Film is a visual medium, sure, but very few movies succeed without also having something by way of great music. If bold visuals capture your eyes while striking music appeals to your ears, then you’ve probably got something at hand that you can get swept up in. After all,music has arguably been vital to cinema longer than dialogue, givenlive music tended to accompany screeningsof movies that were otherwise silent.
So, to look at some of the best scores of all time and sing their praises is a monumental task. For the following, these scores are essential to the success of the movies they’re attached to, and most of them are genuinely great enough to enjoy independently of the film, too. To keep things a little varied, there’s a limit of one score per composer, with the exception ofJohn WilliamsandEnnio Morricone, because they’re John Williams and Ennio Morricone (they get two each).
25’Braveheart' (1995)
Composer: James Horner
James Hornerwas perhaps best known forhis collaborations withJames Cameron, scoring music for blockbuster classics likeAliens,Titanic, andAvatar. Yet Horner’s best work as a composer was debatably forBraveheart, the epic historical drama/war film that won Best Picture for the year 1995, and told the story of a Scottish warrior fighting for both revenge and independence against English forces.
Braveheartis a broad and bombastic movie; the kind that wears its heart on its sleeve and is not at all subtle about who the bad guys are, what’s heroic, and what is at stake. The unabashed and unapologetic approach to everything ultimately makesBraveheartwork; it’s hard not to get swept up in it all, andHorner’s grand score is stirring and moving, and just as much of an emotional sledgehammer as the rest of the filmis. Plus, those bagpipes are something else.
Braveheart
24’Godzilla' (1954)
Composer: Akira Ifukube
It’s a testament to how good the originalGodzillatheme is that itcontinues showing upin various films in the series, even now, 70 years on from the point at which it was first used. When it starts booming inGodzilla Minus One, it has just the same power it had in the original film. It’s music that can somehow inspire dread and a little excitement at the same time, mostly depending on the type ofGodzillafilm and how it’s utilized.
With 1954’sGodzilla, it’s mostly about the dread, because the original film is more of a horror/disaster movie than a sci-fi romp with spectacular action. For its longevity and timelessness, the musicAkira Ifukubecomposed for this first movie is undeniably legendary, and his work on subsequentGodzillafilms (his final one being in 1995, withthe brilliantly scoredGodzilla vs. Destoroyah) shouldn’t be overlooked either.
Godzilla (1954)
23’Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse' (2023)
Composer: Daniel Pemberton
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Versehad a very good score byDaniel Pemberton, though it was perhaps overshadowed a little by some of the more traditional songs used in that film, which comprised the “soundtrack,” rather than the score. Of particular note were the songs “What’s Up Danger” byBlackwayandBlack Caviar, and “Sunflower” byPost MaloneandSwae Lee, the latter of which was seemingly everywhere in late 2018 and early 2019.
But thenwith the film’s excellent sequel,Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Pemberton completely outdid himself, taking some themes and the overall style of his firstSpider-Versescore and just revolutionizing it. Honestly, it’s easy to listen to it front to back, completely divorced from the film (and its spectacular visuals), and still get a wholly satisfying experience, with tracks like “Nueva York Train Chase” and “Across the Spider-Verse (Start a Band)” being especially dizzying.And the leitmotifs/themes created for characters like Gwen, Miguel, and the Spot are all phenomenal. WithAcross the Spider-Verse, the score ended up overshadowing the soundtrack’s songs.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
22’Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence' (1983)
Composer: Ryuichi Sakamoto
ThoughMerry Christmas, Mr. LawrencestarsDavid Bowie, he wasn’t involved with the music of the film, and his character even says “I wish I could sing” at one point, somewhat amusingly.He plays a prisoner of warinside a prison camp run by Japanese forces during World War II, quietly rebelling against the Japanese soldiers and gaining the attention ofRyuichi Sakamoto’s Captain Yonoi.
In contrast to Bowie, Sakamoto did work on the music forMerry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, and it’s one of the best parts of the movie. Sakamoto composed more often than he acted, and was also well-known for being a member of the ahead-of-its-time Japanese band,Yellow Magic Orchestra. As forMerry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, the whole film has a strange tone; not quite dreamy, not quite peaceful, and not quite suspenseful, but not entirely distanced from such feelings, either.It’s a movie with a certain haunting and uneasy quality to it, and the music – while sometimes beautiful and serene – captures this strange feelingexceedingly well.
Watch on Criterion
21’Back to the Future' (1985)
Composer: Alan Silvestri
Alan Silvestrimight not quite be a household name (not many film composers are, sadly), but he’s worked on a ridiculously large number of movies over the past few decades. His body of work includesThe Avengers,Predator,The Abyss, and a great many movies directed byRon HowardandRobert Zemeckis. Speaking of Zemeckis, it wasfor one of that director’s best moviesthat Silvestri did arguably his greatest work to date.
