Best original soundtrack?
 

Just picked up the Gattaca soundtrack today after realizing I was in love with the musical score from the movie (it only took like 8 viewings!). It's absolutely stunning - at the same time beautiful, sad, and filled with hope. Don't know why, but nowadays I seem to only be able to listen to music without vocals. Especially these haunting orchestrated songs.

Anyone else know or can recommend any others?

Recently I enjoyed Gladiator and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Animatrix is really good.

Bladerunner by Vangelis.

ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA.

Are we talking Scores or Soundtracks?

I really enjoy the score from Fight club and The Matrix films.

I nominate Lost Highway and Natural Born Killers for Soundtracks. Listening to the NBK soundtrack you can almost know what the movie is about, or so it seems. Very cool experience, at least to me it is.

Lost In Translation and Rushmore are wonderful. Great orignal stuff and the other songs used are amazing!

The Crow

Reqiem for a Dream
Once Upon a Time in the West - Awesome -
Braveheart
Star Wars
Jaws

Ah yes, I'd forgotten about Braveheart. I really liked that one. Last of the Mohicans was good too.

Once Upon a Time in the West or America? Or are both of them good?

Ergyu, I'm interested mostly in orchestrated soundtracks, but feel mention any others you like.

Both are really good.

Also check out the Solaris soundtrack. Good relaxing music. Some of the work on Out of Sight is really good too.

I know I have posted my favourite soundtracks before but here they are again:

1492 (Vangelis)
Lord of the Rings (Rosenthal 'Bakshi film' score) very underrated score, yet powerful and memorable
Legend - (Goldsmith)
Near Dark - (Tangerine Dream)
Wings of Honneamise
Passion (Last Temptation of Christ)

Hayao Mizaki's films all have great scores:
Spirited Away, Nausicaa, My Neighbor Totoro (I would love my phone to have this ringrtone from the opening song)

Gotcha.

I always liked the Starwars soundtracks and Braveheart as well.

Those and The Last of the Mohicans, and The Labrynth.

Glory - gotta love those tracks with the Harlem Boys Choir

[David Spade] Yeah, <b>Braveheart</b>'s a great score ... I liked it better the first time he wrote it, though ... when it was called <b>Legends of the Fall</b>. Not as good when he called it <b>Titanic</b>. [/David Spade] ;)

Anyway, I've written on this before, and it's a shame it gets lost in the general Trek madness, but Goldsmith's score for <b>Star Trek: The Motion Picture</b> is one of the finest scores of the modern era (i.e. beyond Waxman, Herrmann, etc). It's amazing on so many levels. Forget about whether you like the film or like Trek, and just listen to the score.

das

Some of my favorites

American Beauty
A Shock to the System
Dead Man
The Virgin Suicides
A Simple Plan (and anything else by Danny Elfman for that matter)

Singles

An absolutely great soundtrack is from the movie "O Brother, where art thou?"
Since the soundtrack won five grammys, I'm not the only one that thought so........... :)

'Singles' and 'O Brother' were good soundtracks but they weren't exactly original music scores.....

Henry V
Edward Scissorhands

The answer to both is Superfly by Curtis Mayfield.

Two underrated scores are Graeme Revell's score for "The Crow" and Elmer Bernstein's score for "Heavy Metal."

I'm a 24 year old; but I'm into Nino Rota! Of course, to many he was considered the angel of the 20th Century, but to listen to him these days is to live in obscurity (despite reaching the heights of popular success in his lifetime). The Godfather -- his most famous music -- is one of his lesser scores; it ranks somewhere around the 30s or 40s for his film music.

You want elegance? Try some of his exquissite chamber music.
You want humour? Try his soundtrack to Juliet of the Spirits or 8 1/2, or Lina Wertmuller's Film d'Amore e d'Anarchia (Love & Anarchy).
You want romance? Try either Romeo & Juliet, The Taming of the Shrew or Il Gattopardo (The Leopard), or the Notturno o Mattutino from La Dolce Vita.
You want profound? Try Rocco e i Suoi Fratelli (Rocco and His Brothers).
You want experimental? Try Il Casanova and Prova d'Orchestra (Orchestral Rehersal).
You want relaxing? Try Hurricane (1979).
You want nostalgic? Try Amarcord.
You want classic jazz? Try The Swindle, The White Sheik, La Strada, Nights of Cabiria or The Spivs.
You want war? Try Waterloo, War & Peace or La Grande Guerra (The Great War).
You want abstract? Try his nonetto.

Put simply, "Rota is music", as Fellini once exclaimed. Often Elfman (under Tim Burton) has been described as innovative, when he is just working around Nino Rota's music. He worked on Terence Young's Valley of Eagles in 1951, 10 years before the directors other spy film Dr No, and knowing John Barry's regard for the composer (and given that Rota was big on jazz at the time) I wouldn't be surprised if it contains the genesis of the James Bond music!

Other music: certainly Trevor Jones' Labyrinth and Last of the Mohicans. All of Elliot Goldenthal (Final Fantasy, Michael Collins, Alien3, Interview With the Vampire, Frida, Heat, Batman Forever, Sphere) is good. A bit older, look into Herbert Stothart, Max Steiner and Alfred Newman.

A bit of trivia, James Horner was found guilty in court of plagiarism of Nino Rota back in '91 on Honey I Shrunk the Kids, and Rota's name was inserted into the films end credits. Titanic, though, at least seems to be his own (the love theme from Romeo & Juliet was something of the `My Heart Will Go On' in 1968). I thought Randy Newman's Monster Inc. was Rota to a `t'. So if you like that, certainly look into Rota and Fellini. Ennio Morricone has derived a lot of his music from Nino Rota, and in my opinion long-winds it. Deborah Harry (& her band) have performed Nino Rota on 3 occassions. Luciano Pavarotti, Elvis Costello and Bette Midler admire it.

Ah, but what if I want pensive? ;)

Thanks for the tip! I'll check it out...

Demolition Man - Elliot Goldenthal
The Red Violin - John Corigliano