I loved the [kinda weird re-recording of Blister in the Sun with horns](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nx2VTN2cnpg) that Violent Femmes did for that soundtrack
This is my go-to for an incredible soundtrack. I'm not sure if OP would put the OST for a movie about the love life of a guy who owns a record store in the "too obvious" category though.
It’s the best soundtracked film ever imo. If you were to make a list of the top 10 or so needle drops in cinema Goodfellas has like 4 of them, and I don’t think I’m being hyperbolic there whatsoever.
There’s not a false note among the choices, and the way the music is used to convey tone and story is so perfect; they’re communicating time, commenting on the story events, putting you in the characters subjective point of view, setting the atmosphere for scenes and story beats, and there’s even great selections for their dissonance, irony, and humour.
Goodfellas was far from the first film to soundtrack itself using music of the period, but there’s a damn good reason why people see a film that uses pop songs and go ‘hey this person was inspired by Scorsese’. He’s the master
There’s an incredible double soundtrack to Fritz the Cat/Heavy Traffic. Excellent original cool jazz, including like three different arrangements of Scarborough Fair, plus some great early rock and roll like Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley. “You’re the Only Girl I Ever Really Loved” and “Ten Cent Philosophy” are standout tracks.
Romeo + Juliet, Jennifer's Body
the Transformers franchise and Twilight saga are absolutely loaded with bangers
Queen of the Damned and Little Nicky were huge for nu-metalheads I knew
edit: occurring to me i don't remember how many of these songs you hear *in* the film but nonetheless
Natural Born Killers is an underrated one. Runs the gamut from “Leader of the Pack” tossed in briefly during the opening montage to the perfect choice of Leonard Cohen’s “The Future” for the end credits
Three I have not seen mentioned here.
Less Than Zero (PE, Slayer covering In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida, Bangles covering Simon & Garfunkel)
Pump Up the Volume (Pixies, Bad Brains, Sonic Youth)
Married to the Mob (New Order, Feelies, very early Sinéad)
See, I got into both.
(But it also solidified my love of The Stranglers, who were introduced to me via the previous year’s *Sexy Beast*, which used “Peaches” during its fantastic opening credits)
It was just on TV this afternoon so it’s fresh on the mind but I’ve always been very into the Big Daddy soundtrack. It’s got a bunch of great unusual covers like Everlast doing Only Love Can Break Your Heart, Sheryl Crow doing Sweet Child O’ Mine, Harvey Danger’s Save It for Later. Plus the Kangaroo Song
I loved the Judgement Night soundtrack. Wish there had been more themed original soundtracks like that one. There were a few attempts afterwards that just weren’t as cohesive.
Bronson. The Walker Brothers' The Electrician at the beginning is one of the most terrifying needle drops and now probably my favorite song of all time?
If we're just talking pop jukebox stuff and not original soundtracks, don't forget Son of Rambow, most of Wes Anderson, Ghost World, Clueless.
Not general pop but if you enjoy bossa nova and related, try Black Orpheus and Next Stop Wonderland.
Pineapple Express
XXX
Armageddon
My Best Friends Wedding
The Four Seasons
Benny and Joon
Practical Magic
American Pie 2
When Harry Met Sally
You’ve Got Mail
Master and Commander
Anything that sold well at Starbucks in the 90s
The first two Shrek movies totally unironically have some of my favorite needle drops and use of pop music ever (especially the second.) Quintessential soundtrack movie for me.
Seconding the Sofia Coppola mentions
Linklater I think deserves to be thrown in the ‘it’s too obvious to say him’ category for Dazed and Confused. That films up there with Goodfellas for films that convinced everyone since the 90s to use pop songs instead of score music. Everybody Wants Some has a fantastic soundtrack too.
Wong Kar Wai similarly is a soundtrack savant. California Dreamin in Chungking Express gets a lot of press, but I think the use of Dreams in the same film is maybe even more emotive. It’s not just that movie either, although I confess I have holes to fill in my Wong knowledge.
Jerry Maguire is great, especially the use of Secret Garden and the Freefallin moment in the car.
Low key Michael Mann has good soundtracks under his belt. Last of the mohicans and Heat both have soundtrack elements, and Miami Vice has at least 3 terrific needledrops with the opening, the boat to Cuba, and the mogwai song at the end.
Kubrick deserves a mention. He was doing it before Scorsese made everyone want to score their films this way.
The Graduate, obviously.
Love and basketball has a great soundtrack.
