Most Effective Use of Music in a Movie?
 

I'm sure this has been done before, but I just saw The New World this weekend and I don't think there could have possibly been a better musical choice than to use "Vorspiel" from Wagner's "Das Rheingold" in the scene where the English are sailing towards Virginia -- absolutely perfect.

Another one I always think of for some reason: "American Girl" by Tom Petty in The Silence of the Lambs?

More please.....?

Speaking of Richard Wagner, Excalibur is rife with his music and are pefect fits throughout the movie. "Prelude to Parsifal" for Perceval (well duh) and the Grail scenes, "Prelude to Tristan and Isolde" for the Lancelot and Guinevere scenes, "Siegfried's Funeral and Final Scene from Gotterdammerung" for the opening and closing scenes of the movie.

"Carmina Burana" by Carl Orff is so overused in movies, but Excalibur is the only movie to use it effectively.

I never get tired of hearing this one. Such an exciting song.

cliche I know, but the music/score in the original Psycho just seemed to be dead on (pardon the pun)

also the Basil Poledouris score from the original Conan movie is excellent in my opinion

The use of the song "Yes! I Am a Long Way From Home" by Mogwai from the movie "Long Way Home"
Brief but good.

and yet, the same score was brillantly redone for 'Re-Animator'

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly and 12 Monkeys come to mind.

One of my favorites is when 'Good Vibrations' plays in Vanilla Sky.

That's funny...I think that movie's use of songs is divine, some of the most inspired I've ever found in a film, but I thought that particular song was an odd, emotionally jarring exception...diff'rent strokes and all, I guess...

Shaft!

I'll second Vanilla Sky, esp. Sigor Ros and Radiohead. Good Vibrations was great.

Don't Fear the Reaper at the beginning of The Stand

Basil Poledouris can write memorable thematic material: The final battle sequence in Conan the Barbarian, the canyon run in The Hunt for Red October, and the dropzone scene in Starship Troopers.

Alan Silvestri writes the quiet, introspective piano pieces rather well, as can be heard in Forrest Gump, and Contact. They are so innocent and child-like, I've actually used them as lullabys for my children when they were infants.

just search music...

Great Scenes with Music
Music in Movies...
best music in movie...
Movies with good...

The opening credits of Reservoir Dogs immediately comes to mind as does the Layla montague in Goodfellas.

Hey, you're learning. ;)

That scene always gets me too. Sends chills down my spine...

I like the techno beat in the background during Clarence's confrontation with Drexel in True Romance.

This is good stuff too

Replacing the film's original score...not fond of that.

Thank you. I should've searched harder.

Another great one... "Tiny Dancer" from Almost Famous

I would add that it's important to remember that the "O Fortuna" movement from "Carmina Burana" wasn't overused when Excalibur featured it in 1981. Only after Excalibur re-popularized this music was it then overused by other movies (and TV shows and commercials, etc., etc.) -- much like the Intro to Richard Strauss's "Also Sprach Zarathustra" was (and still is) severely overused after 2001: A Space Odyssey re-popularized it in 1968.

The End at the beginning of Apocalypse Now is fairly effective.

Jeff Buckley's "Hallejulah" at the end of Lord of War is a good fit.

Mascagni's "Cavalaria Rusticana" for Raging Bull.

Just in case you care, that song is called "I Want Your Body (Instrumental Mix)" by Nymphomania. You can find it on a CD called "Big Hard Disk, Vol. 1". I bought it just for that track.