black power
Shaft
1971 - With this film, Isaac Hayes planted the flag of black music on the cinema. And the soul music was expanded to a new model of instrumental possibilities.
Across the 110th Street
1971 - With instrumental tracks and songs, Bobby Womack and J. J. Johnson made history with one of the most intenses soundtracks on the birth o black cinema.
Sweet Sweetback Baadaass Song
1971 - Melvin Van Peebles, as an authentic outsider, rebel, gave his scathing message, directing, acting and writing the chaotic music for the film of his life.
Superfly
1972 - The right place for the anti-drugs messagens of Curtis Mayfield. Grade A music for B movie.
Trouble Man
1972 - Curious instrumental adventure for one of the greatest volcal talents of soul. One interesting alternative in creation for Marvin Gaye.
Coffy
1973 - Roy Ayers and his sofisticated vibraphone give a jazzy touch to one of the best films of the black power cinema.
Black Ceasar
1973 - Intstrumental soul and funk by James Brown would only make sense as a soundtrack. Besides that, the Soul Brother N. 1 could not stay out of this selection.
Truck Turner
1974 - The creative peak of Isaac Hayes soundtracks. It surpses Shaft on the intention instrumental expansion and concludes the golden age of black cinema.
classical
King Kong
1933 - The silent cinema already had his original music, but with King Kong, composer Max Steiner ignited a new concept of sincrony and dramatic support.
1935 - Franz Waxman experienced several music possibilities here. From humor to macabre Bride predicted lots of things to come.
Alexander Nevsky
1938 - Literally classic the music by Sergei Prokofiev. Director Eisenstein edited many sequences after the music was done for better sincrony of image and music.
Gone With the Wind
1939 - Again Max Steiner. Possibly the most famous musical theme of cinema history. A soundtrack adequated to the excesses as to economic passages.
Citizen Kane
1940 - A new era of ambitious expression begins with the music of Bernard Herrmann for Kane. A work that expanded the musical possibilities for a movie soundtrack.
Rebecca
1940 - The music lives as a character in Rebecca. Franz Waxman´s main theme haunts the film as a musical specter.
Streetcar Named Desire
1951 - Alex North includes jazz elements in the tradional symphonic comment. Jazz music is the antagonist to the idealized world that Blanche will never recover.
Spartacus
1960 - On the course of the symphonic creation for films, Alex North´s Spartacus is a simbolic end of a cicle. Greatness and barbaric, but also capable of suggest emotional and intimate moments.
Alien 3
1992 - Elliot Goldenthal makes the orchestra souds as never heard before is its distorted expression and electronic adittions.
Heat
1995 - Elliot Goldenthal and others artists make up the fragmented sound panel so fondly to director Michael Mann. A catalogue of asseptic, contemporary sounds, with enphasis on guitars.
Broken Arrow
1995 - Hans Zimmer and his mix of orchestra, rock and electronic sounds. The approach would be influencial on all the contemporary production.
The 5th Element
1995 - Eric Serra acumulates references on music, tecnology and cultures for Luc Besson´s pop extravaganza.
Matrix
1999 - The most representative soundtrack of its era. Don Davis assumes the sound amalgamation techno-rock-symphonic as the equivalento to the images.
Final Fantasy
2001 - Elliot Goldenthal return to the classical orchestral Strauss style as a compensation for the production´s synthetic appearence.
Gravity
2013 - On the contemporary proposal to include diverse reference on a movie soundtrack, Steve Price included one unespected and revolutionary element: the silence.
police
On Dangerous Ground
1951 - Like the film, Bernard Herrmann´s music moves from shadows to light and salvation on the protagonist´s ruthless life. Drama and emotionality alternats in his path.
Touch of Evil
1958 - Jazz, rock´n´roll and blues make more intense the marginal atmosphere of the classical drama directed by Orson Welles.
The French Connection
1971 - Don Ellis in a modernist jazz soundtrack that unfortunatelly was extremelly trimmed on the final sound edition. One of the most original soundtracks ever done to films.
Dirty Harry
1971 - Lalo Schifrin surpasses himself on the jazz use of his fore works. With Dirty Harry the music´s nervous tension and pulse only parallels on the fierciness of the protagonist.
La Polizia Incrimina La Legge Assolve
1973 - Based on popular models of rock and jazz, brothers Guido and Maurizio de Angelis established a new model to european police movies.
The Untouchables
1987 - With its percussive pianos and expressive harmonicas, Ennio Morricone did the sum up of all his production to policial movies.