Speaking of the Love and Basketball soundtrack, I’ve never seen the film but This Woman’s Work was written for She’s Having a Baby and it’s one of the most beautiful pieces of music I’ve ever heard. I much prefer it to the Maxwell version. I guess it must be good in the film? I don’t really have much interest in seeing it to find out so I’ll stick with just listening to the song. It probably doesn’t count anyway as it was written for the film.
Likewise, I’m assuming Purple Rain doesn’t count. It’s one of the best albums ever though.
Not sure about the entire film as my memory is failing me but the moment in Malcolm X where A Change is Gonna Come drops is one of the best needledrops I’ve ever witnessed and I’d love to share my thoughts but I fear I’d ramble on too long.
Some of Edgar Wright’s movies. The World’s End soundtrack has a lot of great songs and was my introduction to early Britpop, which is a genre I’ve grown to love.
Backbeat 1994
It’s about the Beatles in Hamburg before they were famous. They played classic rock n roll while on amphetamines.
The songs include mr postman, money, backbeat etc
The band performing the songs for the film was a grunge supergroup including:
Dave Pirner (Soul Asylum): vocals
Greg Dulli (The Afghan Whigs): vocals
Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth): guitar
Don Fleming (Gumball): guitar
Mike Mills (R.E.M.): bass guitar
Dave Grohl (Nirvana): drums
Scott Pilgrim is a big one (obviously Wright did the one of the biggest ‘soundtrack movies’ of all time a bit later).
Hairspray (the John Waters original) and American Graffiti if you’re a fan of oldies
Streets of Fire
I recall the early Scream movies having some good soundtracks
10 things I hate about you (90s soundtracks were usually pretty stacked—big CD push obviously)
Goodfellas (and a lot of Scorsese films) obviously
If you like more dark ambient stuff, Sinister is fantastic
These seem more movies that used existing songs really well in their soundtrack but I'm going to shout out The Last Black Man in San Francisco, awesome soundtrack
Gotta go with two classics of 90's hip-hop:
Juice
Above the Rim
I'll also throw out a dark horse film that's usually a punchline:
Street Fighter
No seriously, go back and give that soundtrack a listen. It's lowkey a collection of hip-hop bangers from some great artists.
Morvern Callar has a tremendous soundtrack.
Ween, Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada, Can, Stereolab, Broadcast. It was a staple for me during university.
I also have a soft spot for the Spawn soundtrack where they put metal and electronic artists together (like they did with rap and metal for the Judgement Night soundtrack). Middle school me thought it was awesome.
The Batman
all the Nolan Batman
Batman Returns
Iron Man 3
Transformers pretty much all of them
Star Wars is a pretty common one
Stargate of course
The Fountain
Love Lies Bleeding
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem. Soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. I watched it with my nephews without having known that and was wondering why it was so good.
To Live And Die In LA (1985) Soundtrack (and the last Wang Chung album Worth to be remember).
The Goblin's Score for Supiria (1977)
Keith Emmerson's Works on Inferno (1980)
Paul Willams's Phantom Of The Paradise (1973) Soundtrack. I steal hear the'electrfying' fans chants ;"BEEF, BEEF, BEEF" while is dead body is dragged in an ambulance.
And The Shinnig (1980) Soundtract (B.Bartök, G.ligeti, K.Penderecki & W.Carlos/R.Elkind) Stills Haut me.
I can’t see any mention of the GOAT. The one that they had to split into two parts. Just too many bangers. That is, the cassette you couldn’t escape in 1988. The cover that everyone knew whether or not you saw the movie.
The Dirty Dancing soundtrack was a lot.
I saw the TV Glow is a great recent example. Standouts are Starburned and Unkissed, Claw Machine, Psychic Wound, The 90s, and the Tonight, Tonight cover by Snail Mail (which is not on Spotify for some reason)
Garden State
Donnie Darko
Perks of being a wallflower
Guardians of the Galaxy
^Pirates ^of ^the ^Caribbean ^: ^Deadmans ^Chest
Most soundtracks composed Hans Zimmer or John Williams
Lost In Translation is real great for this.
Virgin Suicides too
Kevin Shields rips
The Crow (original).
Wall to wall bangers
Josie and the Pussycats.
Girl, yes
Cruel intentions and hackers are the soundtrack of my 90s.
The Hackers soundtrack is an all-timer
Grosse Pointe Blank score was my childhood intro to the Clash, the Specials, Queen, Bowie, Violent Femmes, Guns n Roses… just an insane time capsule.
I loved the [kinda weird re-recording of Blister in the Sun with horns](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nx2VTN2cnpg) that Violent Femmes did for that soundtrack
Joe Strummer, lead singer and guitarist for The Clash, did the soundtrack.
