that is an awesome list

5. The Crow: Pretty awesome, and particularly highlighted by The Cure, Rage Against the Machine, and My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult.

4. O Brother, Where Art Thou: Before this soundtrack, I would never dream of listening to this type of music. I am amazed by how good this old-timey stuff can be.

3. Singles: About as perfect a document of where early 90's grunge was as is possible without Nirvana's participation.

2. Judgement Night: The apotheosis of rap/metal hybrids. After this, nothing but decline until we reached a point where Fred Durst had a career that didn't prominently feature Jiffy Lube.

1. Superfly: Curtis Mayfield is fucking awesome, and on this I will brook no dissent.

1. Donnie Darko
2. The Crow
3. Lost Highway
4. Fight Club

Fight Club had a decent soundtrack, too. The Pixies and Tom Waits are a good starting point.

@Bob - on that logic surely Blues Brothers should be on there?

Over what?

I have to do a top 15, 10 symphonic/instrumental, and 5 pop/rock/jazz/vocal.

Symphonic
1. Superman
2. Excalibur
3. Hamlet (Brannagh production)
4. Lord of the Rings trilogy
5. Godfather trilogy (Nino Rota) tied with Zeffirelli's take on Romeo & Juliet (also Nino Rota)
7. Dances with Wolves *
8. The Black Hole *
9. Somewhere in Time *
10. On Her Majesty's Secret Service *

*All John Barry scores, but only one is a 007 film.

Vocals (and other pop/rock/jazz includes musicals)
1. West Side Story
2. Collateral (the Tom Cruise/Jamie Foxx flick)
3. Highlander (and the rest of the series as Queen just *makes* it rock)
4. Donnie Darko (Mad World, simply the best version of that song ever)
5. Wehn Harry Met Sally (Harry Conncik, Jr doing Jazz Standards) tied with The Story of Us (Eric Clapton pieces plus Mason Williams doing Classical Gas)
3.
4.
5.

oops, sorry about the extras "3, 4, 5". And Blues Brothers would probably come in at #7 if I did the top ten pop/jazz/etc.

OK

#7 Blues Brothers
#8 Heavy Metal
#9 Matrix trilogy plus Animatrix (Who AM I? is a great techno piece)
#10 The Crow or XXX.

If you're planning on a symphonic top 10, doesn't one of Enrico Morricone's soundtracks for Sergio Leone pretty much have to be on the list?

Godfather
Anything by John Williams (pick one)
Anything by the new generation John Williams: Michael Giacchino... my fav being the soundtrack to "The Incredibles". I play trumpet and used to play big-band stuff all the time, but "The Incredits" music that is played during the credit rollout? That's just flat out awesome.

Yeah, the Symphonic almost needs to be a top 20 with series listed together. The Incredibles is a great Giacchino score in the John Barry/David Arnold feel. And I need to figure out where to put the Morricone soundtracks as all of the Eastwood/Man with No Name's are great along with Once Upon a Time in the West and especially The Untouchables.

@fortknox - listen to Giacchino's video game soundtracks for the Medal of Honor series. Outstanding music. And in video games, the Halo series has to be way up there.

BF1942 is my favorite video game soundtrack.

Although, I don't know if it's a "soundtrack" if it has only one song...

World of Warcraft has an awesome score that varies from area to area, like MoH.

If you like video game soundtracks, check out the "Minibosses". They do old NES games with guitars and drums... their rendition of Contra is classic, and I also enjoy their version of Metroid as well...

And I wasn't aware Giacchino did the MoH series, but powerful music...
And Morricone in the good, the bad and the ugly?... The part right before the mexican standoff... it's called "The ecstacy of gold"... that's the most recognized music in spaghetti westerns (imho)... classic.

The Ecstasy of Gold is also the opening instrumental piece that leads into Call of Ktulu on Metallica's album S&M. But my favorite piece of GB&U is Marcia Without Hope.

