Film/Awesome Music

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"If our music survives, which I have no doubt it will, then it will be because it is good." —Jerry Goldsmith

Drumroll, please…

Examples of awesome music in films.

Some of these are awesome enough to be played in actual concerts! Of the orchestra kind! How cool is that? Here's a short preview for what you will see and hear on this page.

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Composers

• Elmer Bernstein
• Jerry Goldsmith
• Danny Elfman
• Bernard Herrmann
• James Horner
• Maurice
• Henry Mancini
• Ennio Morricone
• The Newmans
• John
• Miklós Rózsa
• Alan Silvestri
• John Williams
• Hans Zimmer

Films

• Batman
• Godzilla
• James Bond
• The Lord of the Rings & The Hobbit
• Streets of Fire
• The Chronicles of Narnia
• Tron Legacy

Directors

• Quentin Tarantino

Trailers

• Movie Trailers

The rest:

• The Wall. Pink Floyd. Comfortably Numb.
• Hobo With A Shotgun has several, most notably the Plague Theme.
• "Miracles Happen" by Myra is the Crowning Music of Awesome for The Princess Diaries.
• Mark Knopfler's heartstring-tugging ending theme song for The Princess Bride.
• Regardless of what you thought of Final Destination 5, its hard to deny that its opening theme is insanely epic.
• Basil Poledouris' whole score for the Conan the Barbarian movie is listed on many top-ten film score lists.
  • Anvil of Crom or Riddle of Steel. With so little dialogue, John Milius asked him to write a Wagnerian operatic score that would carry the whole movie, including the nearly-wordless first half-hour. "Riddle of Steel"'s later middle section was slightly reworked into no less than three trailers for The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time, Ocarina of Time 3D, and The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess).
  • "Hymn to Red October".
  • Lonesome Dove.
  • RoboCop main theme, which only really comes in about half-way through the film.
  • Klendathu Drop from Starship Troopers. It was the perfect piece for the accompanying scene.
• Kick-Ass has incredible music. Examples:
  • Showtime Pt. 2 (It's Only The End Of The World), Nightvision, Strobe (Adagio in D Minor), and Big Daddy Dies lead into each other amazingly: an atmospheric, tense song, a minute or so of slow buildup, then 2 minutes of pulse-pounding awesome... slowing down into a horrible, heartwrenching Tear Jerker.
    • Fridge Brilliance kicks in when you realize that Big Daddy Dies is an altered version of Big Daddy Kills, his fight music
      • "Big Daddy Kills" is actually a version of John Murphy's "In The House - In a Heartbeat" from the movie 28 Days Later. Oddly the original is likely the song used in the film, not the one "covered" on the released score.
  • As far as music that wasn't created specifically for the movie goes, you have "Omen" by The Prodigy, accompanying Kick Ass' first Crowning Moment of Awesome in the parking lot.
    • And as a tribute to this movie's musical genius, if you listen closely during Kick-Ass' first, less successful outing, you can hear a watered-down version of, you guessed it, Omen.
    • "This Town Ain't Big Enough For The Both Of Us" by Sparks. So freakin' epic.
    • When Hit-Girl runs along a hallway in D'Amico's shooting all of his mooks to Bad Reputation by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts
    • More epic music for Hit-Girl, how about a re-done verison of a theme song children's show while kicking the ever-living hell out of a bunch of thugs and impaling the lot of them? Ladies and gentlemen, The Banana Splits as done by The Dickies.
  • The epic credits song, Mika is awesome enough, butKick Ass just cranks his epicness to 11!
• Crowning Music of Awesome - "To Be A Hero", the heart-stirring theme song of the Once Upon a Time in China franchise (starring Jet Li), based on the traditional Chinese Ballad Jiang Jun Ling (General's Orders).
  • Unfortunately, every single kungfu clip on Youtube uses this song.
• Randy Edelman is so good at making awesome music that even though he hadn't won any Oscars, his music was being used at the Oscar ceremonies. Some of his famous works include Dragonheart theme, and Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story among others.
  • The classic example is in Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story where Lee whups the bully who previously paralyzed him by kicking him in the back. At that moment of victory, there is a memorable swell of orchestral music that has been used in multiple trailers ever since.
• Last of the Mohicans finale "Promontory" makes the (dialogue-free) last 10 minutes of the film breathtaking. It's also a Dark Reprise of two other pieces in the soundtrack, "The Gael" and "Main Theme", both of which are Crowning Music of the beginning and middle of the film; composed by Trevor Jones and Randy Edelman so you get two major composers for the price of one.
  • Actually, the more lyrical music for the film (including the theme) is by Jones solo; Edelman does the more synth-overlaid cues.
  • "Fort Battle"; "Elk Hunt"; "The Courier"; and "I Will Find You" by Clannad, which is played over the Stern Chase montage towards the end of the film. You may be noticing an energetic theme here...
• The theme from The Summer Place by Max Steiner.
• How The West Was Won, by Alfred Newman.
• In The Ark of Truth, Teal'c is lying in the mud, having finally succumbed to grievous wounds from a previous battle. After being healed by an Ancient, he gets to his feet again.
• the live-action remake of The Sorcerer's Apprentice, for an okay film, has a surprisingly beautiful and awesome use of One Republic's "Secrets". It's made even more awesome by the fact that there's synchronized Tesla coils shooting out bolts of electricity in tandem with the beat of the song.
• Beelzeboss: Kage and Jables fight the Devil, with rock. Hilarious for its frequent and creative use of the f-word.

You hold the scepter We hold the key You are the Devil We are The D!

