[Glelas]

I enjoy movie soundtracks/musical scores. I own the obvious, Star Wars, LOTR, and dozens of others, Last of the Mohicans, Braveheart, Requiem for a Dream, Gladiator etc...

Anyone know of any lesser known scores (but not neccessarily a lesser known movie) that are enjoyable? I may have some that will be mentioned, but maybe someone will mention a diamond in the rough.

[ArthurFrayn]

Altered States -John Corigliano
Farewell My Lovely -David Shire
The Player -Thomas Newman
Once Upon a Time in the West - Enio Morricone
Naked Lunch -Howard Shore/Ornette Coleman
8 1/2 /Juliet of the Spirits-Nino Rota
All the early John Barry-James Bond soundtracks but specifically Diamonds are Forever
Any number of John Williams soundtracks but I specifically like Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Day the Earth Stood Still -Bernard Hermann
Forbidden Planet-Louise and Bebe Baron

not a movie but one of my favorite soundtracks

Twin Peaks -Angelo Badalamenti

[World Builder]

First, from the world of Television:
Children of Dune, Brian Tyle (one of the tracks gets used frequently in movie trailers, notably "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World" and "The Cinderella Man" if you've seen the trailers for those movies, you might recongize the song.)

Walking with Dinosaurs, Benjamin Bartlett. some absolutely gorgeous music. I particularly enjoy the three tracks that make up the pterosaur suite: Secret Flight, Flight of the Ornithocheirus, and Giant of the Skies.

Firefly, Greg Edmonson, for a folkies flavor so rarely found in Sci-fi.

Second, from the movies:
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon & Hero, Tan Dun. Both are quite good, but CTHD, I believe, is superior.

Pirates of the Caribbean & Pirates of the Caribbean II, Klaus Badelt and Hans Zimmer respectively. Both are enjoyable, but I particularly love Zimmer's music, especially The Kraken and Hello, Beastie.

The Da Vinci Code, also Hans Zimmer. Need I say more?

Third, from Video Games:
Advent Rising, tTommy Tallarico. This one surprised me. I'm pretty sure no video game is meant to have a soundtrack this good. :)

And, finally, from books:
Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire, Joel McNeely. The word "Xizor" simply makes some tracks better than others. If you can track down the CD itself, its booklet has an interesting section describing the development of each of the tracks.

WB

[kater]

Boogie Nights
O Brother Where Art Thou
Lost in Translation
Almost Famous
Human Traffic
Jackie Brown
Team America: World Police (:D )

[Rheingold]

Firefly, Greg Edmonson, for a folkies flavor so rarely found in Sci-fi.

I second that--I love the Firefly soundtrack. If you do get it though, make sure you get the TV show, not the movie Serenity, which has music that I did not enjoy nearly as much as I did the Firefly music.

[Hobbit]

Almost any Bernard Herrmann works for me, with perhaps the exception of Psycho, which can make you rather jumpy!

Arthur's mentioned it already, but The Day the Earth Stood Still is great.

Gladiator's OK; the LotR ones too, but because they are so closely identified with the films they can be offputting.

How about that music that should be a soundtrack? I find that music from Karda Estra (http://www.kardaestra.co.uk/) works very well.

There was a thread in the Horror Forum that talked about this too, I believe: link HERE (http://www.sffworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11204).

Hobbit

[redhead]

some older soundtracks i like. when i say "older", i mean i still have them on casette tape!

Swing Kids - swing music (duh) along side melancholic modern-ness. Movie is pretty decent too.

Backdraft - the movie itself, not so good. soundtrack? addictive. so addictive, in fact, it's used on the original Japanese Iron Chef episodes.

i also second Brian Tyler's Children of Dune soundtrack. my husband and i used a few tracks at our wedding. (we also used the Clannad track off Lost of the Mohicans!

the Matrix films have good soundtracks. techno-y dancy stuff, if you're into that.

the move that no one knew Jeff Goldblum ever did, Hideaway, has a fun techno/heavy metal ish soundtrack. i've never even seen the movie, but the album is good. lots of one-hit-wonder stuff on there!

i also greatly enjoy most soundtracks off Baz Luhrman movies, Romeo + Juliet ended up having 2 CDs to cover all the tracks, and Moulin Rouge has a wonderful soundtrack, great for road trips, especially if you love Elton John.

how's that for a ton of random goodness?;)

[World Builder]

Out of curiosity, which tracks from Children of Dune are wedding appropriate? :)

[Hobbit]

the Matrix films have good soundtracks. techno-y dancy stuff, if you're into that. That's a good one, redhead; as I found out only recently, if you have the DVD box set there's a few mixtapes of suggested music on the DVD.

Not sure it works for when you're reading those gothic romances, though. :)

Hobbit