10 OF THE BEST FILM SCORES TO TEST YOUR SYSTEM

The finest film scores are not merely an accompaniment to the images on screen; it is the sense that a film would be as fundamentally altered by changing its music as any part of the script.

There are themes indelibly etched – think Jurassic Park, Star Wars or Harry Potter – but our list is more about those eternally tethered to their visual partners, without which you’d have only half a film.

Each of the ten we’ve selected provides a stern test for any home cinema or hi-fi system. In short, you’ll know if your set-up isn’t doing them justice.

BLADE RUNNER VANGELIS

Few scores are so entwined with their film as Vangelis’s synth-heavy accompaniment to Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner. Largely improvised and recorded while the composer was watching the film, the music’s warmth is at odds with the narrative’s noir, yet takes in its sweeping landscapes and darkly romantic ambiance with every sustained note.

THERE WILL BE BLOOD JONNY GREENWOOD

Take in Jonny Greenwood’s dissonant string compositions alone, and you’d be forgiven for thinking There Will Be Blood was a horror film. His score casts a shadow across the open plains of California, injecting the kind of dread that allows Paul Thomas Anderson to explore this tale of a man possessed by wealth with greater subtlety.

ASCENSEUR POUR LÉCHAFAUD MILES DAVIS

There’s something decidedly eerie yet darkly romantic about Miles Davis’s muted trumpet lines laced throughout this 1950s French crime story. It walks alone beneath heavy air, moving skittishly when tempos increase but always echoing the solitude of its dusky cinematic bedfellow.

KOYAANISQATSI PHILIP GLASS

“It’s not for lack of love of the language that these films have no words,” said director Godfrey Reggio of his Qatsi trilogy. “It’s because our language is in a state of vast humiliation. It no longer describes the world in which we live.” It is up to interpretation whether Koyaanisqatsi, meaning “unbalanced life” in Hopi, is a celebration of industrialisation or its funeral march, and Philip Glass’s at once ominous and hopeful soundtrack leaves things equally ambiguous.

TAXI DRIVER BERNARD HERRMANN

We could have included any of Bernard Herrmann’s many scores for Alfred Hitchcock in this list, but few are as atmospherically dense as his work for Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver. Horn sections echo New York street sounds while brushed drumkits and plucked bass put rhythm to its underbelly. Few lines are so beautiful as that of the saxophone in the main theme.

LA PLANÈTE SAUVAGE ALAIN GORAGUER

Alain Goraguer scored this early 1970s French animation, in which giant blue meditating Draags enslave human-like Oms on planet Ygam, and it shows. A long-time collaborator with Serge Gainsbourg, Goraguer’s break beats and psychedelic instrumentation are perfect backdrop for a surreal allegory that remains relevant in the 21st century.

AMÉLIE YANN TIERSEN

Director Jann-pierre Jeunet was so taken by Tiersen’s music that he bought the accordion/pianist’s entire catalogue to soundtrack this delightful comedy, commissioning further pieces to be composed specifically for the film. The score is as much part of Amélie’s character as the script Jeunet wrote himself.

REQUIEM FOR A DREAM CLINT MANSELL

Former Pop Will Eat Itself lead singer Clint Mansell was an unlikely film composer, but this collaboration with director Darren Aronofsky, confirmed his talent. Equal parts sparse, foreboding and unequivocally violent, the schizophrenic character of his score is as mind-bending as Requiem For A Dream is a story.

ERASERHEAD DAVID LYNCH & ALAN SPLET

More a collage of sounds than musical composition, Eraserhead’s creepy ambient soundscapes of hisses and baby cries are terrifying. Constructed by David Lynch and sound designer Alan Splet, the success of their experimentation is such that it feels at odds with film’s sonic landscape, even four decades on.

THE GODFATHER NINO ROTA

Few themes capture the essence of a film as well as Nino Rota’s trumpet-led The Godfather Waltz. The score was pulled from the Oscars shortlist for having reworked music from Fortunella, but a few bars will have you repeating your favourite lines from the film.