I've seen alot of reviewers refer to Spider-Man 2's score as forgettable but i love it. Especially the opening credits.

I Heart Huckabees
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
The Passion of the Christ
Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Something a little different here: Friday Night Lights. It seems to set the mood to the movie quite well, IMO.

And a little further back... Signs! Creepy as hell.

Elfman's Spider-Man music is great as well.

In his prime, Jerry Goldsmith particularly excelled at writing good scores for bad movies. That was just his MO. He gave all his scores 110%, no matter how awful a movie was. But he was also a workaholic, taking on several assignments at a time.

The score for Starship Troopers 2 was done by John Morgan and William Stromberg. When they're not writing film scores, they are doing excellent re-recordings of classic film music (Steiner, Korngold, Herrmann, et al.), so you hear those influences abound.

Another overlooked score from awhile ago was Johnny English. Like The Incredibles, it dips into John Barry's great James Bond sound. And although not technically a soundtrack, "Yo-Yo Ma Plays the Music of Ennio Morricone" is terrific. "Deborah's Theme" from Once Upon a Time in America has never been more haunting.

Spidey

Village. Hilary Hahn's work on the violin especially.

the village, king arthur, spy game, black hawk down, gladiator, and last of the mochicans.

No doubt. Goldsmith has always been a favorite of mine. Off the top of my head, Medicine Man, Congo, Ghost in the Darkness are some bad films he did that have great scores. I'd also add Star Trek to that list. While his scores for the last few Star Treks were pretty decent, the scores he turned in for Star Trek 5 and The Motion Picture were fantastic. Especially The Motion Picture, which is kind of a dull film, but sports one of the best Goldsmith scores I can think of. His "Ilia" theme is truly beautiful.

Though I recall the Air Force One debacle being particularly trying for him, making him change his stance on how much time he must have to write a score. It was, though, a decent score, if not somewhat derivative of some of his other work (the main theme sounds straight out of First Contact) but, considering the 2 and a half weeks he spent to put that together, who can blame him.

Wow, Goldsmith only had two and a half weeks to do the music to Air Force One? Didn't know that, and I love the music to that movie and it's theme is amazing (though it does sound a bit similiar to First Contact, but I don't care). He did some great work (Ghost in the Darkness was amazing), definitely gonna miss him.

It might've been less, like two weeks. What happened as far as I know it, was Randy Newman wrote the score for the film, but the studio or director didn't approve of that, and hired Goldsmith at the last second to put something together.

Funny, a similar thing happened to the recent Troy, also by Wolfgang Peterson. Gabriel Yared spent over a year writing and putting together a score for the film. About a month or a month and a half before the film's release, they rejected the score and hired James Horner to put something together within a month. Funny thing is, after listening to the Troy score, I'd say it was an excellent piece and, imo, better than what was in the film. Though, having not listened to the music in context, I have to admit I'm not really in a position to judge its effectiveness within the film.

I really liked the last samuria's score even though its really not recent anymore

Hero

I second that. It's a great compilation and, for the uninitiated, a great introduction to the work of Morricone and Yo Yo Ma.

also gattaca

Sky Captain & The World Of Tomorrow. I left the theater humming it.
I'm humming it now.

Nyman
's great... but that's last decade, no?

yea but i just saw the movie recently again.

I have been very disappointed in the past 10 years with movie scores. A lot of films today have great themes, but the overall score lacks punch. The only one that does come to mind that is solid from beginning to end is the LotR trilogy.

Other than that I have to go back to 93-94 for great ones like Braveheart, Toy Story, Jurassic Park, and the Crow to name a few.

Rivero reeeeeally likes to answer with posters, no?

Shrek 2 and Sideways

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy

I've been meaning to check out Alexander's soundtrack. I was near sleeping when I saw the movie, so can't say I remember much about the score, but Vangelis in his few film scores has provided some of the best damn soundtracks ever, so I have to imagine this is good too.

Speaking of Vangelis, how about 1492: Conquest of Paradise. This has got to be my favorite.