvvisazione di Nuova Consonanza and has lots of rhythm changes and intense chord changes. Fântomas, the experimental heavy metal super group formed by members of Faith no More, Mr. Bungle, Melvins and Slayer did an interesting version of the main theme, adding lyrics to the song and giving it a new interpretation.

10. The Working Class Goes to Heaven (1971) by Elio Petri

Another Petri/Morricone collaboration starring Gian Maria Volonté, this movie explores the class struggle going on an Italian factory. Lulu is a dedicated worker who claims to be the hardest working man of his factory, provoking rage in all the southern co-workers (who in his views are “lazy bastards”) and admiration among his masters. He doesn’t want to take any part in a strike made by the union, but everything changes when he loses a finger and start to get influenced by Communist students.

Petri, a Marxist director, operates the change in Lulu’s character, who was just another tool of the system, alienated and unconscious of his condition, and then becomes a conscious blue collar worker who is not satisfied with the conditions at the factory. Morricone’s score combine perfectly with the factory environment, a cold, robotic and menacing place where, according to Lulu, “even a monkey could work”.

The score is also a continuation of “Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion”, combining Avant-Garde elements with more Classical composition. The theme song starts with a noise played by a keyboard, emulating the robotic noises made in the factory, then growing into a piano/trumpet session that prepare the tension to the main part performed by violins.