Bob, you forgot about Master and Commander, The Far Side of the World

Re: M&C, FSotW - Dang, so did I. See, I need a top 50 list for symphonic scores. Also in there would be Henry V (Brannagh's version) and Conan the Barbarian and Hunt for Red October and Schindler's List and The Red Violin and...

A few suggestions:
Conan the Barbarian
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
1492 Conquest of Paradise
Kill Bill
Battlestar Galactica (2003-2007 TV show)
The English Patient

Agreed on the BSG soundtrack. Season 3 is especially good, and I'm anxiously hoping/anticipating a soundtrack for dearly departed Caprica (show not movie).

Also, I'm shocked that none but fortknox brought up Mr. John Williams.

Star Wars.
Jaws.
Indiana Jones.
Jurassic Park.

Good lord, people, these are mega-classics!

@DaveH - Hello? John Williams composed my #1 symphonic score: Superman.

Anything john williams is great. i like his music in Hook most for a strange reason. Also got to add the classic musicals guys. even if they get tiring

Don't forget the soundtrak to Amadeus, especially all of Mozart's pieces performed by Sir Neville Mariner and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields.

OH MY GOD abge

you played bf1942???


BEST GAME

i love the fuck out of that game and DAMN am i good

hahah can you say battle of midway

Not a single nod towards Gladiator?

Or 2001 come to that...

Not sure about top 5, but top 2 would have to be West Side Story followed by Fiddler on the Roof.

In no particular order:
Lord of the Rings
Platoon (simply for use of Barber)
Goldfinger (had to be some Bond to credit Barry here)
The Godfather
Gladiator (although most of his stuff since has been the same)

Quadrophenia - Best...drumming...ever!

Reservoir Dogs had a really cool soundtrack too.

I wholeheartedly agree with O Brother Where Art Thou. And I obviously think anything Fight Club is awesome. Glad Thucy brought up Master and Commander, as it needs to be here. Also props to DaveH for the nod to Star Wars and Indy. The Graduate didn't have a great score in and of itself, but it accompanied the story so well that it needs to be brought up. And for purposes of irony I'll also mention The Birds as having a great score.

Amelie
Pan's Labyrinth
Across The Universe
No Country For Old Men
Gladiator

1. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
2. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
3. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
4. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
5. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

My fav Williams pieces are either the astroid field from empire strikes back... or the sith battle in phantom menace... how he puts the choral piece in there... just exciting stuff!

John Williams greatest:
Superman (I & II - let's forget the rest exist) - Theme from Superman
Star Wars (all 6) - Duel of the Fates (PM) and Battle of the Heroes (Sith)
Schindler's List - Remembrances and I Could Have Done More
Indiana Jones (all 4) - The Raider's March
E.T. - Escape / Chase / Goodbye
Olympic Games - all four of them are excellent but the original from 1984 is the best.

Theme to Jurassic Park needs to be in there...

It's good, but not any better than the main theme to star wars or the music to Saving Private Ryan. It's just more of the same from Williams in those cases. His best work is his most original. While technically Star Wars came out first, Superman was the better movie.

But I did forget Close Encounters which has a great piece called "Conversation" in it.

I enjoy movie soundtracks that are definitively cinematic in their sound and panoramic in their scope. Incidentally, this is one of the reasons I enjoy postrock, because I can often imagine a movie from the music.

I'm a fan of the soundtrack to 28 Days Later, Requiem for a Dream (which I'm surprised nobody has mentioned yet), and Inception, just for the qualities I've mentioned above. Also worth mentioning as a composer is Jon Brion (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Synecdoche New York) and Yoko Kanno (Cowboy Bebop).

I think this comic is relevant:
http://homepage.mac.com/merussell/iblog/B835531044/C1483454996/E20051121101556/Media/RussellFluxblogComic550.gif

I forgot to mention "The Hours". A great minimalist score that builds on itself layer by layer.

#1 Blade runner!!!!!!!!
#2 The mission
#3 Star wars
#4 Le fabuleux destin de Amelie Poulin
#5 The last of the mohicans