That Daft Punk Tron: Legacy soundtrack.
The Crow (1994)
Gladiator is definitely up there. That or LOTR
Transformers: The Movie (1986).
- Dare
- The Touch
- the awesome Lions cover of the theme
- and of course, Dare to Be Stupid
There are so many great ones, but the one I think would be irreplaceable is dances with wolves.
Moon by Clint Mansell this soundtrack guided me through hundreds of hours of log reading from support tech days through sysadmin days.
It just falls to the background after a few minutes and becomes trance like.
Paris, Texas. Pure desolate vastness, pain and longing and loneliness. The whole soundtrack is out of this world. Absolute pitch-perfect genius by Ry Cooder setting the tone for what is also a phenomenal film in its own right.
Choosing is too difficult, it all depends on your mood in a given moment.
Some favourite OSTs:
- 2001: A Space Odyssey
- Blade Runner
- Ghost in the Shell 1/2
- Pulp Fiction
- Scarface
- Trainspotting
- Six-String Samurai
- Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
- The Matrix
- The Terminator
- City of God / Cidade de Deus
- StrayDog: Kerberos Panzer Cops / Keruberosu: Jigoku no Banken
- Guest from the Future / Gostya iz budushchego (technically a mini-series)
- The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath! / Ironiya Sudbi, ili si Lehkim Parom
It follows. Disasterpeace did an amazing job on it.
Natural born killers OST
Reservoir Dogs
Tarantino has a good feel for scores in general, but this one is perfect.
Judgment Night - definitely wins in a debate about the biggest disparity between the quality of a film and it’s soundtrack.
Yes, the hip-hop & rock collaboration!
My memory of the film is not so negative, but then:
- I was a sucker for 90s action, especially with a hip-hop angle.
- It’s been three decades since I’ve seen it (but been listening to the soundtrack pretty much ever since).
My favourite mid-90s US heist movie soundtrack was Dead Presidents, a film that didn’t get a sequel but whose soundtrack album was so successful it did!
Admittedly not original compositions, more a “greatest soul hits of the 70s” compilation.
Snatch is a fun one.
π is also very good.
Super Fly, by Curtis Mayfield
When it comes to Blaxploitation soundtracks, Isaac Hayes’s Shaft title track get all the attention, but it’s basically just Ike reading out the elevator pitch for the film over a riff (admittedly, one of the greatest riffs of all time), and the rest of the soundtrack doesn’t hold up nearly as well.
But Super Fly is a whole album’s worth of delving into and exposing the underbelly of life in the big city. A concept album with moving lyrics, great melodies and driving rhythms throughout.
Not my favorite because I don’t really pick favorites but I remember that forgettable vampire movie, the one with Aaliyah, had a pretty good soundtrack. If you like early 2000s rock.