Queen has always been the kind of band that is crying out to be in the theatre. Their entire production was about making the concert a spectacle, so what better next step than to actually make a film based on their music? And while Bohemian Rhapsody does have its fair share of dull moments, there are bound to be many Queen fans that don’t even realise one of their mainline albums is actually a backdoor soundtrack to the movie Highlander.

The movie itself is a fine enough 1980s action flick, but hearing Freddie Mercury singing tunes like ‘Princes of the Universe’ and ‘Gimme the Prize’ feel like they were destined to be used in an action scene that didn’t even exist yet when they were recording. Since they were also refreshed after playing Live Aid, you can feel their excited energy playing together again, even if the lyrics to a song like ‘One Vision’ can vary between awe-inspiring and the most ridiculous turns of phrase anyone has ever heard.

Even if Clancy Brown’s voice does tie it to the film a little bit too much, A Kind of Magic does exactly what any film soundtrack like this should hope to do. Sure, it’s not going to be anywhere near as bombastic as the film, but if it can stand on its own and still manage to kick some ass, it’s pretty much bulletproof.

There are almost an alarming degree of action movies released in the 1990s with soundtracks better than the film. The 1996 Godzilla and Mission Impossible II certainly don’t stand up as true masterpieces of the silver screen today, but whatever company they were working with knew what they were doing when getting people like Metallica and Rage Against the Machine to provide the backdrop. And while Last Action Hero is far from the first Schwarzenegger movie you should check out, it might have the most solid soundtrack out of the action film trend.

Whereas most of the biggest soundtracks from this era usually rely on one or two great songs and pad out the rest of the album with whoever is attached to the label, nearly every other track here is a fantastic deep cut from the artist’s catalogue. While it was a miracle that a band like Def Leppard got a spot on here for ‘Two Steps Behind’ given how much grunge had taken over, there’s actually a pretty eclectic mix of hard rock bands from all over the map here.

There are obvious favourites for soundtracks like AC/DC, but Megadeth’s tune ‘Angry Again’ is among one of their best low lights, and while Alice in Chains had one of the greatest track records in grunge, it’s a crime that they let a song like ‘What the Hell Have I’ turn up on here instead of one their studio albums. It’s nowhere near Dazed and Confused, but anyone remotely interested in hard rock can find a few tunes to love here.

Tom Petty never liked the idea of being a soundtrack curator. A handful of artists like Kendrick Lamar can put together a bunch of artists under one roof, but Petty figured every album that he made needed a little bit more of himself added into the mix. And while She’s the One isn’t the kind of classic rom-com that most people thought, it is home to one of the greatest unofficial Heartbreakers records ever made.

Since Petty had already been working on cutting down Wildflowers around this same time, a lot of what turns up here is the remnants from those sessions. But whereas a collection of odds and ends usually ends with the worst stuff bubbling to the surface, most people are left wondering how the hell tunes like ‘Walls’ and ‘Angel Dream’ didn’t make the cut, especially with Petty’s voice sounding immaculate on both of them.

Even if you’re not ready for a Rachel-era Jennifer Aniston movie, it’s easy to forget all about that when listening to ‘California’ or Carl Wilson’s beautiful voice on ‘Hung Up and Overdue’. There might be a few traces from the movie left in there, but considering Petty’s estate re-released the project as Angel Dream, even they seem to know how good the record is compared to the movie.

In the greater context of Batman movies, Batman Forever is either the film that no one wants to talk about or a case of the Caped Crusader getting a little bit goofy. It wasn’t quite as egregious as what Joel Schumacher would do with the follow-up, but even with Val Kilmer’s performance, the version of Bruce Wayne that ends up onscreen is a far cry from the version he was in the comics. There’s nothing wrong with him getting goofy, but whoever managed the music managed to take things very seriously.

Yes, it’s still a major movie blockbuster, but the fact that Seal made ‘Kiss From a Rose’ for this movie is one of the most fundamentally strange things Hollywood ever spat out. Although one of the decade’s greatest love songs was technically written for Batman, there’s a pretty wide range of songs to be found, whether that’s RZA showing up on a track, The Offspring showing up to make their traditional punk rock goodness, and U2 spitting out one of their best singles from the 1990s in ‘Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me’.

And with everyone from Smashing Pumpkins to Nick Cave to the Flaming Lips rounding things out, this almost feels like a soundtrack that an indie kid dreamed up that happened to manifest itself into existence. Batman may have received a much darker treatment, but only in the 1990s could anyone get this kind of stacked lineup on a record for a movie that can be watched by babies.

The 1980s truly were the golden age when it came to film soundtracks. From the massive movie themes coming to the never ending mixtapes that appeared in nearly every single brat-pack movie, most bands would be just as lucky getting a hit thanks to a film as they were from the radio. So for all of the great work that John Hughes has done for the 1980s fashion trends of the day, how the hell does Valley Girl eclipse everything from The Breakfast Club to Sixteen Candles?

Well, whoever was making this movie about the most Californian people you’ve ever met in your life was clearly an underground music fan. There are some familiar names scattered in there like Men At Work and Psychedelic Furs, but anyone new to underground music would definitely pick this up for legends like Sparks throwing in ‘Angst in My Pants’ , or even the 1995 RHINO release with The Jam and ‘Mickey’ by Toni Basil.

But if there’s one thing that cements this soundtrack in cinema history, it’s gifting the word ‘I Melt With You’, which may as well go down as one of the greatest love songs of the 1980s that never actually managed to make a dent on the charts. The actual soundtrack may have been out of print for years, but the revamped release is the 1980s’ little secret that they never wanted to share.