Black Rain
1991 - Joining diverse ingredients, Hans Zimmer reoriented the soundtracks of his time. Orchestra, eletronics, synthetic textures and themes from pop artists make the fragmented culture of Black Rain.
electronic
Forbidden Planet
1956 - Exploring a large range of electronic sounds generated by independent circuits, couple Louis and Bebe Barron composed one of the most original and bizarre soundtracks in cinema history.
Solaris
1972 - For Andrei Tarkovski, composer Andrei Artemiev writed the first great soundtrack on electronic ways, antecipating lots of ideas after heard on popular music and cinema.
Sorcerer
1977 - Climatic and under the surface. Tangerine Dream music entrails on the movie expanding sound possibilities. Turning even more scary the suicide adventure of the truckers.
MIdnight Express
1978 - Contrary to the concept that electronic music is synthetic, has no emotion or feeling, the soundtrack of Giorgio Moroder display two of the most beautiful themes of its time.
Firestarter
1984 - Following pop models, the soundtrack of Tangerine Dream included all that was techno-pop characteristic of its period as a summary. Literally a classic.
Phenomena
1985 - LIke Firestarter, the music of Goblin followed popular models to score one more aesthetic nightmare of director Dario Argento.
Pusher
2010 - English double Orbital use the dancing rythms and beats as emotional propellants for the movie. Unexpected, unsuspected and genial.
horror
Horror of Dracula
1958 - Producer Hammer probably ignited the self-referent cinema. The movies that worked on its own mithology. James Bernard´s music is a sum of gothic and orchestral models of immediate functionality.
Psycho
1960 - Strictly speaking, Psycho is a thriller, but Bernard Herrmann`s fancy music is an assault to the senses wich reaches the audience physically.
Rosemary´s Baby
1968 - Antagonistic atmospheres of relaxation and tension compose the soundtrack of Krizstof Komeda in a set that works in subtle ways avoiding cheap tricks.
The Omen
1976 - Jerry Goldsmith done history with his satanic elation chants. Similarly to the movie´s narrative that suggests the evil presence, the music infiltrates on the the film´s structure.
Suspiria
1976 - Group Goblin revisits the Psycho concept of soundtracking numbing the audition with its hypnotic whispers. Influence of progressive rock in one of Dario Argento classics.
Nosferatu
1978 - Group Popol Vuh produced a music that works as equivalent to the cadaverous cinematography of Herzog´s film. One of the most impressive, spooky and spectral soundtracks ever done.
Paura Nella Cittá Dei Morti Viventi
1981 - Summing elements of rock and electronic, composer Fabio Frizzi delivers one of the best soundtracks of the cinema splatter. Sonic claustrophoby for a cinema of no borders, no principles, no limits.
The Fly
1987 - Howard Shore recover the symphonic language in a soundtrack filled with emotive, dramatic and tragic nuances. Thriller and horror in orchestral speech.
Basic
thriller
Vertigo
1958 - Obsessive as the mais character investigations, the score by Bernard Herrmann , just as Ascenseur Pour Lechafaud, is one the finest and effective associations of music and image ever done in cinema.
Cape Fear
1962/1991 - Intrusive and menacing, Bernard Herrmann´s music is clearly consequential of Psycho. Possibly the definitive work of Herrmann for the thrillers. Recorded again for the remake by Martin Scorses of 1991.
Il Gatto a Nove Code
1971 - The musical opposites meet in giallo soundtracks. Contrasting estrenuous atmospheres of suspense and beautiful romantic themes, Morricone create a model to be followed on many euro-thrillers
Don´t Look Now
1973 - Lyricism, romance and evocative themes. Pino Donaggio´s music antecipates the screenplay as an musical warning. A lament foreseeing the events.
Le Locataire
1976 - Undecided and suspicious, Phillipe Sarde´s music avoids to say all it could. Recluse and introspective it is the protagonist´s voice in a world that have no intention to welcome him.
Halloween
1977 - Minimalist and repetitious, the music made by director John Carpenter himself is claustrophobic and with one of the most famous themes in cinema history.
Mulholland Drive
1999 - In another partnership with director David Lynch, composer Angelo Badalamenti refines and deepens his dark and menacing music. Mulholland Drive is one the most enigmatic moments of the composer.
western
Shane
1953 - Romantic, nostalgic and epic, Victor Young´s music serves perfectly to directro´s George Stevens mythical revision of the western. The heroic and idealized west as seen through the eyes of the boy Joey.
The Big Country
1958 - One of the few things that work properly on William Wyler´s film is the music of Gerome Moross. Its main theme picks up perfectly the epic and adventurous sense of the cinema western.
