5 Movies With Incredible Original Soundtracks
If you enjoyed Challengers’ brilliant score, here are five other films with remarkable soundtracks to add to your watchlists.
A couple of weeks ago, I, like most of the rest of the world, watched Challengers. There’s a lot to like about the film, much of which I mentioned in my review, and in the time that has passed since I watched Challengers, I’ve found myself revisiting its lustrous original score.
If there is one thing in Guadagnino’s latest movie that is as good – if not even better – than Zendaya’s excellent performance, it is Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ score, which makes the better parts of the film so, so good.
It’s not just that it’s a solid score. What sets it apart from so many other great original soundtracks is how perfectly it echoes the movie’s vibe. It does more than just make some scenes more suspenseful. It gives the movie its personality, all the while augmenting the intensity that underpins Challengers’ latter half. It’s honestly a pretty monumental achievement, and the film’s score really stands apart from a lot of the other great ones that have come out in the last year or so. I’m glad heaps of people have recognised it as such and that the praise for Challengers’ score has been universal because it really makes the film.
Constantly vibing to Challengers’ excellent score over the last fortnight also got me to revisit some of my favourite ever film soundtracks. Those rare, utterly beguiling, incredible original scores that underpin the vibe of and exuberate the essence of the film they were made for, which prompted me to write about five films (you know I love a list) with utterly breathtaking scores without which the movies in question wouldn’t be half as good.
Apocalypse Now
Apocalypse Now is one of the most revered movies of all time. To many, it is Francis Ford Copolla’s greatest-ever film, and it’s not hard to see why. The movie is a visual spectacle. A gritty and horrific (anti) war film – one of very few major movies from the time to be critical of the US Military’s conduct in Vietnam – which, thanks to a 2019 ‘final cut’ restoration and re-release, looks better than scores of films that come out today, despite first gracing theatres over 40 years ago, in 1979.
The reasons Apocalypse Now continues to endure and make profound impacts on so many even today is because of its phenomenal sound design, top-tier filmmaking, cinematography and pacing; but crucially, it is through the film’s perturbing original score, composed by Copolla himself, alongside his father Carmine Copolla, which creates a chilling backdrop to much of the harrowing events that take place for the best part of the three-hours Apocalypse Now’s final cut runs for, that the film maintains its unrelenting intensity. The movie’s brilliant filmmaking would not be as hard-hitting without its terrific original score.
Ironically, the score for this film was originally supposed to be composed by the renowned American composer David Shire; however, Shire and Copolla had a falling out, which led the acclaimed director, alongside his father, to take responsibility for the movie’s score.
Would Shire, who won an Oscar for his work on Norma Rae, and has composed original music for movies like Zodiac as well as scores of TV Series – he has five Emmy nods – have managed to create a score as good as Copolla’s? Probably not, and that says all that needs to be said about how great Apocalypse Now’s score is.
Brokeback Mountain
Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain, starring Jake Gyllenhaal (Jack) and the late Heath Ledger (Ennis) in the best performance of his career, embodies one of the best and most powerful final scenes in contemporary cinema.
A scene that is as wistful and backbreaking as it is because of the film’s captivating story, adapted from Annie Proulx’s short novel of the name, Ledger’s brilliance as an actor, and, of course, the film’s breathtaking original soundtrack, composed by the maestro Gustavo Santaolalla, which reaches it’s devastating, forceful peak during the movie’s ending.
But the ending is not the only time Santaolalla’s brilliant soundtrack shines.
Brokeback Mountain’s story is told against the backdrop of predominantly simple acoustic guitar arrangements, complemented by more subtle violin and cello arrangements – as is Santaolalla’s style – to paint a beautiful yet isolating portrait of the American countryside and mirror the themes of Jack and Ennis’ story, for which Santaolalla won the Oscar for Best Original Score.
Interstellar
To avoid the obvious choices, I didn’t want to include a Hans Zimmer-scored Christopher Nolan film on this list, but Interstellar’s soundtrack is so good that I simply couldn’t not mention it.
It’s hard to rank his movies, but my favourite Nolan film is Interstellar – not because it’s necessarily his best, but because it’s the film that’s most his. It has an essence, a style, and a personality that very few movies do, in large part because of its phenomenal score, composed by probably the single greatest film composer of our time.
Cornfield Chase, No Time For Caution, and S.T.A.Y are just some of the works of art made for the film that continue to maintain an enduring place among the most revisited film songs in the world. These tracks, as well as scores of other phenomenal ones, all heighten Interstellar’s already jaw-dropping filmmaking and storytelling.
Interstellar would not be a beloved modern classic that continues to regularly screen to packed audiences in independent theatres globally ten years after its release if it weren’t for its absolutely astonishing score.
Schindler’s List
One of the greatest films ever made, Steven Spielberg’s haunting Holocaust tale is one of the most horrifying movies you can witness, in large part because of its frightening, unforgettable soundtrack.
When composer John Williams was approached by Spielberg to compose the soundtrack for Schindler’s List, he was sceptical. “You need a better composer than me for this film,” he told Spielberg, to which the multi-Oscar-winning director responded: “I know, but they’re all dead!”
It isn’t difficult to see why Williams was so hesitant to score a film as monumental, harrowing and distressing as Schindler’s List, but his score, which employs sorrow and haunting violin arrangements paired with choir and the traditional Eastern European Cymbalom, with melancholic orchestral arrangements in the backdrop, manages to do justice to – even elevate – the heavy and terrifying story Schindler’s List tells.
Spielberg’s best film is an example of just how significant music can be in amplifying a film’s intensity – in this instance, making it even more terrifying to witness the brutal depiction of some of the most atrocious crimes in human history.
Oldboy
Oldboy is a cult classic. It embodies one of the most well-shot sequences in contemporary cinema and has an absolutely jaw-dropping plot twist, both of which are as hard-hitting and memorable as they are because of the film’s superb score, composed by Jo Yeong-wook, that accompanies them as they unfold. A score that is, in my opinion, the single best original soundtrack composed for any movie I’ve ever seen.
Unlike the other films on this list, Oldboy’s score also makes its way directly into its plot. Not only does it serve to amplify the intensity of the movie, but, in a way, it becomes the film itself. Oldboy’s story and its soundtrack are inseparable. The film wouldn’t work without its score, for it defines the ghastliness of Oldboy and plays a huge role in making Park Chan-wook’s iconic movie one of the most uniquely incredible cinematic experiences you can have.
Cries and Whispers, an instrumental track from Oldboy’s score, in particular, is also probably the single best composition ever made for a film and stands as an excellent piece of music outside of its role in underpinning Oldboy’s singularly gritty essence, too.
Such is the significance of its score that I couldn’t cap off this list with anything other than Park’s epic revenge thriller.
There are loads of other great examples of some absolutely brilliant soundtracks composed for movies. La La Land, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Harry Potter films, and classics like The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly immediately come to mind; however, since you would probably immediately recognise the brilliance of their soundtracks, I’ve instead gone with some of the films that – despite being lauded critically and commercially – have incredible soundtracks that are not appreciated as much as they should be.