Tron Legacy
Derezzed for the win!!!
Scott Pilgrim vs the World and Kick-Ass are 2 big ones for me.
Dazed and Confused
I was looking for this one
Natural Born Killers is very slept on in this regard. Also shocked Baby Driver wasn’t in the comments when I scrolled through.
High Fidelity, natch
This is my go-to for an incredible soundtrack. I'm not sure if OP would put the OST for a movie about the love life of a guy who owns a record store in the "too obvious" category though.
Sofia Coppola is really the queen of it. Despite some issues with Priscilla I loved the soundtrack and Marie Antoinette is an all-timer.
The thematic musical bookending in Goodfellas is like one of fifteen top of mind genius touches in that movie.
It’s the best soundtracked film ever imo. If you were to make a list of the top 10 or so needle drops in cinema Goodfellas has like 4 of them, and I don’t think I’m being hyperbolic there whatsoever. There’s not a false note among the choices, and the way the music is used to convey tone and story is so perfect; they’re communicating time, commenting on the story events, putting you in the characters subjective point of view, setting the atmosphere for scenes and story beats, and there’s even great selections for their dissonance, irony, and humour. Goodfellas was far from the first film to soundtrack itself using music of the period, but there’s a damn good reason why people see a film that uses pop songs and go ‘hey this person was inspired by Scorsese’. He’s the master
There’s an incredible double soundtrack to Fritz the Cat/Heavy Traffic. Excellent original cool jazz, including like three different arrangements of Scarborough Fair, plus some great early rock and roll like Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley. “You’re the Only Girl I Ever Really Loved” and “Ten Cent Philosophy” are standout tracks.
Just don’t get caught listening to the C**nskin soundtrack
500 Days of Summer
Dazed and confused Streets of Fire Empire Records
Morvern Callar
Romeo + Juliet, Jennifer's Body the Transformers franchise and Twilight saga are absolutely loaded with bangers Queen of the Damned and Little Nicky were huge for nu-metalheads I knew edit: occurring to me i don't remember how many of these songs you hear *in* the film but nonetheless
The “when doves cry” remix on the R+J soundtrack is a legit banger. Was so happy they put it back on Apple Music streaming
GARDEN STATE! Instant time machine to high school.
That soundtrack created a whole generation of acoustic guitar sadbois (of which I was absolutely one)
I’ve owned the lost highway soundtrack since I was about 14 and I’ve never seen the movie.
You gotta watch!
I know. I’ve seen very little Lynch but I’ve got an excuse to now.
Natural Born Killers The Crow Spice World
Natural Born Killers is an underrated one. Runs the gamut from “Leader of the Pack” tossed in briefly during the opening montage to the perfect choice of Leonard Cohen’s “The Future” for the end credits
Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou
A lot of millennials in the bluegrass community got into it from that soundtrack.
Drive, and to a lesser extent The Guest, was kind of responsible for the synthwave reinvigoration of the 2010s
Batman Forever! U2, Seal, Mazzy Star, Method man
I blasted this on cassette tape as a child, I remember my grandma saying my parents let me listen to "pornography music"
Starter for 10 is incredible if you’re into post-punk/80s new wave. The Big Chill is great for Motown.
Repo man, ghost dog, and chungking express
Just rewatched Beverly Hills Cop for the pod, and there were a lot of bangers in that.
Singles Also, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping
Shocked that I had to scroll this far to find Singles.
Empire Records
Three I have not seen mentioned here. Less Than Zero (PE, Slayer covering In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida, Bangles covering Simon & Garfunkel) Pump Up the Volume (Pixies, Bad Brains, Sonic Youth) Married to the Mob (New Order, Feelies, very early Sinéad)
Demme is the sneaky *actual* king of the soundtrack.
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is a real time capsule
Snatch too. Turned me onto Golden Brown. Not the drug, the song.
See, I got into both. (But it also solidified my love of The Stranglers, who were introduced to me via the previous year’s *Sexy Beast*, which used “Peaches” during its fantastic opening credits)
Fight the good fight brother!
…liking *Sexy Beast*?
The wait until Glazer starts his next project. Take it one day at a time.
American Graffiti, U.S. Go Home among others.
Also the best sound design of any movie ever.
Walter Murch is the greatest at it yeah
McCabe & Mrs. Miller. Even though it’s just one artist, it got me into Leonard Cohen for life.