• • Master Exploder from the same movie. So epically awesome it will blow your mind. Extra fun trying to play it in Rock Band 2 and realizing just how hard it is.
  • The opening scene, Kickapoo.
• Also from Howard Shore: The Silence of the Lambs theme. And The Fly theme. In fact, he's turning that one into an opera conducted by Placido Domingo.
• The Queen of the Damned movie would not be a tenth as good without the soundtrack, which was done by Johnathan Davis of Korn. Although he only sings in the movie as Lestat's voice, he wrote all the songs which were performed by several rock musicians, such as Chester Benington and Marilyn Manson. The best songs are Forsaken, System, and Redeemer.
• Cliff Eidelman's theme for Star Trek VI the Undiscovered Country needs to be on this page. There's Ominous Klingon Chanting, and it ends with an exploding planet. It's a shoo-in.
  • The epic goodbye.
• Michael Giacchino's score for the 2009 Star Trek movie has two settings: EPIC, and Tear Jerker. On the epic side, there's the incredible rendition of the TOS theme in "End Credits", as well as "Enterprising Young Men". On the Tear Jerker side, there's tracks like "Labour of Love", played during George Kirk's Heroic Sacrifice. And then there's "That New Car Smell". Any piece of music that causes both Manly Tears and happy memories of Firefly via copious use of erhu has to be worth a listen.
  • There's also "Sabotage", by the Beastie Boys.
• Short Circuit 2- "Holding Out For A Hero" during Johnny 5's epic chase scene, making this both his Crowning Moment of Funny and Awesome.
  • Harry Gregson-Williams improbably provides a version with orchestra backing in Shrek 2, which utterly rocks faces.
• Practically anything composed by James Newton Howard. Particularly awesome examples include:
  • "The Great Eatlon" from Lady in the Water.
  • "The Egg Travels", "Across the Desert", and "Raptors/Stand Together" from Dinosaur.
  • The score of Atlantis: The Lost Empire. "The Submarine" for example
  • "To the Spaceport" and "The Launch" from Treasure Planet.
  • "I Do Believe in Fairies" and Flying from the live action Peter Pan.
  • "Helicopter Chase" from The Fugitive.
• Red Rider's Lunatic Fringe was used as the theme for Vision Quest.
  • • Also from the same film, Louden Versus Shute by Tangerine Dream. Pure big game music.
• The starting theme of the movie Gettysburg has become so iconic most film trailers involving the Civil War use it.
  • Randy Edelman. Huge mention goes to "Over the Fence", during Pickett's Charge sequence. So epic, Iced Earth copied the melody for their epic song trilogy "Gettysburg 1863" on Day Three.
• Richard Kelly faced a problem when scoring the final sequence of Donnie Darko, a montage of characters visibly shaken by a disturbance in the space-time continuum: there was a song with haunting, bittersweet lyrics which summed up the entire film wonderfully, but musically...well...it sounded like this. After bringing in Gary Jules and Michael Andrews, there was no longer a problem.
  • Under the Milky Way by the Church goes so unbelievably perfect with the party scene.
• The use of Iggy Pop's "Lust for Life" at the beginning of the film Trainspotting. And Perfect Day by Lou Reed in the overdose scene.
• Without Philip Glass's scores, the "Qatsi trilogy" (Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi, and Naqoyqatsi) would be a mildly interesting series of images, at best. With them (complete with Ominous Hopi Chanting), they're masterpieces.
  • "Pruit Igoe" from Koyaanisquatsi managed to turn the sad tale of how Dr. Manhattan came to be into the epic, tragic birth of a god.
  • The opening theme from Mishima a Lifein Four Chapters. You may never have heard of the movie, but you've probably heard the soundtrack in trailers... and it is awesome.
• The Terminator Theme.
  • Take your pick between the T2 version above, the fully orchestrated version from the T3 soundtrack, or the original 80s electronic version.
    • And T2 uses two of the most badass songs ever - one even used to name a trope.
    • T2 also has one of the most painful uses of the main theme when T-800 is being lowered into the molten metal.
  • Brad Feidel's work in Johnny Mnemonic.
  • The revamped Terminator theme used in Terminator Salvation. Dundun dun dundun. Dundun dun dundun. Dundun dun DUNDUN. DUNDUN DUN DUNDUN!
• The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy. Earth just exploded. Pan up into the nothingness of space. The Guide sweeps across the screen. ""Journey of the Sorcerer" starts playing.
  • The opening music of the movie (So Long and Thanks for All the Fish) was already an ear catcher, but it was made infinitely more awesome when Neil Hannon reprises it in the credits.
• From Iron Man, the piece "Driving With The Top Down", which plays during Stark's first flight.
  • ACDC at the start of the movie, Black Sabbath at the end, and Ramin Djawadi (who had done little of note up to this point) all the way in between. What's not to like?
  • In the sequel, the Another One Bites the Dust / Robot Rock mashup. (Crowning Music of Funny?)
  • Also from the sequel, the fantastically cheesy "Make Way For Tomorrow" theme from the Stark Expo gets cranked up to a gloriously epic eleven over the closing credits.
  • Ladies and gentlemen, John Debney's "Black Widow Kicks Ass"! And inexplicably not included in the film, "I Am Iron Man."
• At the end of The Wicker Man, all the villagers start singing "Sumer is Icumen In", led by the mighty basso of Christopher Lee, while they burninate Sgt. Howie. But what's really awesome is when Sgt. Howie drowns them all out by reprising his earlier musical version of the 23rd Psalm.
  • A dissapointingly short but nonetheless good example was also Christopher Lee singing basso at the piano. Christopher Lee should really sing in movies more often.
• Use of Tom Waits' "Heartattack and Vine" in the first Hellboy movie.
  • "Little Drop of Poison" in Shrek 2.
  • And "Volcano" from Madagascar 2.
  • A version of Nick Cave's "Red Right Hand".
• The opening theme for Freaks. Incredibly creepy.
• Dr. Strangelove: "We'll Meet Again".
• The live action Transformers movie has "Autobots Descend" (real name "Arrival to Earth" but fans prefer the former).
  • Which was given a Kickass Reprise (how's that for a trope?) in the second film when Optimus deploys and during the search for Jetfire.
  • And also Scorponok's theme.
  • The Decepticons' theme, particularly the Ominous Latin Chanting that starts around 1:30.
  • The second movie has "NEST", which is the best rock out to Lock and Load Montage song since Halo's "Blow Me Away".
  • The epic "Forest Battle" found HERE. What happens when this music is playing is both one of the best Big Damn Heroes moments in the entire movie AND a BIG Crowning Moment of Awesome for Optimus Prime.
  • You Are A Soldier Now
  • Dark of the Moon adds the unimaginatively-titled yet absolutely epic "Battle", and the even more epic later-in-the-movie reprise "It's Our Fight". Every track from DOTM is jaw-droppingly, heart-thumpingly, (for two of them) tear-jerkingly epic, but we can't list/link every single track to this page, now can we?
    • Seconded. The entire score is incredible. "Sentinel Prime", "There Is No Plan", "I Promise", and "No Prisoners, Only Trophies" deserve special mention for being extra awesome or tear-jerkers.
• While we're still on Transformers...Here's something from the original, animated film. The soundtrack to that movie is SO 80'S IT HURTS. Here's the HAIRMETAL version of the Transformers theme song, with lyrics more relevant to the original movie. And YOU'VE GOT THE TOUCH! YOU'VE GOT THE POWEEER!
  • Nothing's Gonna STAND IN OUR WAY! It's like something right out of a Metal album cover: "Killer metal sharks hacked to death with a band saw, transforming robot turns into a sports car, fights a giant octopus with lasers and all played out to the backing of some classic 80's hair metal. Is there anyway of packing in any more awesomeness into 2 minutes!?!"
• Zulu has a great main theme but the awesome is when to respond to the Zulus' war chants the redcoats start singing 'Men of Harlech'. Found, in all its glory, at the end of this finely crafted link.
• "Ride of the Valkyries" in Apocalypse Now (starts at 3:15 here.)
• "Also Sprach Zarathustra", the 2001 opening theme.
  • Also from 2001 The Blue Danube Waltz which is awesome in its own right but when played over futuristic space stations and spaceships travelling to the moon it cranks up another few notches of awesome!
• Cloverfield's only original score, Roar! (From "Cloverfield"), is undeniably awesome.
• If music that plays over credits can be included, Juno Reactor's "Navras," the end title music from The Matrix Revolutions. There's nothing quite like that choir coming in at quadruple-forte with the Sanskrit text.
  • Neodämmerung from The Matrix Revolutions is also a memorable CMOA. Nothing quite gives off the "prepare to get your ass kicked" vibe like intense piano, gunshot-like percussion and Sanskrit lyrics that so loud that it seems like they are shouting it.
    • Interestingly enough, the Sanskrit lyrics actually explain exactly what's going on and why Neo has to die.
    • Also notable is that as the fight escalates the lyrics are sung more earnestly, giving you that feeling that things are hitting a fever pitch by the middle.
    • Rather than just random Ominous Latin Chanting, it's actually a Hindu Vedic hymn spoken in Sanskrit concerning enlightenment, making it not only epic but deep.
  • More Sanskrit: Navras.
