Best-Scored Films

[Fabulin 3,511]

On 7/4/2020 at 6:52 AM, Borodin said:

music fitting the film instead of a discussion of great stand-alone scores.

James Newton Howard's Dinosaur  is a very good if not great standalone film score, but in my eyes, it is foremost distinguished by its professional, minimalist approach to serving the primal emotionality of the film, which makes the music fit the visual and dialogue-led storytelling like a glove, and not feature a single "arguably fitting" flourish or interpretative choice.

 

Quote

“I called Tom Schumacher, who runs our animation department, and told him I think we should give James a story credit on ‘Dinosaur,’ ” says Disney music president Chris Montan".

 

And they immediately offered him two more films.

[Oomoog the Ecstatic 314]

I can't think of a non-musical score more entitled to the success of its film than Titanic. Cuts deeper than anything in the industry

 

 

 

 

Cuts deeper than most music in general.

[Jurassic Shark 12,075]

What about Jaws?

[Bellosh 3,418]

RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK

[Arpy 4,145]

 

I know the Gia haters are gonna hate, but I thought the music for this film was sublime, a great big, symphonic score with themes and motifs and music that was allowed to carry scenes and be heard! 

[Oomoog the Ecstatic 314]

.

[Jurassic Shark 12,075]

2 hours ago, Arpy said:

with themes and motifs

 

Wow!

[Tom Guernsey 2,284]

9 hours ago, Jurassic Shark said:

What about Jaws?

 

Totally agreed, it's a great film, but the score makes it. Interesting (to me at least) that Jaws and the Omen won successive Oscars, both for horror scores (albeit Jaws is closer to the adventure end of things) and both scores which really make the films. The Omen perhaps even more so than Jaws, which would have been pretty terrific anyway, but The Omen is pretty flat without music.

[Jurassic Shark 12,075]

7 hours ago, Borodin said:

It made the movie watchable.

 

Did you say that Raiders is merely watchable?

[Bellosh 3,418]

11 hours ago, Borodin said:

It made the movie watchable. Great score.

 

[Bespin 8,481]

American Graffiti 

[Oomoog the Ecstatic 314]

After watching several of this guy's videos on soundtracks, I have to say this one leaves an impression as one of the best-scored films.

 

 

[GerateWohl 4,368]

I habe to day it again. Planet of the Apes by Jerry Goldsmith made this movie credible as a Science fiction film.

[Tom Guernsey 2,284]

10 hours ago, Oomoog the Ecstatic said:

After watching several of this guy's videos on soundtracks, I have to say this one leaves an impression as one of the best-scored films.

 

 

Quite agree. His hysterical style of narration is a little bit off-putting (but hey, that's YouTube I guess), especially when so much of the content is really good. This one, in particular, is absolutely superb. I'd love to ask Don Davis how accurate the analysis is... like so much musical analysis, I'm always left with the nagging feeling of people connecting dots that aren't there, but a lot of what he says about the Matrix would be pretty coincidental if it was just a fluke if that's how it was written.

 

His analysis of the opening of the first How to Train Your Dragon is also brilliant. I guess you don't get a suite like opening cue which lays out most of the major themes for the film like that (not including overtures), but it never crossed my mind how rare they are.

[Bespin 8,481]

Best scored movies?

 

Out of Africa

E.T.

Psycho

Star Wars

Empire Strikes Back

 

I deliberately excluded Jaws, because I love the movie and I love the score, but... In Some scenes, the music is a bit "too much"...

[Naïve Old Fart 9,527]

On 7/4/2020 at 11:58 AM, Naïve Old Fart said:

JAWS

No, it isn't 

[Oomoog the Ecstatic 314]

On 03/07/2020 at 9:52 PM, Oomoog the Ecstatic said:

a composer being irreplaceable to the fabric of a movie.

 

I can't think of many soundtracks that fit this description better than Aladdin. More than most films or Disney films, if you removed the music you'd be watching a very different movie. I felt the background themes pivotal to the script and its flow and characters, Menken's unique emphasis of major harmonization and his specific instrumentation.

 

 

[Datameister 2,042]

Musicals are tough. By definition, the music has to be deeply interwoven with the film's identity. Seems to me like a separate (though related) conversation.

 

Pondering this topic that I somehow missed back in July...I feel like there are numerous questions you can ask about a score.

 

• Did the composer do the job they were hired to do and write music that suits the film? In my mind, this is a relatively uninteresting question because there are soooooo many scores for which the answer is yes.
• How much does the score change the tone or meaning of the film? Much more interesting. Most scoring exists to support and heighten what's already there in the film. That's not a bad thing, but then you get the occasional score that really exhibits a certain tension with its film because it actually alters your understanding of it in some way. There Will Be Blood comes to mind as one example. I also just watched 2001 and while that's not scored per se, the musical choices totally transform the film.
• How unique or surprising are the composer's choices? Would another composer/director pair be likely to arrive at broadly similar results with the same film? If you really look at BTTF, you've got a small-scale teen comedy with some fun sci-fi silliness. Scoring it like a grand blockbuster adventure in the tradition of Star Wars was probably not the most obvious solution but it totally works. Or consider the first Pirates of the Caribbean. At that time, it seemed like a foregone conclusion that a pirate movie got a pirate score. Going with the Zimmer/RCP approach rubbed some folks the wrong way, but it certainly wasn't the easy default choice for that genre and it certainly paid off with audiences overall.
• How iconic/recognizable is the score? Williams has certainly written his fair share of scores that do well here, though he's far from the only one. This, of course, is also a function of things like the nature of the film, how repetitive the score is, and how the audio is mixed. And while it does matter, it's not required for a score to succeed. If you play a bit of Ira Newborn's Ferris Bueller score for the average moviegoer who's seen the film, I think the chances of them recognizing it are slim. The chances of them walking out of the theater humming the score are even slimmer. Yet I believe the score is just perfect for that film. The decision to have it take the film seriously makes it all the more hilarious. Oh yeah...beautiful.
• What percentage of the film's success is attributable to the score?  I agree that Titanic is a good example of this percentage being relatively high. Take away that singularly sentimental Horner touch and the film just doesn't get into your head quite as much.
• Does the music ever distract from the film itself? This is subjective, as is the question of whether this is a good or bad thing. Watching the Star Wars OT these days, I find that the music actually does distract me at times. The writing is so rich, so bold, so good for the sake of its own goodness that it does split my attention from time to time. Many people would say this is a sign of a score not doing a good job of staying out of the way. I happen to really enjoy that aspect of it as a fan of movie music, if not as a fan of movies. At the other end of the spectrum, in television, I think of Breaking Bad as an instance of scoring that never ever commits this "sin." Instead, it does exactly what that show needs it to do but completes eschews the limelight - and in the process, it both elevates my views on the show and ensures I'll never listen to the music on its own.