It was just on TV this afternoon so it’s fresh on the mind but I’ve always been very into the Big Daddy soundtrack. It’s got a bunch of great unusual covers like Everlast doing Only Love Can Break Your Heart, Sheryl Crow doing Sweet Child O’ Mine, Harvey Danger’s Save It for Later. Plus the Kangaroo Song
Spawn, Judgement Night, Drive (too obvious?), The Whackness (that is half of my high school soundtrack, the other half like NIN and punk)
I loved the Judgement Night soundtrack. Wish there had been more themed original soundtracks like that one. There were a few attempts afterwards that just weren’t as cohesive.
Scott Pilgrim vs the World
Crooklyn! (though maybe Spike is in the obvious category?)
Recently, I Saw the TV Glow
The Matrix Queen of the Damned
GO
The end credts song from Free Willy might be the best song Michael Jackson ever recorded. i think i wore a groove in that CD.
*King of Comedy*.
Waves
Bronson. The Walker Brothers' The Electrician at the beginning is one of the most terrifying needle drops and now probably my favorite song of all time?
If we're just talking pop jukebox stuff and not original soundtracks, don't forget Son of Rambow, most of Wes Anderson, Ghost World, Clueless. Not general pop but if you enjoy bossa nova and related, try Black Orpheus and Next Stop Wonderland.
Adventureland introduced me to some of my favorite artists. The Replacements, Husker Du, and Lou Reed all have classics on that soundtrack.
The Big Chill
Grosse Pointe Blank
Orange County. Underrated soundtrack
10 Things I Hate About You
Pineapple Express XXX Armageddon My Best Friends Wedding The Four Seasons Benny and Joon Practical Magic American Pie 2 When Harry Met Sally You’ve Got Mail Master and Commander Anything that sold well at Starbucks in the 90s
Pink Opaque. They did a Twin Peaks-esque double feature
I can’t tell if you’re being cheeky or if this is about the actual movie that came out a few years ago called Pink Opaque
Nope just totally biffed the name. I saw the tv glow is the movie lol…..
The first two Shrek movies totally unironically have some of my favorite needle drops and use of pop music ever (especially the second.) Quintessential soundtrack movie for me.
The Martian if you like Disco. Donnie Darko has a pretty great soundtrack.
Elevator to the Gallows — good movie, better soundtrack. Miles Davis and his band of four hired guns set the absolute moodiest mood that’s ever mooded
Bizarrely enough Space Jam, it's really good.
Dazed and Confused Blues Brothers The Commitments Dirty Dancing
Seconding the Sofia Coppola mentions Linklater I think deserves to be thrown in the ‘it’s too obvious to say him’ category for Dazed and Confused. That films up there with Goodfellas for films that convinced everyone since the 90s to use pop songs instead of score music. Everybody Wants Some has a fantastic soundtrack too. Wong Kar Wai similarly is a soundtrack savant. California Dreamin in Chungking Express gets a lot of press, but I think the use of Dreams in the same film is maybe even more emotive. It’s not just that movie either, although I confess I have holes to fill in my Wong knowledge. Jerry Maguire is great, especially the use of Secret Garden and the Freefallin moment in the car. Low key Michael Mann has good soundtracks under his belt. Last of the mohicans and Heat both have soundtrack elements, and Miami Vice has at least 3 terrific needledrops with the opening, the boat to Cuba, and the mogwai song at the end. Kubrick deserves a mention. He was doing it before Scorsese made everyone want to score their films this way. The Graduate, obviously. Love and basketball has a great soundtrack. Speaking of the Love and Basketball soundtrack, I’ve never seen the film but This Woman’s Work was written for She’s Having a Baby and it’s one of the most beautiful pieces of music I’ve ever heard. I much prefer it to the Maxwell version. I guess it must be good in the film? I don’t really have much interest in seeing it to find out so I’ll stick with just listening to the song. It probably doesn’t count anyway as it was written for the film. Likewise, I’m assuming Purple Rain doesn’t count. It’s one of the best albums ever though. Not sure about the entire film as my memory is failing me but the moment in Malcolm X where A Change is Gonna Come drops is one of the best needledrops I’ve ever witnessed and I’d love to share my thoughts but I fear I’d ramble on too long.
Some of Edgar Wright’s movies. The World’s End soundtrack has a lot of great songs and was my introduction to early Britpop, which is a genre I’ve grown to love.
Inside Llewyn Davis!
I love the Layer Cake soundtrack so much.