  • Clubbed to Death, from the first Matrix movie.
  • From the first Lobby Shootout scene, "Spybreak!" by the Propellerheads.
  • From the first Matrix movie, Lunatic Calm's "Leave You Far Behind". Morpheus is fighting Neo! or, for a cleaner version, here.
  • Reloaded has tons of fantastic music, a few notable examples being the Chateau Fight, the Freeway Chase, and the incredible sequence where Morpheus' ship arrives at Zion.
  • Wake Up
    • Speaking of Rage Against the Machine, Calm Like a Bomb playing over the credits of the second film.
  • From Revolutions, "Tetsujin", especially after about 1:25 or so.
  • From the first film, "Dragula (Hot Rod Herman Remix)" by Rob Zombie.
  • Any music from the series qualifies.
  • Burly Brawl from Reloaded.
• For an awesome theme...in a movie film...who ya gonna call? Ghostbusters!!
  • Not quite as iconic, but the use of Mick Smiley's "Magic" as the spirits released from the Ghostbusters' containment facility float through the Manhattan skyline and wreak havoc throughout the city sets a high standard of creepy awesomeness for the film. And Alessi's "Saving The Day" gives the Big Damn Heroes moment just that little bit extra 'umph' of awesomeness.
  • "Cleaning Up The Town" off that CD. Not just appropriate, but a nice little piano-led stomp to tap your feet to.
  • Dana's Theme, composed by Elmer Bernstein, added a sense of class and yet otherworldness to the main female protagonist of the picture.
• What was that other famous movie that opened the same weekend as Ghostbusters? Gremlins! And that gave us the "Gremlin Rag".
• Neil Young's Opening Credits "Freight Train" Theme for Dead Man by Jim Jarmusch (w/ Johnny Depp).
• Rodrigo's Concierto De Aranjuez, originally written for classical guitar, is brilliant of itself - but when rearranged for flugelhorn and full silver band in Brassed Off and set against the failing negotiations to save the mine, becomes something even more transcendent.
  • Also the famous William Tell Overture in the finale.
• Klaus Badelt's work for this scene from The Time Machine.
• Hello Zepp, a.k.a. "The Shithole Theme," the main theme of the Saw films.
• Tubular Bells, probably best known as the creepy song from the Exorcist. Although, if you actually manage to listen to the entirety of it's roughly 48 MINUTE runtime, it turns out to be a bunch of CROWNING MOMENTS OF AWESOME played one after the other.
• Twilight: "Decode" by Paramore and "Supermassive Black Hole" by Muse.
  • Bella's Lullaby is beautiful, as is the rest of the score composed by Carter Burwell.
• Not sure if this belongs in Anime or Film, since it was a theatrical release: from Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, "Ballad of the Puppets III: The Ghost Waits in the World Beyond" (played when Batou and Togusa storm the Locus Solus factory ship) is ten minutes of pure, undiluted win.
• Just Like Honey by The Jesus and Mary Chain at the end of Lost in Translation. In fact, most of the Lost in Translation soundtrack (see also: Girls by Death in Vegas at the start of the film).
• Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey. End of the movie, at the Battle of the Bands. "The best place is here. The best time is now. And all's we can say is... LET'S ROCK!!" Cue the epic guitar intro leading into "God Gave Rock And Roll To You" by KISS.
• The Back to The Future theme. So awesome you can hear the DeLorean shifting up gears and accleration as the full piece proceeds. Put this one in your CD player and find an accommodating freeway somewhere.
  • The performance of "Johnny B Goode" at the end was quite awesome, too.
  • The Power of Love by Huey Lewis and the News.
    • There's also Back in Time.
      • The complete score is an essential buy, particularly for the entire clocktower scene.
• Lawrence of Arabia anyone? [1]
  • After Lawrence of Arabia director David Lean wanted Maurice Jarre to score Doctor Zhivago with him. Some people said Jarre was "good on sand, but might not make it on snow." They were wrong.
  • DEAR GOD Doctor Zhivago!! Lara's theme!
• From the 1984 cult noir film Streets of Fire, the opening song, sung by the main damsel in distress Ellen Aim sings one of Jim Steinman's best songs ever: Nowhere Fast.
  • Topped only by "Tonight is What It Means to be Young". An epic conclusion to an otherwise forgettable movie.
• "The House - In A Heartbeat" from 28 Days Later is an epic song, and manages to suit both creeping paranoia and pulse-pumping action at once.
  • The song was awesome enough to have its main melody used in a piece of background music for the zombie apocalypse anime Highschool of the Dead.
  • The general scrumdiddlyumptiousness of this track is evidenced by the amount of times other composers have tried to rip it off. In this trailer for Franklyn, for example. Starts 1:43.
  • They also made a very good choice for the scene with Jim's parents - rather than going for Amazing Freaking Grace, they went with a quiet, simple, underplayed rendition of "Abide With Me."
  • 28 Days Later, composed by John Murphy, is well known for the In a Heartbeat, but the more simple and dreamlike pieces are just as powerful and just as fun to listen to. See for yourself.
  • Grandaddy's AM 180 also appears, in epic fashion, during a particularly happy scene.
• Fans of George Romero's zombie films generally consider John Harrison's score for Day of the Dead to be the best of the series. Like the songs "Breakdown" and "Escape Invasion".
• The soundtrack to Dragonheart has several awesome tunes. Examples seem a bit hard to find though, but here it one example: "To the stars". Btw, the trailer to the Disney film Mulan used music from Dragonheart in the scene where everyone starts to kneel to Mulan at the climax of the film.
• An awesome ending to an awesome film: "Bladerunner End Title" by Vangelis.
  • Blade Runner's Love Theme by Vangelis. Just... gorgeous.
    • Blade Runner Blues, which summates the atmosphere of 2019 Los Angeles perfectly.
    • One More Kiss, Dear, lyrically lovely, sounding just like a crooner's hit from the 1940's, but written especially for the film by Vangelis.
• Also by Vangelis: the title theme to Chariots of Fire, paired with the scene of the track stars running down the beach in slow motion, is such a Crowning Moment of Awesome that it's the only thing most people remember about the movie.
  • Conquest of Paradise. The movie was forgettable, but the opening score is not.
  • The opening to Olympia set to the music from Alexander.
• Bernard Herrmann. The man who invented Psycho Strings. Here are a few awesome opening titles to ease the pain.
  • Bernard Herrmann is a revolutionary of film music. Here's some more.
  • Listen to this live playing of Citizen Kane as conducted by none other than John Williams. Truly Bernard Herrmann was a genius.
• Kevin Smith's Zack and Miri Make a Porno features a very moving use of the unpublished Live song "Hold Me Up", which inexplicably was not included on the soundtrack.
• Men in Black by Will Smith for the movie of the same name.
• The opening score for Fight Club
  • And the most excellent use of 'Where is My Mind' by the Pixies.
• The Warriors opening theme.
• The Mission: Impossible theme by Lalo Schifrin was awesome enough as it was. Add Danny Elfman's slight reworking (and score) for the 1996 movie AND the remix by U2...it's damn near the most iconic theme in the world.
  • The Fred Durst and Limp Bizkit version for the second movie is pretty awesome.
  • Say what you will about the third installment, but a permanent point in its favor is that it has the Mission Impossible theme redone by Michael freaking' Giacchino. The fourth. "Light the Fuse" is just perfect.
  • Lalo Schifrin also composed the insanely cool title theme for the Rush Hour series. He wins.
    • While we're in Rush Hour, "War". (What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!)
  • And while we're on Lalo Schifrin... Enter The Dragon. With backup vocals by Bruce Lee. Then there's the live version, where he and a gigantic orchestra raise this theme from "utterly awesome" to "Godlike uber-awesome".
  • Lalo Schifrin's Dirty Harry score is excellent. Particularly Scorpio's theme.
• The Godfather. Nino Rota's gonna make youse guys sleep with da fishes if youse don't post some of his excellent music.
  • Slash from Guns N' Roses performed a version of it on electric guitar. Badass.
  • Nino Rota's passionate score for Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet (1968)! Here's the love theme on violin, and arranged by Henry Mancini for piano. As said above, it inspired John Williams's "Across the Stars" from the Star Wars prequels.
• Henry. Freaking. Mancini.
  • The theme from Lifeforce, that Naked Space Vampire Movie, proves that Mancini can do epic SF fanfare too. Too bad it's much better quality than the movie it's from.
  • The indecently sexy theme for the movie Arabesque.
  • In the name of all things good and holy! PETER GUNN!
• The Halloween theme.
  • Also Crowning Music of Nightmare Fuel.
    • In many ways Carpenter's theme to The Fog is even better. But Carpenter's best is probably the main theme to Escape from New York.
• Steppenwolf's "Magic Carpet Ride" blasting across the launch base as Zefram Cochrane goes to make Earth's first contact with aliens possible in Star Trek: First Contact. Screw Easy Rider, THAT is the greatest use of the band's music ever.
• The Rocky series gave us "Gonna Fly Now" one wonderful anthem and also "Eye Of The Tiger" and "There's No Easy Way Out".
• Tarawa from Snow Falling On Cedars. Just... wow.
• The theme from The Great Escape.
  • Also that piece that plays when Steve McQueen is escaping on the motorcycle.
• Jerome Moross's The Big Country theme predates The Magnificent Seven by a few years, and is officially the first real Western film score.
• Erich Wolfgang Korngold's theme for King's Row, which should sound familiar. Apparently, when John Williams was writing the Star Wars soundtrack, George Lucas specifically asked him to emulate this.
  • Korngold was accused of "sounding to much like Hollywood", the truth is Hollywood sounded like Korngold
  • The opening theme of Captain Blood has never been topped for sheer joyous, swashbuckling panache and awesomeness.
  • The "Love Scene" from The Adventures of Robin Hood and the "Reunion" music from The Sea Hawk.
• V (of V for Vendetta fame) blows up the Old Bailey and the Houses of Parliament to the stirring strains of the 1812 Overture. Never has classical music been so incredibly badass.
  • The 1812 Overture is badass enough on its own. What other piece requires an artillery section and the church bells of a city?
  • Evey Reborn
• The Fifth Element with Lucia di Lammermoor/The Diva Dance.
  • While the original performance by Inva Mula has contradictory sources as to whether it was digitally manipulated (it appears to be); but the semi-professional singer Laura Workman was able to do the piece for real.
  • Also, the bit that plays as Leeloo escapes containment and gives us our first look at Future!New York. Absolutely mesmerizing.
• From Sunshine, "Sunshine (Adagio in D Minor)" is likely to get more exposure on trailers than it did in the movie, but it was a perfect accompaniment to the scene, and made it the emotional climax that it was meant to be.
  • Mercury is strange, short, and incredibly beautiful and relaxing.
  • It's all about Cappa's Jump.
  • Freezing Inside: Mace His death was the hardest to watch.
• Queen's theme for Flash Gordon. Viewable here.
  • HE'S FOR EVERY ONE OF US! STANDS FOR EVERY ONE OF US! HE STANDS, WITH A MIGHTY HAND, F' EVERY MAN, EVERY WOMAN, EVERY CHILD, HE'S THE MIGHTY FLAAAA-ASH!
  • The battle between the Hawkmen and War Rocket Ajax is four-and-a-half minutes of entirely uninterrupted awesome, even discounting the presence of Brian Blessed and his signature DIIIVVVEEE!!!: The triumphant, rollicking synths and rumble-tumble drums of the first theme (starting at :52 in the following clip) segue into an all-out CMOA around 2:25 as Queen just goes for it. Ready?
  • The songs for Highlander (which led to their own album) as well. "Born to be kings, we're the princes of the uuuniverse!" Special mention to an insane guitar solo from Brian May at the beginning of "Gimme the Prize" that did not make it into the movie but which quite possibly broke time.
• Love Actually has the triumphant-in-the-face-of-adversity PM's Love Theme. And pretty awesome cover of Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas" by then 10-year-old Olivia Olson. She actually had to not sing as good as she could for the movie because the producers were worried that if she sang at full strength, the audience might not think it was actually her singing. For reference, here's how she sounds on the Love Actually soundtrack.
• Kenny Loggin's Highway to the Danger Zone from Top Gun.
  • And the Top Gun Anthem is even more awesome.
• From Easy Rider, Born To Be Wild.
• Jan A.P. Kaczmarek's Oscar-winning theme from Finding Neverland.
• Jai Ho from Slumdog Millionaire won the Academy Award for Best Original Song. It's easy to hear (and see) why.
  • The song "O Saya" was equally awesome and used perfectly during the chase scene at the beginning.
  • "Mausam & Escape" reeks of epic.
  • Aaj Ki Raat, an astonishingly trippy remix of a disco tune almost sounds like Matrix music.
  • Really, any work by A. R. Rahman would count as CMOA. Some of the work he did in India is (*gasp*) as good as Slumdog, though not as...techno-sounding. Even his debut was a classic.
• The climactic music from Forbidden Planet, a piece called "The Monster Pursues - Morbius Is Overcome".
• Casablanca: "Play 'La Marseillaise.' Play it."
  • Prefigured five years earlier by the rousing performance of 'La Marseillaise' in Grand Illusion. Here the Germans celebrate the taking of Fort Douaumont during the Battle of Verdun, ringing the church bells and singing 'The Watch on the Rhine' (sung by Major Strasser and his henchmen in Casablanca, even though this song was no longer the 'hit' it had been during the Franco-German War of 1870/71 and, to a lesser extent, World War I), but the Allied officers in the POW camp decide to put on their variety show anyhow. Then that show is interrupted by the news that the French have retaken Douaumont, and the performers just on stage - a group of British officers in drag - lead the audience in 'La Marseillaise' to the fury of the camp commandant and his officers, who are sitting in the front row. (Marcel Dalio, one of the stars of Grand Illusion, had a bit part in Casablanca as one of Rick's employees).
• Some highlights from Repo! The Genetic Opera include Zydrate Anatomy, Chromaggia, Seventeen, and We Started This Op'ra Shit.
  • Chromaggia also counts as an in-universe example. Particularly the line "I would rather be blind".
  • Let the Monster Rise. Anthony Stewart Head holds his last note like nobody's business.
  • 21st Century Cure, on the grounds of Terrance Zdunich's amazing low note on "concrete beloooooow...
  • Legal Assassin does a great job of portraying Nathan's inner conflict while sounding awesome.
• Michael Mann has a knack for choosing Crowning Music of Awesome to cap his films. To wit:
  • Heat, while Lt. Hanna stands vigil as Mc Cauley dies: "God Moving Over the Face of the Waters" by Moby.
  • Miami Vice, while Crockett watches Isabella leave, Tubbs watches Trudy wake up, and Crockett goes back to hospital where Trudy is recovering: "Auto Rock" by Mogwai
  • Ali, while Ali defeats George Foreman in the Rumble in the Jungle: "Tomorrow" by Salif Keita
  • Shadow on the Sun by Audioslave in Collateral.
• Clint Mansell, people. Really.
  • Lux Aeterna, made for Requiem for a Dream, was subsequently recut for the trailers to The Two Towers and Sunshine, as well as adapted for electric guitar to be used in Smokin' Aces. This is because it is awesome.
  • Death is the Road to Awe, from the soundtrack of The Fountain, is at least equally amazing. Builds up till about 7:41 and then - well, it's the score to an exploding sun. It's epic.
    • "Xibalba" / "Tree of Life" and "Stay With Me" are pretty epic too.
  • The reception to Smokin Aces might have been... mixed, to say the very least. However, no one can deny the awesome that is Mansell's score, most particularly Dead Reckoning.
• Tuck Everlasting's ominously epic "Jail Break" and hauntingly lovely music box whistling.
• The theme to StarGate is so awesome that trailers can't help but use it to make their movies look awesome.
• The use of Brian Eno's "Ending (An Ascent)" (starts at 1:18) at the end of Traffic was pretty inspired, especially considering the final scene is of Javier finally getting to watch kids play baseball at night.
• The live action adaptation of 20th Century Boys already has one in the first film, with the classical Golden Age superhero inspired theme for Kenji and the rest of the gang joining together again. When we finally get to hear the whole thing as they prepare for the climactic battle against Friend's giant robot, it makes what was already an incredibly emotional scene in the manga even more of a Tear Jerker, Crowning Moment of Heartwarming, and Crowning Moment of Awesome all rolled into one. Starts at 2:30 here.
• The resurrection scene in Casshern is elevated to ridiculous levels of epic thanks to Sagisu Shiro. And then the choir kicks in at 4:22, and it's elevated even higher.
  • The song "Requiem" from the Back Horn was quite epic as well, if not for the awesome ass kicking that goes along with it. When Casshern gets pissed, EVERYTHING pays.
• Then entire shootout scene from In Bruges had absolutely wonderful music.
• When R.E.M. stepped in to score Man on the Moon, a film named after one of their songs, they delivered a lovely instrumental soundtrack plus the new song "The Great Beyond". It's a companion piece that manages to be poignant yet triumphant, wistful yet joyful, and more than worthy of the original (to say nothing of its subject).
• Kenneth Branagh's Henry V's "Non Nobis Domine." It's a bit of Soundtrack Dissonance with the soft single voice starting the song and the voices that join it to finish in triumph as a bloodied Henry walks the muddy battlefield with a dead boy (an young Christian Bale) on his shoulder. It's still a great piece of music for a great film.
  • • Walton's "Death of Falstaff" is so. effing. depressing.
• Again in a Kenneth Branagh film: the music for the opening titles of Much Ado About Nothing.
• The beats from the final fight in Jackie Chans Georgeous will mesmerise you. Part of why it's one of the most glorious fight scenes ever.
  • Right after the sheer awesomeness of The Punisher being beaten to pulp to the sound of Verdis 'La donna è mobile'.
• In Shrek the Third, after singing a typical happy fairytale tune to gather the woodland creatures to her, Snow White cues the attack by launching into the opening call from Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song." Awesome.
• The opening of the Watchmen movie. A six-minute montage of the characters' backstory, soundtracked all the way with Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin'". Absolute perfection.