The film in question isBack to the Future, which is the kind of classic that no one seems to hate. It’s an inherently likable spin on time travel, combining comedy and sci-fi within the confines of a great ticking clock narrative that’s both nostalgic for the 1950s and, when watched now, inspires nostalgia for the 1980s. And Silvestri’s booming scoreadds immensely to the film overall; once heard, it’s near-impossible to forget.
Back to the Future
20’Scarface' (1983)
Composer: Giorgio Moroder
Synth-heavy music gets a bad rap sometimes, perhaps feeling emblematic ofa certain cheesiness or bombastic qualitythat was, for better or worse, prevalent in the 1980s. Synths evoke that decade sometimes, but synth-pop has remained popular since the 1980s ended (at least in some circles), and that style of music was by no means invented in the 1980s. Just askGiorgio Moroder, who was doing a ton of work with synthesizers back in the 1970s.
Moroder has collaborated with various artists over the years, and has also worked as a film composer, perhaps reaching his zenith when he did the score forScarface. Like with the aforementionedBraveheart, a big, in-your-face score was needed for a big, loud, flashy movie likeScarface, and Moroder more than delivered on that front.Giorgio Moroder’s instrumental tracks for the film are iconic, as are the original songs he produced and helped writefor the film, like “Scarface (Push It to the Limit)” (Paul Engemann) and “Rush Rush” (Debbie Harry).
19’The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover' (1989)
Composer: Michael Nyman
Without a doubt,The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Loveris adisturbing and oftentimes horrific movie. It’s about a brutal gangster continually abusing everyone around him, with his wife – who gets it the worst – eventually snapping, and deciding to have an affair to effectively get back at him. This, in turn, makes him angrier, at which point violence, death, revenge, and even cannibalism suddenly all feel like inevitabilities.
But at the same time as all the horror’s going on,The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Loveralso proves to be arather beautiful movie, in its own strange way. The costuming and production design are big factors in this, but so too isMichael Nyman’s spectacular score.The 12-minute-long “Memorial” is the centerpiece, and a masterpiece as far as minimalist compositions go; repetition that builds in intensity and layers in a way that’s hard to describe with words.It’s just got to be heard.
The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover
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18’The Last of the Mohicans' (1992)
Composers: Trevor Jones, Randy Edelman
The Last of the Mohicanshas an immense scope considering it’s under two hours long,working as a grand period dramaalongside also being a romance/adventure/action film. It’s set in colonial America with constant fighting between British and French forces occurring in either the background or – sometimes, and unfortunately for the main characters – more in the foreground.
Tying everything together is a propulsive score byTrevor JonesandRandy Edelman, with “Promentory” deserving a shout-out as a highlight from said score. It backs much of the final act, which is whenThe Last of the Mohicansis at its best and most emotional.Dialogue sort of takes a backseat to sweeping action, beautiful landscapes, tragic death scenes, and unforgettable music, ending the entire film on an undeniable high.
The Last of the Mohicans
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17’Halloween' (1978)
Composer: John Carpenter
It’s impossible to overstate just howessential good music is for a horror movieto be effectively frightening. The most grotesque special effects imaginable help, as does knowing whether to make things burn slow or provoke jumps, butif there’s less-than-stellar music playing in the background throughout such things, the likelihood of a horror movie’s terror sticking with the viewer diminishes.
John Carpenterhas always understood the importance of great horror movie scores, and has composed his own to great success over his years spent as a director. Most of his work’s very good, but nothing’s quite as iconic asHalloween, the score of which is so minimalist and simple, yet undeniably ear-wormy in execution. Few pieces of music suggest impending death and doom quite as effectively as the main theme fromHalloween.
16’Babylon' (2022)
Composer: Justin Hurwitz
La La Landwas a movie where a character named Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) talked at length about jazz and what it meant to him, and when you put that kind of dialogue alongside various scenes inWhiplash, it becomes apparent thatDamien Chazellelikes that kind of music. And frequent Chazelle collaboratorJustin Hurwitzseems to as well, thoughWhiplash’s jazz standards stood out the most, and then withLa La Land, it was the bigger/poppier numbers that took center stage.
So it was ultimatelyBabylonthat saw Hurwitz unleash as a composer and go full-bore with writing epic, energetic, uncomfortable, catchy, and kind of sinister jazz. And he had to write a lot of it, consideringBabylonwas more than three hours long. The film score ended up being about 97 minutes long, and just about all of it’s incredible to listen to, either with the film or just on its own. Hopefully time will be kind to it, because at this stage,theBabylonscore feels like it could well bethe best of the entire 2020s so far.