For as kind as the 1990s were to alternative kids, the hip-hop world was about to get flipped on its head. The 1980s may have peaked with acts like Public Enemy, but once the new school came in in the wake of NWA breaking up, records by Tupac and Biggie Smalls were selling about as well as any Green Day or Metallica project around that time. And while any major fallouts between rappers are firm lines in the sand, Friday gave fans the kind of summer playlist you can hear playing out of someone’s backyard.

Outside of the fact that Ice Cube and Dr Dre got reunited for the record, the best tunes help give a little glimpse into what Craig and Smokey do on a daily basis. Neither of them are necessarily the most outgoing members of society, but listening to them go back and forth listening to Isley Brothers tunes in between Cypress Hill is the perfect kind of stoner-comedy playlist people are looking for.

And while it does have more than a few dips like 2 Live Crew’s entry, no one necessarily needs to be toked up to enjoy this kind of joint. After all, this was the age of the mixtape, and while many gangsta rappers struck fear into the hearts of people, there’s no shame in making some tunes that make people want to bob their head as they waste the day away.

Part of the appeal of Prince was that he could be a jack of all trades. No matter what instrument you put in his hand, he could usually find a way to create a catchy tune out of it, but like his fellow 1980s legends like Madonna, things tended to go a little bit wrong when he got in front of the camera. While there will be no slander against Purple Rain to be found here, Under the Cherry Moon pales in comparison to the immaculate music that he made for the soundtrack.

There are a handful of moments that are mandatory Prince jams like ‘Kiss’, but if you go past the singles, there’s a more sophisticated edge to this album that Purple Rain simply didn’t have. Even though his last soundtrack worked as a much better record, the sort-of-title track ‘Under the Cherry Moon’ is one of the most cinematic moments in his catalogue, and the groove of ‘Mountains’ is nearly impossible to resist.

And while a lot of people are not ready to have this conversation yet, it’s time we all acknowledge that ‘Sometimes It Snows in April’ is a better conclusion song than ‘Purple Rain’ is, or at the very least equally as good any day of the week. Both this film and Purple Rain are both out to do extremely different things, but when stacking their soundtracks next to each other, it’s a much closer call than most people would like to admit.

There’s no accurate way to quantify what the blaxploitation genre had on the film industry at large. Moviegoers simply weren’t ready to see this kind of gritty realism depicted in movies, but looking at a film like Shaft, it’s better when the smooth sound of Isaac Hayes’s voice is guiding the film forward. But rarely has a soundtrack ever been a running commentary as well as what Curtis Mayfield did.

While Super Fly is far from the best blaxploitation movie in the world, getting Mayfield in to come up with the soundtrack was a stroke of genius. Mayfield was never known for tiptoeing around certain issues, and while he may not have agreed with all of the decisions made in the film, songs like ‘Freddie’s Dead’ and ‘Pusherman’ aren’t only catchy songs that help carry the plot forward. They’re also Mayfield talking about how tragic it is that young men fall into this kind of drug trade.

The soul icon wasn’t messing around when asked about the movie, either, saying that the only way for people to clean up the film is to clean up the streets. It’s not exactly a pleasant listen all the way through, and it’s hard to really separate the lyrics from Mayfield’s voice a lot of the time, but the sounds of drug dealers trying to survive in a city that looks down on them have never sounded so sweet before or since.

It’s not out of the question to see the greatest artists of their generation eventually turn towards scoring films. Stewart Copeland has spent his time away from The Police making fantastic scores, and even in the modern age, everyone from Trent Reznor to Jonny Greenwood are almost as well-known for their film work as they are for their actual bands. But has there ever been a more perfect marriage between band and movie as Daft Punk were when making the Tron soundtrack?

The musical cyborgs already sound like they live in the simulated world that the movie takes place in, so why not have them score the entire thing? Although it may have seemed like a decent idea at the time, no one expected them to make tunes that could easily double as one of their mainline studio albums. Even with the association with the film, ‘Derezzed’ has enough exciting moments that would have made it one of the main highlights for Human After All.

And when listening to Random Access Memories, you can tell that they took a lot of the lessons they learned on this soundtrack and put them in the context of their swan song. No, it’s not going to replace any of the greatest pieces of their work, but on the days where Discovery feels a little bit too worn out, this is always a welcome substitute.

Cameron Crowe practically had a musical sixth sense when it came to most of his films. He knew what made a great mixtape from the moment he started working with Rolling Stone as a kid, but no one has done a better job at curating the right classic rock songs into cinematic history like he does. But if he had known what he was doing when creating the soundtrack to Singles, chances are he would have gone down as one of the greatest musical geniuses of his time.

While Singles is a decent Matt Dillon rom-com, one of the main critiques of the film while it was being made is how much underground music was in it. The suits clearly didn’t see what a massive deal grunge would become, but once 1992 rolled around, fans were treated to the greatest album about the Seattle scene that wasn’t technically made by any of the central bands of the scene.

There are a few classic rock appearances by people like Jimi Hendrix, but by bringing in Paul Westerberg for alternative street cred, this is a love letter to everything that made Seattle one of the best music cities of the 1990s, from Alice in Chains’s ‘Would’ to Pearl Jam’s ‘State of Love and Trust’ to Soundgarden’s ‘Birth Ritual’. And with Mudhoney bringing the punk flair to the record, all that’s left is a token song from Nirvana and this would handily be the greatest grunge album ever made.