  • Dan and Laurie's sex scene, with Cohen's Hallelujah.
    • This is made even better by how the Leonard Cohen version was always meant as a straight Gospel song, which Jeff Buckley later covered as a sexy song.
  • Hendrix's cover of "All Along the Watchtower" as Nite Owl & Rorshach cross Antarctica to confront Ozymandias.
    • Philip Glass scoring John Osterman's transformation into Dr. Manhattan; "Sounds of Silence" for The Comedian's funeral; "Ride of the Valkyries" for Dr. Manhattan & The Comedian annihilating the VC...
  • From the Director's Cut, the Death of Hollis Mason... Set to the themesong of Raging Bull. It's awesome. Clip viewable here. Fun starts at around 2:10.
  • "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" by Tears for Fears in the background of Veidt's meeting with the CEOs.
  • Nat King Cole's "Unforgettable" in the movie is quite inspired.
  • My Chemical Romance's cover of Desolation Row
• Cinema Paradiso's main theme is nothing short of amazingly beautiful. Bonus points for a nostalgic feel.
• Trevor Rabin's HANDS-DOWN greatest work (it's a travesty the entire score hasn't been released) is the music for Remember the Titans. The only official release of music from the score (found in the last track of the CD) combines all the movie's main pieces into seven-and-a-half minutes of music that alternately makes you want to sprint up Mt. Everest, beat the living daylights out of opponents, cry, and, well, outrun a football team to win the state championship. 'Nuff said.
  • The Deep Blue Sea score is probably Rabin's finest achievement. In "Anarchy" he takes all of the pieces from the movie and puts them together similarly. But even more specifically, the point when the music climaxes is easily the most badass music ever made. Period.
  • His score for National Treasure wasn't too shabby either.
• Big Boots by Hello Stranger. The opening song of "Good Dick", and you won't even find the lyrics online.
• "It's not. Going to stop. 'Til you wise up." Magnolia was partly based on Aimee Mann songs, and one is actually sung by the characters in a key (and iconic) scene.
  • It was also hilariously parodied by Flight of the Conchords.
• Even if you didn't like Final Fantasy VII Advent Children itself, the music is amazing on its own. Some notable tracks:
  • For the Reunion
  • The Chase of Highway
  • Tenrai (Divinity I) and Tenrai (Divinity II) (Ominous Latin Chanting FTW)
  • One-Winged Angel. The original theme from the game is memorable in of itself, but The Movie cranks it Up to Eleven with some downright badass electric guitar work.
  • Cloud Smiles. The way the music builds up to a crescendo as Cloud spots Aerith and then the gentleness as she turns and then the final phrase as he realises 'Daijoubu...hitori ja nai'...beautiful.
  • [2] Safe and Sound, the new ending for Advent Children Complete, kicks ass way better than Calling, the original ending. It's got Gerard Freaking Way...nice tune and riffs to it too.
  • The End Credits track is lovely as well, an orchestral medley of FFVII's main theme, Aerith's theme and the Final Fantasy theme.
• The title theme of the film Blue Thunder is a classic, unforgettable riff that shows up whenever the titular helicopter appears.
• The soundtrack of Coraline is filled with tracks that are going to leave you thinking "How did the composer create that?" and it is as beautiful as it is haunting. Especially the intro track, "Dreaming", which seems to hit just the right notes and must have been complicated to compose. It also has some of the best usages of human voice in he soundtrack of any film, ever.
• The Passion of Joan of Arc. Yes it's a silent movie, but Richard Einhorn released a definitive score, "Voices of Light" in 1994. Have a listen to a bit, read the libretto.
• Thomas Newman. He scored Shawshank Redemption, for goodness' sake!
  • In the same movie, you KNOW you choked up when that aria from "The Marriage of Figaro" swelled on the loudspeakers and all over the prison.
• David Arnold's soundtrack to Independence Day. The aliens' shields are down, they're preparing to fire their primary weapon, and all the fighters are out of missiles. Who flies in to save the day? Why, the drunken barnstorming cropduster pilot -- with his own friggin' theme music! (And the main theme to this movie wasn't bad either.)
• Whatever its issues Dune, the original David Lynch film, the main theme is pretty epic. Especially when it's reprised to scenes of Fremen mounting giant SandWorms into battle!
  • "Paul Meets Chani" by Brian Eno is truly haunting. It definitely makes you think of a desert fortress on some lost planet. Tell me of your homeworld Usul...
    • The end theme "Take my Hand", was pretty sweet, too.
• Brian Tyler's soundtrack for SciFi's Children Of Dune is sheer, unmitigated awesome from start to finish, but here are some of the highlights.
  • "The Arrival Of Lady Jessica ^{[dead link]}" (click "Prelisten Track")
  • "Theme for House Atreides"
  • "The Jihad"
    • Also, "Summon the Worms" In context, Fremen leader Stilgar has just declared war, followed by a scene where the Fremen tribes are riding off to war on sandworms.
  • "Inama Nushif"
  • Speaking of Brian Tyler, another one of his beautiful works is the entirely self-performed (he not only wrote the music but did all the instrumental work on his own in the DVD footage) score from Bubba Ho-Tep.
• Public Enemies slots nicely into So Okay It's Average, but Otis Taylor's music on the soundtrack is grade A awesome.
• Sister Act has two holy songs that will make you think that you are in heaven:
  • Hail Holy Queen & Oh Maria
  • I Will Follow Him
• Christopher Guest's music-based films -- This Is Spinal Tap, Waiting for Guffman, and A Mighty Wind -- abound with music and musical moments which practically define Crowning Moment of Funny.
  • Stonehenge is by far the best example.
• The Rock-Comedy 'The Rocker' has the cast perform an incredible cover-version of Peter Gabriels 'In Your Eyes', which prompts the bands drummer to lose it and fire off an AWESOME and completely mood-killing drum-solo. The song isn't to be found on the OST or anywhere at all.
• While Stranger Than Fiction has one of the best scores of all time, one moment which is particularly crowning is at Ana's apartment, when Harold begins playing and singing the only song he knows on the guitar - Wreckless Eric's "Whole Wide World". When he gets interrupted, the soundtrack cuts in with the original track. Rock.
• Amelie's main theme, "La Valse D'Amélie" and "Comptine d'un autre été: L'après-midi", which was also used in Goodbye Lenin. La Valse D'Amélie is so popular Yann Tiersen performs them at most of his concerts.
• City of Ember's 'One Last Message, perfectly fits over the credits and end sequences.
• The title theme for The Black Hole. More Ear Wormy goodness from John Barry.
  • On the subject of John Barry and Ear Worms, the haunting theme from The Ipcress File shows that he's just as good at stale beer Spy Fiction as he is at martini.
  • The score to Out of Africa.
• John Williams wasn't the only one who could do Crowning Music of Awesome for the Harry Potter films. Nicholas Hooper's Fireworks.The Harry Potter films have never once had bad music in them. However, a few non John Williams ones that stand out would have to be:
  • The music when Harry is running through the snow in Goblet of Fire. Absolutely gorgeous. And as a leitmotiff it's great, too. For instance, whenever the music that would be played at the beginning of each Triwizard game, as well as the music played after Harry brings Cedric's body back from the graveyard. Speaking of which, the music when Voldemort get's resurrected. God bless Patrick Doyle.
  • The music in the beginning of Half Blood Prince when the Death Eaters fly through London and destroy Diagon Alley along with "Muggle Bridge" Millennium Bridge, as well as the music in the slow-motion scene of the photographers taking all the pictures of Harry and Dumbledore. Later on in the film, the panning shot over Hogwarts to Draco in the tower as it snows outside is great, and so is the music at the very end when the trio look out from the tower onto the sunset.
  • Alexandre Desplat's score for Deathly Hallows has some fantastic moments as well. The music at the very beginning when Hermione erases her parents memories of her, is heartbreaking, and really captures the feel of that scene as well as the feeling of the audience of this being the beginning of the end of the series. The music when we open to Malfoy Manor is very sinister, and the music when just Harry and Hermione are in Godric's Hollow is unlike much of the other music in the series... Desplat uses spanish guitar. And it is beautiful. Oh, and the music when Bellatrix throws the knife at Dobby as he proceeds to apparate himself, Harry, and Hermione out of Malfoy Manor, which results in his death upon arrival at the beach is dripping with antici.......pation.
  • If you thought the score for the first film was good, you'll agree that Alexandre Desplat outdid himself for the music in Part 2. "The Tunnel", music to match the fast-paced ride through Gringotts, and especially "Statues" and "Courtyard Apocalypse", similar heartbreaking songs used during the Battle of Hogwarts.
  • Lily's Theme. Silent, and still epic. Portraits perfectly the beginning of the very end of the series. It screams "It's almost over now...".
  • Outside of scores, though, The Weird Sisters's music is great, and then what may be the Crowning Music of Awesome of all Crowning Music of Awesome in the Harry Potter films; Nick Cave & the Bad Seed's "O Children". Amazing song, amazing scene.
• The theme from Fargo.
• Ladies and gentlemen, Masaru Satō, composer of some of Akira Kurosawa's greatest films, including The Hidden Fortress (a major influence on a little film you may have heard of), Yojimbo (a version of the protagonist's Swaggering Brass Theme of Awesome starts at the 2:00 mark) and Sanjuro.
• TT-34's "Jack" in Night Watch when Anton fights an invisible vampire, and Simeon carelessly drives his huge truck alongside with Tiger Cub and Bear to save him. So awesome it was back in Day Watch, its sequel, when Olga (actually Anton in Olga's body) is running away from an enraged Zavulon with cars blowing up behind her.
• Simon and Garfunkel's contributions to The Graduate. All of them
• Grosse Pointe Blank had an great retro soundtrack, but the awesome point was hit during the kickboxing fight scene to Mirror in the Bathroom by The English Beat. [3]
• The song Demonheart by Luca Turilli, made in honour of Event Horizon.
• The performance of The American Symphony at the end of Mr. Holland's Opus. The whole movie covered the creation of this piece of music, and it did NOT disappoint.
• Serenity. The music that plays as River Tam says "My turn." and charges down the hall to decimate the Reavers and close the blast door is just epic.
  • The end credits music is good too.
  • The Serenity theme. When we first see the ship the music starts out so soft and melancholic and then turns into this energetic and cheerful ode to freedom... Awesome!
• In The Devil's Rejects, the Allman Brothers "Midnight Rider" over the opening credits.
• The Disney movie Hocus Pocus is nothing particularly special, but in one sequence Bette Midler does a performance of "I Put a Spell on You" that has to be heard to be believed.
  • Sarah Jessica Parker singing Come Little Children. It's just a shame it's only 30 seconds long...
    • katethegreat19 says otherwise. Come Little Children
• Peter Murphy singing 'Bela Lugosi's Dead' in the opening sequence in The Hunger, a scene that is more or less the orgasm of goth culture.
• From The Blues Brothers, "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love" and its immediate follow-up, "Sweet Home Chicago" are the eleven o'clock numbers to end all eleven o'clock numbers.
  • Cab Calloway, kicking it as cool as he'd done fifty years earlier.
  • Blues Brothers 2000 had its faults. "How Blue Can You Get" featuring B.B. King, Eric Clapton, Bo Diddley, Travis Tritt, Paul Schaffer, Koko Taylor, Jimmie Vaughan, Steve Winwood, Isaac Hayes, Charlie Musselwhite, Clarence Clemons, Lou Rawls, and every major living blues performer from the past 50 years, is not one of them.
• From the movie Enchanted comes Ever Ever After.
  • The affectionate parody of Disney Classics, Happy Working Song.
  • The Central Park dancefest, That's How You Know.
  • The genuinely emotional song So Close.
  • The over-the-top villainy of Narissa Arrives.
• Georgi Sviridov's waltz from the Russian movie The Blizzard. It's way more famous than the movie itself.
• Eugen Doga's wedding waltz from A Hunting Accident is so popular it's often played at real weddings.
• The Soviet-French film Teheran 43 has the beautiful Une vie d'amour.
  • Speaking of Charles Aznavour, his Et pourtant is a classic now though the movie it was written for, Cherchez l'idole, seems to be completely forgotten.
• Bob Fosse's All That Jazz gives us this climatic cover of "Bye Bye Love".
• The Twentieth Century Fox Fanfare.
  • And the Tri Star Pictures theme.
• The both upbeat and haunting theme from Das Boot. Good movie, too.
• Although most of The Passion of the Christ is extremely sad, the "Resurrection" ending theme can just blow you away.
• Say what you will about its overuse in film trailers, but Craig Armstrong's "Escape" from Plunkett and Macleane more than deserves its awesome status, particularly with the truly awesome Big Damn Heroes moment that it's used for in the movie.
  • Also, his work in the 2008 Incredible Hulk movie is phenomenal. Highlights are the Main Theme and the music for the final battle, starting at 6:40.
• The X-Men movies don't have much in the way of notable original music, but the opening scene of X2, where Nightcrawler takes out the CIA to Mozart's Dies Irae? Too awesome to put into words.
  • Actually X3 had some kickass parts like Phoenix Rises.
  • Sub Lift from X-Men: First Class. Three guesses for which scene it plays in.
  • Magneto.
  • John Ottman's end title from X2 rules all before it. End of.
• In Zombieland, after the main characters have just kicked a metric ton of zombie ass in the theme park, the Raconteurs' "Salute Your Solution" plays as they ride off and the credits roll. AWESOME.
  • Also, Metallica's "For Whom the Bell Tolls" plays over the opening credits set to slow-mo zombie attacks.
  • Also, The song "Ecstasy of Blood" by David Sardy which is played at Tallahassee's amazing zombie stand off. Where it is implied that he is sacrificing himself, when in reality he ends up killing all the zombies that chase him.
• The song "Axel F" from Beverly Hills Cop is incredibly catchy. Even though it is two decades old, it was featured on an episode of Family Guy and also used in a scene in Monsters vs. Aliens. According to The Other Wiki, it topped musical charts in 1985, and remixes of it topped European musical charts in 2003!
• Nemesis' theme frome Resident Evil: Apocalypse, especially "Nemesis Awakes"
• The theme from the teasers for the still-in-production movie Iron Sky, a comedy about Nazi spacemen.
• Shoot'Em Up takes very little time to bust out the guns and high octane action sequences. Breed (by Nirvana) kicks in and sets the tone for the movie: SUPER AWESOME.
• Withnail's Theme.
  • "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" as Withnail "makes time" on the highway into London.
• The Villain Song "Choose Your Poison" from The Return of Captain Invincible gets bonus points for being sung by none other than Christopher Lee.
• Paint Your Wagon They Call the Wind Maria
• Barbie in the Princess and the Pauper, not only does the villain (played by Martin Short) get the best song, but his theme music -- no, no; five notes from his theme music play each time something bad happens for the heroes, and it sounds more chilling each time.
• Oldboy has lirical and creepy theme epecially if you picture Oh Dae-Su as he walks, smiling when suicidal guy hit's the ground behind him. And words in his head "Laugh, and the world laughs with you. Weep, and you weep alone." AWESOME!
• Steven Soderbergh's movie The Informant! is awesome enough to begin with, but the music by Marvin Hamlisch is even better. Especially "Car Meeting."
• The Jam's "A Town Called Malice" in Billy Elliot, when Billy just explodes from his Small Town Boredom and goes dancing thorugh the streets.
• Brandon Lee's transformation scene in The Crow--set off to The Cure's "Burn." Oh, yes....
• Don't Stop Me Now in Shaun of the Dead.
• Persepolis. Eye of the Tiger. Uh-uh-UH.
• From Alien vs Predator: Requiem, we have the songs Decimation Proclamation, Requiem Overture, and the end credits, which combine both.
• At the end of Xanadu, Kira and the other muses perform a montage of random songs. And after a truly godawful stereotypical country debacle the movie X wipes and the muses dance to a low key instrumental humming accompanied by a choir. Suddenly the music takes a turn for the best and violins chime in heralding a reprise of the title song. And... it... is... awesome!
• What, no School of Rock? "And if you wanna be the teacher's pet..."
  • YES. Also, "The legend of the rent was WAY HARDCORE!!!"
• 1969's Battle of Britain was scored mostly by fairly standard martial music -- a bombastic march for the Germans, and a heroic theme for the British. Then they reached the final air battle, turned off the sound effects, and let William Walton's music take over. No machine-guns, no explosions, no dialogue, just amazingly, hauntingly awesome music as two air forces fight tooth and nail in the skies of southern England.
  • This nearly didn't happen - the producers had planned to completely throw out Sir William's score in favour of a Ron Goodwin replacement. The film's star (and friend of the composer) Laurence Olivier was furious when he found out, and he threatened to take his name off the film if some of Walton's music wasn't retained. (The soundtrack CD features both composers.)
  • On the subject of Ron Goodwin, the composer for Battle of Britain, the theme from Where Eagles Dare.
  • Goodwin also wrote the music for the four Miss Marple movies starring Margaret Rutherford and the rolicking theme for Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines.
  • His epic 633 Squadron theme
• The Famous Dambusters March, which has arguably become more famous than the movie it is from. It's even more awesome because (according to the composer's son), the piece was not actually written for the film, but as a stand-alone, Elgarian style march, as the march's composer Eric Coates disliked writing film music.
• The Departed has an amazing soundtrack, but the greatest song in the set is undoubtedly Dropkick Murphys' Shipping up to Boston. You know, the punk rock song with bagpipes.
• Office Space "Damn, It Feels Good to Be a Gangster!!" Especially with Peter's stone cold indifference in that scene, as well as "Still" by Geto Boys, the music in the copier scene.
• From the Dragonlance : Dragons of Autumn Twilight movie, the 10-minute "Battle of Pax Tharkas" parts 1-2.
• Vocalise from The Ninth Gate is exquisitely haunting, and easily the best part of the soundtrack.
• Another from Michael Giacchino: The soundtrack of the Speed Racer film was amazing at all times, but the piece entitled Reboot, which plays as Speed goes from dead last to first place after jump-starting his car, is just beautiful.
  • Quite a few of the other pieces are worth a listen.
• Webber's the Overture from Phantom of the Opera.
• Mongol is packed with an immense amount of awesome songs, featuring legitimate throat singing. Does this not shriek bad-assitude? What about with METAL?
• Say what you want about Bebe's Kids, but one song that should get recognition from that movie was Renee Diggs' "All My Love".
• "Sacrifice" by Motorhead, from Tromeo and Juliet.
• The main theme from Out of Africa.
• Hudson Hawk: Would you like to swing on a star...
• "A Man of Determination" from Once Upon a Time in China.
• Ilan Eshkeri and his Stardust score. Septimus in particular is excellent (so much so that it was used on Top Gear during the diesel BMW race when the Stig was at the wheel), but there's also a short bit of music similar to that which plays as Septimus and Lamia use the runes to search for Yvaine and which - woes! - isn't included in the official soundtrack.
  • Other standouts from that soundtrack include Shooting Star and Coronation.
• The heart-aching closing theme to Anna To The Infinite Power.
• The climactic moment from "Shrek 2", accompanied by the Fairy Godmother (voiced by Jennifer Saunders) singing Holdin' out for a Hero. As a scene it's triumphant and amazing. There's a line in the song - "like fire in your blood" - and that's what listening to that song feels like, particularly as Shrek and Donkey storm the castle and make it inside you just want to get up and shout and cheer and kick some ass. Awesome indeed.
  • See also the violin instrumental. If there's one thing that can make the song more awesome, it's that.
• From Mr. and Mrs. Smith, El Tango de los Assassinos
• There's also Kenji Kawai's masterpieces from the Kung-Fu movie Ip Man, one of the best and most memorable being "Battle for Righteousness"
• Bill and Teds Excellent Adventure:
  • The guitar solo Bill and Ted play at the end of Bogus Journey, which was recorded by Steve Vai.
  • 'In Time', the song heard in the background when the malfunctioning booth sends Bill and Ted into the enlightened future to a pre-emptive heroes' welcome. It underpins perfectly a sequence that shows the value of what they've been asked to protect.
  • The opening song "Breakaway"?
  • Bricklin - Walk Away? It's the music that the report begins to and it gets better if you listen to the whole song.
  • And "God Gave Rock And Roll To You II" by Kiss, into which the aforementioned guitar solo segues for the credits.
• From Joe Hisaishi, this.
• Spaceballs: 'Cause what you got is what we need, and all we do is dirty deeds...
• The use of John Cale's interpretation of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah added significantly to the first Shrek film's awesome factor.
• The opening theme from Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow.
• Moulin Rouge and all its epic remixes. Special mention goes out to "El Tango de Roxanne" for being both a great cover AND a fantastic climactic moment.
• "There once was a man named Worrell!"
• From How To Train Your Dragon, both the song and the scene are pure heartwarming awesome: "Forbidden Friendship" by John Powell. It's just a magnificent piece of music which sets up the whole film. This scene is the heart of the film, and the music makes it.
  • Some of the flying moments with Toothless also count, see New Tail starting around 1:58 and Test Drive
  • Then during the credits, we all get a treat from Jónsi in the form of Sticks and Stones
  • Coming Back Around. Once the little 'romantic' part's over, that's when it really starts, with a score similar to Test Drive. Escpecially the short Celtic part after that.
  • The Downed Dragon is incredibly creepy for a kids movie. It sounds gentle and mysterious at the beginning, but suddenly that is replaced with loud drums and drawn-out strings, and from there it only gets more unnerving.
• "It's our secret of survival in a very nasty world!"
• The theme from Out of Africa.
• The Spanish Inquisition from Mel Brooks's History of the World: Part I would like to remind you that it's better to lose your skull cap than your skull. A crowning seven minutes of Funny.
• Speaking of Mel Brooks, Blazing Saddles' title theme for at least a week.
• Lloyd Dobbler. A boom box. Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes." Enough said.
• From Unbreakable, "The Orange Man" makes your hair stand on end.
• Amazingly, Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London spawns a pretty epic cover of Edwin Starr's "War"; the fight going on behind it is much, much better.
• From 3:10 To Yuma, this.
  • The original 3:10 To Yuma's opening song is pretty awesome too.
• The Incredibles: Oh, yeah.
  • And the Anvil Chorus in the "every door, button and explosion in the movie" DVD Easter Egg; it fits perfectly.
• MOOOOOOORTAAAAAAAAL KOMBAAAAAAAAAAAT!!!!!!!
• The main title theme from Cutthroat Island.
• Barbra Streisand's finale at the end of Funny Girl. Her amazing vocal power and emotion in that scene was most certainly a key factor for her to win the Oscar for best performing actress-the only Oscar ever that was a tie.
• Isaac Hayes and his theme for Shaft; Badass personified.
• From Get Him to The Greek:
  • T-Rex's 20th Century Boy.
  • The Clap
  • Bangers, Beans and Mash
  • Going Up
  • Gang of Lust
  • and Furry Walls
• The wrenching scene in Hotel Rwanda which finds a priest and several nuns escorting orphans to the hotel, where they and other foreigners are to be safely evacuated while the Rwandans are left behind is accompanied by a beautiful piece of African choral music that just makes the scene all the sadder--but the same music is played over the ending, where having escaped the slaughter, the main character and his wife reach a refugee camp where they are reunited with his brother's children.
• Ben Kingsley's song "The Wind And The Rain" at the end of the 1996 Twelfth Night film.
• Drive Faster from the movie Transporter 3, especially from 1:06 onwards. (Thanks, G Mod Idiot Box!)
• From the Disney film Hercules, this music plays as the main character personally frees all of the gods, the love interest dies, and the main character descends into the netherworld to get her back. Then, this music plays as he is welcomed to Olympus and becomes a god.
• "The Boys are Back in Town" by Thin Lizzy playing over the end credits of The Expendables.
  • The Extended Cut excises the song to make room for Shinedown's "Diamond Eyes." What it loses in classic cool it gains threefold in sheer Badass. Boom-lay, boom-lay, BOOM!
• Seven Pounds: Muse's version of "Feeling Good" during the scene where Tim fixes The Beast for Emily qualifies for this trope.
• From Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, while "Black Sheep" (by The Clash At Demonhead, and/or by Metric) is arguably the best song in the movie, it's "Threshold," for the fight scene against evil exes #5 and #6, that is the Crowning Music of Awesome: the music is the battle, it's awesome music (major against minor in Epic Rocking!), and the scene has a gorilla fighting an ice dragon-y thing!
  • Interstingly, the Clash At Demonhead "cover" of Black Sheep is widely regarded to be better than the original. The actress Brie Larson is a singer, and embarrassingly, she rather shows up Emily from Metric. Frustratingly, no CD-quality version of it is available.
  • There's also the Bass Battle between Scott and Todd Ingram.
  • What? No love for Matthew Patel's Villian Song? If you wat to fight meee...
• "Feeding Time" from Beethovens Second, composed by Randy Edelman.
• "Chaiyya Chaiyya Bollywood Joint" by A.R. Rahman / Punjabi MC over the closing credits of Inside Man
• A very early CMOA - "Battle on the Ice" from Alexander Nevsky, scored by Prokofiev. Inspired many a dramatic battle theme, and may have even introduced Ominous Latin Chanting to cinema audiences.
• Camp Rock 2's "I Wouldn't Change A Thing" is just awesome.
• Holes. "If Only, If Only."
  • For pure fun, you really can't beat Dig It. Now, if only it didn't get stuck in your head like there's no tomorrow...
• Proffessor Alexander Hartdegen's theme goes like: da da dadaaa da da dadaaa da da da dadadadaaa! Best. Music. Ever.
• From Little Miss Sunshine, The Winner Is, which appears in an awesome Gears of War 2 trailer (made awesome by the song's presence).
• Suspiria has a truly epic theme by Goblin. The full version is six minutes of creepy awesome. Listen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvUaGlbTya4
• The moment from Almost Famous where they all sing "Tiny Dancer" on the bus. It's the highlight of the film.
• The Natural, one of Randy Newman's finest pieces
• The Other Guys has two - the White Stripe's "Icky Thump" during the shoot-out, and "Pimps Don't Cry" during the credits...
• Sure, everybody loves Disney tunes, but when it comes to family movies with awesome songs, consider the big screen output of Jim Henson and company:
  • "The Rainbow Connection" from The Muppet Movie, especially the Triumphant Reprise when they actually find it.
  • "Hey! A Movie!" from The Great Muppet Caper is Fourth Wall-smashing fun that celebrates what the movies are all about:

There'll be mystery And catastrophe But it's all in fun You paid the money Wait and see!

• • "Together Again" from The Muppets Take Manhattan.
  • "The Grouch Anthem" from Sesame Street Presents Follow That Bird, though "Ain't No Road Too Long" gives it a run for its money.
  • When it comes to the Pop Star Composer trope, no Disney effort can collectively touch the tunes David Bowie wrote and performed for Labyrinth. Playful ("Magic Dance", "Chilly Down"), wickedly tender ("As the World Falls Down"), thunderous ("Within You"), exhilarating ("Underground")...oh so Eighties, oh so right.
  • From the 2011 movie we have "Life's a Happy Song" and Man or Muppet which is an Award Bait Song done right..
• The theme from Yor: Hunter from the Future.
• It's the mid-1980s. Some bright spark decides to adapt the The Destroyer series for cinema. It's not a financial success, so sadly no follow-ups are made. But it has more than its fair share of awesome moments...and Craig Safan composes a bitchin' good, none-more-80s top-notch action hero theme for Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins.
• Tron. The Wendy Carlos music is brilliant (the fact that the real-world music is mainly orchestral while the computer-world music is mainly electronic, was a brilliant touch), but the two Journey tracks are also great.
• Alien: James Horner's action score for Aliens can be heard in countless trailers, while Eliott Goldenthal's score for Alien 3, especially "Adagio" is the best part of the film.
• The entire soundtrack to Horton Hears A Who, especially Mountain Chase.
• "Battle of Kerak" from Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven: another Harry Gregson-Williams piece; medieval and operatic, it's the most energetic and diverse theme on the soundtrack, with a helping of Mood Whiplash... along with the Arabic end credits, "Ibelin/Light of Life" also by Gregson-Williams.
• Bizarre, but Georgio Moroder's uber-80's 1984 soundtrack to the classic silent film Metropolis contains several pieces of Awesome, e.g. "Cage of Freedom" which accompanies The Reveal of the Tower of Babel skyscraper.
  • This in turn inspired at least one enterprising Netizen to recut the Metropolis trailer to the "Bladerunner theme" by Vangelis mentioned above.
• Master and Commander's soundtrack has some of the most exceptional quality records of the existing songs it 'covers' like the La Musica Notturna Delle Strade and portion of Mozart Violin Concerto No. 3, as well as some amazing battle scores.
• The special medley arrangement by John Williams of the crowning film music scores of awesome in this tribute to his fellow composers.
• In Demolition Man, Sting's rockier remix of The Police song "Demolition Man" is really quite kickass.
  • Don't mess around with the Demolition Man!
• Just when you think everything's going to be okay in Dead Friend (aka The Ghost), an epic rock track starts playing just as the final twist is revealed...then the credits roll.
• Alpha and Omega has the howling scenes, which were absolutely great.
• The Thomas Crown Affair has this little gem.
• Maurice: The opening music and 'The Boathouse' especially.
• 127 Hours, Festival by Sigur Ros. While awesome on it's own, the song's awesomeness is amplified by the thousands in context of the scene that it's in. You know which.
• Canis Lupus, from the Fantastic Mr Fox soundtrack.
• Welcome Home by King Diamond, from Clerks II.
• The Sin City trailer had Cells by The Servant. It's so closely connected to the movie that it's often referred to as "The Sin City Theme".
• For some strange reason the soundtrack of the Ewan Mc Gregor movie "The Serpent's kiss" never was released. It's a shame, since it featured rare gems like this one.
• For people who like Folk, Bluegrass, and old-time country, O Brother, Where Art Thou? is 107 minutes of awesome.
• Don't change your channel! Don't touch that dial! We got it all on UH! F!
• The entire soundtrack for Once, but especially "Falling Slowly". Also, "Lies."
• The opening theme to Cecil B. Demented, by Moby. Awesomely distorted.
  • And from the same film, Basil and Zoe Poledouris's "Dying To Meet You". [4]
• Nick Glennie-Smith's score to We Were Soldiers. It is an incredible soundtrack that really fits the story. But the part that sticks out the most is the piece that plays during the end credits. It is entitled Mansions of the Lord, and it is so unbelievably beautiful.
• The Eurythmics Concept Album / Soundtrack to Nineteen Eighty-Four. The whole album oozes despair and paranoia - completely fitting to the subject matter. "Doubleplusgood" is as high-energy and paranoid as a cocaine binge. "Room 101" is Nightmare Fuel in soundtrack form. Samples from all the tracks here.
• In Goodbye Lenin, the national anthem of former East Germany is used awesomely in a rousing (if fake) news broadcast.
• "Let the River Run" by Carly Simon from the Working Girl soundtrack. Powerful, uplifting, and the musical embodiment of the American Dream.
• The "Jungle Dance" from the original King Kong. So awesome, they re-used it as the in-world music in the theatre scene.
• