50 best movie soundtracks: coolest soundtracks revealed
Without these, the films wouldn't be worth watching.
What happens if you take something cool and add it to something just as cool? No, not hip algebra, but film soundtracks of course. What, after all, can be cooler than music and film combined?
As these best movie soundtracks show, there is something about a soundtrack that can make even the most middle of road movie into something rather special. And when the movie is also a masterpiece, then you have something rather special.
So, with that in mind, we compiled the 50 best soundtracks ever (said in best advertising jingle voice) - those that are the coolest around.
Disagree with our selection or want to pat us on the back for choosing your favourites? Then let us know below and don't forget to vote for your best movie soundtrack of all time.
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50. Dead Man’s Shoes (2004)
With Warp Films behind Shane Meadow’s masterly and disturbing thriller, it was no surprise that the soundtrack should be equally phenomenal. Touching upon electronica, folk, hip hop, techno, alt-country and folktronica, it’s a measured and thrillingly diverse listen. Highlights come from Adem, DM & Jemini, The Earlies and perhaps predictably, Aphex Twin. An alternative take on the mid-Noughties music scene and all the better for it.
49. Head (1968)
Despite being savaged by critics at the time, The Monkees’ solitary adventure into feature films is regarded as something of a cult classic today. Its lurid and bizarre script is reflected by the soundtrack that accompanied it. No longer pliable pop puppets, Head demonstrated that The Monkees had real musical chops. Porpoise Song is the equal of anything that Buffalo Springfield, The Lovin’ Spoonful and co released at the time, while the playful Daddy’s Song (written by Harry Nilsson) and the reflective As We Go Along went onto influence the likes of The Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev and other practitioners of cosmic Americana.
48. Inside Llewyn Davis (2014)
The film that announced Oscar Isaac as a star, Inside Llewyn Davis was a charming mood piece with a soundtrack as important as any of the actors. Mixing the warm folk stylings of Marcus Mumford (never better than here) and classic West Village tracks along with music arranged by T-Bone Burnett, who had previously worked with the Coen Brothers on the also very good O Brother Where Art Thou?
47. Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid (1973)
Whatever you say about Bob Dylan’s acting in Sam Peckinpah’s suitably blood-drenched retelling of Billy The Kid (we find it kind of charming, since you ask), his soundtrack can surely brook no argument. His raw, roughly sketched songs border on the ramshackle, but in doing so they evoke the sun-scorched, dusty plains of the West marvellously. That it contains the elegiac Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door raises the collection of songs to the sublime.
46. Performance (1970)
Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg dystopic Performance was viewed as a key signifier in the death of the Sixties dream. The soundtrack – all lascivious malevolence and seditious cool – sounded like a wonderful way to dance on the grave of flower power idealism. Mick Jagger’s swaggering Memo From Turner naturally takes most of the plaudits, but with key contributions from Randy Newman, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Ry Cooder, Jack Nitzsche and proto rappers The Last Poets, this was by far not a one-man show. Deranged decadence never sounded so alluring.