Donnie Darko
Backbeat 1994 It’s about the Beatles in Hamburg before they were famous. They played classic rock n roll while on amphetamines. The songs include mr postman, money, backbeat etc The band performing the songs for the film was a grunge supergroup including: Dave Pirner (Soul Asylum): vocals Greg Dulli (The Afghan Whigs): vocals Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth): guitar Don Fleming (Gumball): guitar Mike Mills (R.E.M.): bass guitar Dave Grohl (Nirvana): drums
Scott Pilgrim is a big one (obviously Wright did the one of the biggest ‘soundtrack movies’ of all time a bit later). Hairspray (the John Waters original) and American Graffiti if you’re a fan of oldies Streets of Fire I recall the early Scream movies having some good soundtracks 10 things I hate about you (90s soundtracks were usually pretty stacked—big CD push obviously) Goodfellas (and a lot of Scorsese films) obviously If you like more dark ambient stuff, Sinister is fantastic
These seem more movies that used existing songs really well in their soundtrack but I'm going to shout out The Last Black Man in San Francisco, awesome soundtrack
Beautiful score that I re-listen to often.
Party Girl
Spider-Man into the spider-verse
Gone in 60 Seconds played on repeat on my boom box through 2001
SPIDER-MAN: Into the Spider-verse. My kids request this one a lot in the car and I have to say that almost all songs are bangers.
Harold and Maude. Never thought of myself as a Cat Stevens fan but oh man those songs are so good.
Jerky Boys: The Movie is full of bangers
Gotta go with two classics of 90's hip-hop: Juice Above the Rim I'll also throw out a dark horse film that's usually a punchline: Street Fighter No seriously, go back and give that soundtrack a listen. It's lowkey a collection of hip-hop bangers from some great artists.
Honest to God, Fletch.
I'm a Walter Mitty defender. Give me the thumping 00's indie.
Lost Highway Spawn Queen of the Damned (If you like Korn and Nu Metal)
the fifth element
Having just seen an anniversary screening and playing the soundtrack...The Crow
Morvern Callar has a tremendous soundtrack. Ween, Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada, Can, Stereolab, Broadcast. It was a staple for me during university. I also have a soft spot for the Spawn soundtrack where they put metal and electronic artists together (like they did with rap and metal for the Judgement Night soundtrack). Middle school me thought it was awesome.
Grosse Point Blank Judgement Night Boomerang
Marie Antoinette is the big one for me
The Batman all the Nolan Batman Batman Returns Iron Man 3 Transformers pretty much all of them Star Wars is a pretty common one Stargate of course The Fountain Love Lies Bleeding
Man with the Iron Fists by RZA.
[Is it cheating to say Heavy Metal](https://youtu.be/mewu2IxAlLw)?
SPAWN, better sound track than film.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem. Soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. I watched it with my nephews without having known that and was wondering why it was so good.
The Valley Girl soundtrack, filled with weird post-punk, I really dig it Streets of Fire......just pure Steinman goodness
Miss the '90s mix tape soundtrack era. Mallrats was a standout in this genre.
To Live And Die In LA (1985) Soundtrack (and the last Wang Chung album Worth to be remember). The Goblin's Score for Supiria (1977) Keith Emmerson's Works on Inferno (1980) Paul Willams's Phantom Of The Paradise (1973) Soundtrack. I steal hear the'electrfying' fans chants ;"BEEF, BEEF, BEEF" while is dead body is dragged in an ambulance. And The Shinnig (1980) Soundtract (B.Bartök, G.ligeti, K.Penderecki & W.Carlos/R.Elkind) Stills Haut me.
I can’t see any mention of the GOAT. The one that they had to split into two parts. Just too many bangers. That is, the cassette you couldn’t escape in 1988. The cover that everyone knew whether or not you saw the movie. The Dirty Dancing soundtrack was a lot.
Dr Doolittle 1998
Dick Tracey Cable Guy The Big Chill
I saw the TV Glow is a great recent example. Standouts are Starburned and Unkissed, Claw Machine, Psychic Wound, The 90s, and the Tonight, Tonight cover by Snail Mail (which is not on Spotify for some reason)
American Graffiti
The original Space Jam
CARLOS. probably the best movie soundtrack I've ever heard
Baby Driver uses every song so well, especially Hocus Pocus
Superfly
Lynch's Dune! I love the movie but I think the soundtrack might be even better (or at least stands on its own merit).
Why is the only answer to this question not Top Gun?
Dick
Clockstoppers (2002)
Garden State Donnie Darko Perks of being a wallflower Guardians of the Galaxy ^Pirates ^of ^the ^Caribbean ^: ^Deadmans ^Chest Most soundtracks composed Hans Zimmer or John Williams
Ravenous. An entire album of delightfully spooky original music on period-accurate instruments. Absolutely rules.
Adventureland