A good soundtrack can really make a film

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In my opinion, a lot of the scores by Vangelis are better than the actual films they belong to such asThe Bounty, and Chariots of Fire.

Other films where the music was better than the actual film, IMO are:

Armageddon (Trevor Rabin)
the "Rambo" Films (Jerry Goldsmith)
the Bad Boys films; Speed (Mark Mancina)
The Rock; Cool Runnings; Green Card (Hans Zimmer)
The Perfect Storm; Titanic; Deep Impact (James Horner)
Deep Blue Sea (Mark Mancina/Trevor Rabin)
 
I thought the song 'Let Go' by Frou Frou made the end scene in Garden State sweet but not cheesy and that was really important because otherwise it would've just been another coming-of-age, finding-love story.

And this isn't a scene because this song is played in the credits, but Baz Luhrmann said that Radiohead's 'Exit Music (For A Film)' for Romeo and Juliet is probably the best end-song to a movie, ever. I have to agree. And maybe I'm biased because I'm a huge Radiohead fan, but the lyrics are beautiful and, together with the music, express perfectly the mood and emotion of the moment, the film (which was all the better because I studied it for my Lit O Levels, and I appreciated the movie better).

But if you're talking about scores, original compositions, I'd go with Philip Glass' score in The Hours. It was moving, and perfect for the movie, although I can't pinpoint how exactly because it's been a long time since I saw ithe movie. Also, the music in the background of The Pianist, when Adrien Brody is pretending to play the piano while imagining the music - it was so joyous and because of that, the scene became infinitely more heartbreaking, because he couldn't play the piano for real.
 
I agree on Garden State, I loved the song they used for the ending.

I think Footloose had some great songs on there, always made me want to dance and sing to it.
 
Personally, I love the job that tomandandy did for The Mothman Prophecies. There was always this eerie tension in the air and the score only helped. I actually own the double disc set. One's entirely the score and the other has some songs that were featured in the movie. Well, Mothman is probably my favorite movie score.

Then again...

A Beautiful Mind had a wonderful score. I don't know. I just like movie scores in general.
 
I know we have a favorite soundtrack thread, but this is a different issue.

This is about how a great soundtrack can totally make a mediocre film (or even a good film) better.

I've been obsessively listening to the soundtrack for the recent Pride and Prejudice all day and finally gave in and bought a copy. Since it won't be here for a week, I bought a free trial at Rhapsody (which I will discontinue when the CD comes, so it'll really be a free trial).

Why? Because the soundtrack's awesome, and effectively evoked the mood of the film. In fact, I'm convinced some scenes would have been a lot less effective if it hadn't been for the musical score playing in the background.

That's not always the case - there are even film companies that make movies in which there's no background music (a group I like), but there are times when you just want that extra tune to give you an emotional lift.

I can say that about my all time favorite films, too - Wings of Desire and Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. Both films benefitted greatly from brilliant soundtracks, although arguably they would have been good even without them.

What are some of the films you can think of? I'm not talking about films with good sountracks you like - as I said, we already have a thread for that. I'm talking about films where you really felt the soundtrack carried parts of the movie...like The Piana. Excellent example, and it included original music (which I think is often the criteria for these types of films).
 
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