Following news that the Beeb are launching an entire autumn season of TV and Radio programming dedicated to composers, scores and songs that form a soundtrack to the big screen (in a series of programmes across all formats known as The Sound of Cinema), we decided to ask around the office about our favourite movie soundtracks!
Here's what we came up with...
Gladiator (H. Zimmer)
A score befitting the movie it accompanies, the soundtrack to Gladiator is effortlessly remarkable and simply unforgettable. From those battle scenes - full of sound from every orchestra member - to the quaint, short, but poignant piece above, Zimmer was certainly on another level when bringing this to the fore.
Pulp Fiction (Q. Tarantino)
This is just the tip of the iceberg for Tarantino. Not only does Pulp Fiction knock it out of the park, but every film QT seems to shake a stick at has a truly inspired soundtrack; from 1992's Reservoir Dogs to the more recent Django Unchained from this year. One of about seven highlights from the film above sees Uma Thurman's Mia Wallace and John Travolta's Vincent Vega getting their groove on to Chuck Berry's "You Never Can Tell". And it only gets groovier from there on in.
Moulin Rouge (B. Luhrmann)
We have friends that love Moulin Rouge; we also have friends that despise what Baz Luhrmann has done to the originals of these songs. Needless to say, it takes a talent to be able to chop up thirteen(!) different love songs and pop them all in one neat video - just like the above.
The Matrix (The Wachowski Brothers)
From the ridiculous...to the sublime. The Wachowski Brothers' Matrix trilogy may not have been everyone's cup of tea, but there's no denying the original film's impact it had on cinema today. It also flits from orchestra movements to the rockingest rock in a mere heartbeat; with some industrial techno along the way, courtesy of "Clubbed To Death".
And, of course...Star Wars/Indiana Jones/Jaws/Close Encounters of the Third Kind/anything John Williams has ever touched
Anyone with half a brain will tell you, with some assurance, that John Williams is hands down the greatest film composer of them all. Collaborating with Steven Spielberg no less than 25 times - and some guy called George Lucas - those films' musical scores have as much widespread acclaim as the films themselves.
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