1 - Conan the Barbarian
This masterpiece by Basil Pouledoris is my choice for the best soundtrack in film history. Composed in 1982, it is almost unbelievable that while disco sound dominated the musical scene, a movie with an unknown austrian bodybuilder as main character and a bombastic epic soundtrack would make such an impact. The movie is not unforgetable because of Schwarzenegger's Lawrence Olivier quality of acting - although his accent was actually an extra point - it is unforgetable because its soundtrack stirs emotions in us, with pieces of music created for moments of barbaric axe and hammer battles, but also for moments of mystery, love and contemplation. This is as brilliant for music just as Lord of the Rings is to literature. Attempts to create something similar have failed during the years, as it was proven with the disastrous 2011 attempt to reboot the franchise. The movie was too bad to be true.
The first 5 minutes of the movie, from the first words of the narrator until Conan's father is killed, are the high musical point of the movie. In the end, there's also "battle of the Mounds", that resembles the opening track, but is even more epic. There's also a scene, where Conan enters a cave and finds the remains of a king in his throne with his sword. Pouledouris, in just a few moments of sound, makes us imagine all the glory and fall of an empire. Unbeatable.
2 - Cutthroat Island
I love pirate movies and all adventure movies. At the time this movie came out, I thought to myself "what can go wrong with a pirate movie with Frank Langella as the bad guy?"
Well, I really liked the movie, as a genre fan than I am, but in the box office, "Cutthroat Island" was actually a fiasco and apparently the reason for Geena Davies to end her career in acting. Probably it didn't help the whole enterprise when you could see a huge finnish flag unfurled in the streets of 1668 Port Royal, Jamaica, after Renny Harlin's trademark flag of his native country somewhere in all of his movies. Personally, the bizarre scene in which geena Davies is as fast running through dinning rooms and jumping from 1st floors to 1st floors than a 4-horse chariot, directly below her....obviously she catches up with the chariot at the end of the street. It didn't bother me, but it might have turned off many people.
What really interested me was that the soundtrack is spectacular! It reminded be of old soundtracks of Errol Flynn's movies, but with an obvious better production and quality of sound. It doesn't have repetitions such like "Pirates of the Caribbean", which is basically the same musical line and variations. It is always different and has an epic feel at times that I really love. After Conan, the Barbarian, this is my vote for the greatest soundtrack ever.
3 - Schindler's list
After the two first places, it gets a little difficult to choose another three, as I really like some other 10 soundtracks. John Williams is a favorite of mine, a couple of other of his scores could be on this shortlist, but I think Schindler's list might be the best his best in my opinion (Star Wars Phantom menace had its moments too).
Personally, I was a little disappointed when I bought the soundtrack, as I was expecting every piece of music from the movie, but many tracks were left out of the CD. Tracks like the Carlos Gardel tango, Otto Teich's "Im Grunewald ist Holzauktion", Johann Sebastian Bach's English suite No.2 and even "Erika" german military march, among other music, would enrich the CD, that in the end, is much poorer than listening to it on the DVD. This third place if for the whole soundtrack and not the soundtrack CD.
4 - Solaris
I listened to this soundtrack for the first time inside a huge FNAC store. I thought it was so good and so new, that I started approaching the side of the store where the music was coming from. Apparently, many people thought the same as I, and I'm sure the store sold a lot of Solaris' soundtrack CDs that day. The movie is simple, the soundtrack is actually simple too, but as soon as you listen to it, it sounds just like space music should be, giving at all times an idea of infinity, emptiness and also the psychological dilemas of the movie characters, far from their confort zones.
5 - Dune
This was an inovative movie, an approach to Science fiction in a totally diferente angle than Star Wars, for instance. Also different from franchises like Star Wars and Star Trek, is the soundtrack. While these series have orchestral music for soundtrack, "Dune" on the other hand has a soundtrack made by the 80's progressive rock band - Toto.
This soundtrack could easily be in third place of this list, it's difficult to say. I just think that these guys were inspired when they created this masterpiece for such an innovative movie.
Which five Soundtracks are your favorite (or best)?
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