The Best Movie Musical Scores
Take a Journey to the Core of Film Storytelling – The Musical Score
A film soundscape takes us to all sorts of places and becomes a part of our film watching DNA. Here are some favorites that we could listen to on repeat.
The Juno (2007) soundtrack is an indie rock love fest of catchy tunes that match perfectly to the teen world of high school angst and relationships. It features songs by Kimya Dawson and her bands Antsy Pants and Moldy Peaches. In fact, director Jason Reitman made his choice, based on lead Ellen Page’s recommendation and choice of music. It even won a Grammy Award for Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media. If you loved the movie you’ll love the soundtrack.
Romeo and Juliet’s (1996) soundtrack reached No. 2 on the Billboard charts and produced some hit singles like ‘Lovefool’ by The Cardigans and ‘Kissing You’ by Des’ree. The soundtrack had a sequel that featured the movie’s orchestral score, dialogue from the film and some new tracks. It’s the ultimate in 90s pop culture with hits from Garbage, Everclear and Radiohead, which create the perfect emotional landscape for the ill-fated lovers.
Who can forget the Dirty Dancing (1987) hits like ‘Hungry Eyes’ by Eric Carmen and the legendary ‘Time of My Life’ by Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes. This soundtrack won the hearts of movie fans everywhere and remains a filmic reference that lives on today. Most of the soundtrack is made up of 60s numbers that have us toe tapping and singing along. Everyone’s favorite dancing film somehow manages to transcend generations.
Rock meets pop in the memorable soundtrack for A Star is Born (2018). The Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper combination is pure magic, just like the Bingo Canada offers. The number ‘Shallow’ became a firm favorite on radio airwaves internationally. Cooper and Gaga teamed up with her usual collaborator DJ White Shadow and country musicians like Lukas Nelson add to the soundtrack all about the woes of love and its ups and downs. The soundtrack was nominated for seven Grammy Awards and won Best Film Music at the British Academy Film Awards.
Pulp Fiction (1994) is a retro 60s and 70s musical journey. The cover of the Neil Diamond song ‘Girl, You’ll be a Woman Soon’ climbed high on the Billboard Hot 100 and helped launch the band Urge Overkill, who did the cover. The soundtrack is quite unique as it’s a mixture of songs, dialogue snippets with music and tracks of dialogue alone. What’s interesting is that there was no traditional film score chosen for the movie and it became an eclectic mix of soul, pop and surf music.
The Graduate (1967) is a Simon and Garfunkel extravaganza and the memorable ‘Mrs. Robinson’ number sits firmly in film score history as an important reference. It was actually originally called ‘Mrs Roosevelt’ about Eleanor Roosevelt, but Simon put a unique spin on it to be included in this story. The song ‘The Sound of Silence’ appears three times in the movie and is an example of how the story and the score become one.
