10 Best Movie Soundtracks of All Time, Ranked
If a movie wants to have music (and most movies do), then there are two main options. A film can have a score, which is specifically composed for the work it’s attached to – see Ennio Morricone with The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and John Williams with Star Wars, for two very prominent and iconic examples. And then a film can also employ a soundtrack, which is made up of various pre-existing songs.
There can be a bit of a grey line when it comes to musicals, which might have songs written for them, rather than a score in the traditional sense, namely, those that are original/non-stage musicals. Or a film can have a mix of a score and some pre-existing songs that make up a soundtrack, as was the case with The Crow, and some of the examples outlined below. What matters here, though, is that these soundtracks are all pretty incredible, memorable, and sometimes even more impressive – as collections of music – than the rest of the film they’re attached to/compiled for.
10
‘Drive’ (2011)
To the shock and horror of no one, there is indeed driving in Drive, since it’s about a getaway driver who’s used by criminals pulling off heists, but what is a little more surprising is how good the music is here. Drive evokes certain things about the 1980s, and has a pacing that feels a bit 1970s, but it doesn’t try to directly copy either era, and similarly, the music sounds quite ‘80s, but is more modern and intentionally evocative of the era.
But Drive is also worth considering here because it wouldn’t feel nearly as iconic or memorable without the use of tracks like “Nightcall” by Kavinsky, “Under Your Spell” by Desire, and “A Real Hero” by College/Electric Youth. Those songs – plus some others – have all become intertwined with the movie, and its images, and those visuals really do pop all the more when backed by the songs selected.
9
‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ (2014)
If you lived through 2014, maybe you found people were a bit too obsessed with the soundtrack for the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie, titled Awesome Mix Vol. 1, but it was something special at the time. The Marvel Cinematic Universe had been pretty well-established by that point, but the music (outside some AC/DC used for the original Iron Man) wasn’t usually anything to write home about, at least until James Gunn did his thing with this 2014 film.
Having some easy-to-like pop/rock classics contrasting with the weirdness of Guardians of the Galaxy made for an interesting mix, and maybe it also had the effect of ensuring the super out-there and cosmic stuff was more digestible. You could say it loses points for just picking songs from lots of heavy-hitters, but eh, it uses the likes of “Hooked on a Feeling” (Blue Swede), “Moonage Daydream” (David Bowie), “I’m Not in Love” (10cc), and “I Want You Back” (the Jackson 5) perfectly, so that’s okay.
8
‘(500) Days of Summer’ (2009)
There’s a good deal of anger and angst in (500) Days of Summer, but it’s not without some insights surrounding the ups and downs (mostly downs) of love. And, hey, if you don’t like romantic dramedies, or you don’t like this particular romantic dramedy, then at least you’ve got a fantastic soundtrack to enjoy here, and you know you’re in good hands early on when the opening credits perfectly use the rather perfect “Us” by Regina Spektor.
You know you’re in good hands early on when the opening credits perfectly use the rather perfect Regina Spektor track, “Us.”
Perhaps infamously (at least if you’re too online and knowledgeable about memes), there are also some tracks by the Smiths here (namely, “There Is a Light That Never Goes Out” and “Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want”). Also, the Temper Trap, Simon & Garfunkel, and even a cover of what could well be the best Pixies song, “Here Comes Your Man,” so the soundtrack is undeniably on point.
7
‘Magnolia’ (1999)
If you’re after a great drama, you certainly get that with Magnolia, and you also get a ton of drama, since it’s three hours long and shines a light on a bunch of troubled people who are all, in their own ways, having difficult days. Well, they’re having the same difficult day, because Magnolia takes place over a fairly short amount of time, but feels expansive because there are so many characters and storylines at once.
It’s an unusual and surprisingly tense epic of sorts, and maybe the acting and Paul Thomas Anderson’s somewhat showy style stand out most, but Aimee Mann’s songs are also pivotal to Magnolia working as well as it does. It feels like they were written for the movie, but only two songs were, so it’s more of a soundtrack than anything, given that there are mostly pre-existing songs here. Oh, and two excellently used Supertramp needle drops, too; they certainly don’t hurt.
6
‘Almost Famous’ (2000)
Since Almost Famous is about a teenager who loves music and has aspirations of becoming a rock journalist, it would be a little disappointing if the whole thing played out without much by way of memorable music. The rock band he’s tasked with following and covering, Stillwater, is a fictional one, but Almost Famous does use countless other pre-existing songs by real-life artists throughout its duration.
At a little over two hours, it’s not exactly a long movie, but the length of the soundtrack might lead you to believe it was, since the compilation runs for over 70 minutes. Also, it’s really only a taste of some of the songs heard in Almost Famous, as there are well over 30 other songs that weren’t included on the soundtrack. Sure, you don’t hear these 50-ish songs in their entirety or anything (otherwise, the movie would probably have to be longer than Lawrence of Arabia), but they do all technically appear in the film, and there are honestly too many noteworthy artists whose music is contained within to list them all, or list even just a selection.
5
‘The Wanderers’ (1979)
The Wanderers is one of the best coming-of-age movies of all time, and also one of the most underrated/overlooked. It takes place during the early 1960s, and so the music chosen obviously had to reflect that time period, and transport you, as a viewer, back there and everything, and it really worked in this regard. Also, quite a few artists here have more than one song featured in the soundtrack, including the Four Seasons, the Shirelles, and Dion.
Every song fits the film, and the soundtrack does also stand on its own without the movie, as just a strong compilation of punchy and approachable pop from the early 1960s. If you watch The Wanderers now, there’s a good chance you’re someone who wasn’t alive back during the time the film was set, but the way the film’s made – and the way the accompanying soundtrack sounds – might well make you feel nostalgic for that era regardless.
4
‘Goodfellas’ (1990)
There’s another director who’ll be mentioned in a bit (initials Q. and T.) who’s probably more well known for his film’s soundtracks than Martin Scorsese, but Scorsese is still an absolute pro at the whole thing. Well, maybe there are other people who assist in picking the music, and some of it might come down to Thelma Schoonmaker, who’s edited almost everything Scorsese’s directed since Raging Bull, but still.
Anyway, the Scorsese film that uses pre-existing music the best would have to be Goodfellas (while the film of his with the best music overall might well be The Last Temptation of Christ, thanks to that incredible Peter Gabriel-composed score). The use of music – and so much of it – adds a great deal to the frenzied pace of Goodfellas, and its undeniable style, since all the tracks used add energy and are one of many components of the film that keep it barreling forward at pretty much all times.
3
‘High Fidelity’ (2000)
Like Almost Famous, High Fidelity was released in 2000 and has a narrative that revolves around music quite a lot, since the main character here is the owner of a record store. It’s funny how that shows how out of step he was in an era when people bought CDs a lot of the time, but now, a couple of decades on, record stores have become popular again with a bit of a resurgence, so that changes things a bit.
Anyway, much of High Fidelity is set inside that record store, and the protagonist rarely shuts up about music, so you end up with an eclectic soundtrack that features the likes of the Chemical Brothers, Elton John, the Velvet Underground, Queen, Elvis Costello, the Kinks, and Bob Dylan, among many others. Oh, and Bruce Springsteen! He shouldn’t be forgotten, especially since the Boss himself also has a pretty fun minor role in this, playing (an apparition of) himself.
2
‘Donnie Darko’ (2001)
To the credit of Richard Kelly’s bizarre Southland Tales, it does have some good music, which might go some way to demonstrating that the soundtrack assembled for Donnie Darko was no fluke. Though, at the same time, the Donnie Darko soundtrack is superior, and how could it not be, when it contains songs from artists like Echo & the Bunnymen, Joy Division, The Church, Tears for Fears, and Duran Duran?
And speaking of Tears for Fears, Donnie Darko features the band’s song, “Head Over Heels,” but does perhaps more memorably feature a cover of one of Tears for Fears’ songs, “Mad World,” sung by Gary Jules. It makes the anxious yet energetic original far more somber, which maybe reduces some of the impact and makes it all a bit more obvious, but it’s also transformed into one hell of a ballad in any event, and its use in Donnie Darko is undoubtedly striking.
1
‘Pulp Fiction’ (1994)
It felt a little hard snubbing some other Quentin Tarantino movies here, because his films tend to have consistently great soundtracks. Or, if you’re talking The Hateful Eight, that one actually has an original score by Ennio Morricone (the one and only score he won an Academy Award for). But to single out the best of the best, it has to be Pulp Fiction, which selected and used songs so well that many of them are hard to hear nowadays without associating them with the film.
“Misirlou” is perfect for the opening credits, “Girl, You’ll Be a Woman Soon” is ideal for the Mia Wallace portion of the film, and then “Comanche” is used in a way that makes an already horrific scene featuring Bruce Willis and Ving Rhames so much worse. The soundtrack could’ve been just whatever, and Pulp Fiction still might well have been a classic, but the music-related decisions do elevate an already excellent film further.