The Alamo
1960 - Including visible mexican influence, the music of Dimitri Tiomkim would be very influent. The theme Greenleaves of Summer is one the most beautiful of the cinema.
The Magnificent Seven
1960 - Even more than Alamo and Treasure of Sierra Madre the mariachi reference and heroic dinamism are the basis for the famous Elmer Bernstein´s musical score.
The Good the Bad and the Ugly
1967 - Ennio Morricone on the most emblematic moment of the spaguetti western. All the musical ingredients that made the genre famous are here refined and expanded by its own creator.
Bandolero
1968 - The influence of italian soundtracks for westerns finally enters the american production in one of the most entertaining works of Jerry Goldsmith.
Once Upon a Time in the West
1969 - The same mythical revisionism of Shane is enlarged on the operatic west of Sergio Leone. And Morricone´s music works essential function here. This time, the boy Joey is everyone of us.
science fiction
Journey to the Center of the Earth
1956 - Grandeur and fascination in one of the most entertaining soundtracks that Bernard Herrmann worked for fantasy cinema.
Fantastic Voyage
1966 - Modern and experimental music by composer Leonard Rosenman. On Fantastic Voyage the american cinema started to hear what modernists were doing at least 40 years in classical vanguard.
Planet of the Apes
1968 - Also as in Fantastic Voyage, Jerry Goldsmith oriented to modernism on this essentially percussive soundtrack. The Sacre Du Printemps of cinema.
Star Wars
1977 - Through John Williams hands, the symphonic sound was recovered for films. A bestseller and one of the most successful soundtracks to plunge the audiences on the film fantasy.
Star Trek
1979 - Majestic and adventurous, Jerry Goldsmith uses the colorful sound orchestral to follow the stelar advenure that, as Star Wars, would become on international instituition.
Blade Runner
1983 - Of several possibilities turned available by electronics, Vangelis used it all on Ridley Scott´s cult movie. Detailed and refined, it maturated the use of electronic music on the cinema.
Matrix
1999 - Techno-pop-symphonic extravaganza by Don Davis. Included in two basic lists: here and as a contemporary reference.
contemporary
Newcomers
cult
The Abominable Dr Phibes
1971 - Nostalgia, humor, comic stripes, pulp romance, and a evocative soundtrack by Basil Kirchin. The Amarcord of horror movies.
The Wicker Man
1971 - Powerfully evocative with its celtic themes, the music of Paul Giovanni is a consumated cult for its atmosphere and organic feel. One of the most original and respected thrillers from britsh cinema.
Macbeth
1972 - The group Third Ear Band was an alternative rock band and Roman Polanski is always interested in unusual soundtrack for his movies. But never, before or after, we heard a macabre sound delirium as here.
El Topo
1972 - Surreal music? In El Topo, Alejandro Jodorowsky takes the delirant aesthetic of spaguetti western and expand it. Also compose its soundtrack including, folk, lyricism and humor.
Planete Sauvage
1973 - The remarkable animation of Rene Laloux had also a memorable music. Jazz and psychedelism composed by Alan Goraguer sustain the hypnotic ambience of the movie.
Martin
1977 - Donald Rubisntein composed one unusual fusion of jazz and gothic climates to this great George Romero thriller/drama. As every cult piece, a work unparalleled.
Possession
1981 - The bizarre and exhaustive atmospheres of Andrzej Zulawsky´s film owes a lot to Andrzej Korzinski´s music. The main theme is capable to suggest lyricism somewhere in the distorted ambience.
jazz
The Man With the Golden Arm
1956 - Elmer Bernstein make the jazz sound caustic and restless for Frank Machine´s life on the edge. Between salvation and perdition Bernetin´s jazz is the warning siren.
Ascenseur Pour Lechafaud
1957 - One of the most fortunate associations of music and image in cinema history. The nocturnal music of Miles Davis and the images of Louis Malle are a truly period icon.
I Want To Live
1958 - Johnny Mandel achieved a new field of expression for jazz and for films with this soundtrack. Equivalent in its time to Herrmann´s Citizen Kane.
Anatomy of a Murder
1958 - With his unstopable search for multiple resources and musical expression, Duke Ellington did in Anatomy of a Murder possibly the greatest jazz work of the cinema.
In the Heat of the Night
1967 - Quincy Jones explores blues and jazz in a soundtrack inserted in its social-political moment. Starting point for the black power cinema of the next decade.
Bullit
1968 - Lalo Schifrin rewrites the jazz as support to action and suspense effect. Main influence for futures productions.
Three Days of the Condor
1975 - The elegant soft-jazz of Dave Grusin meant a cicle end on cinematographic jazz course.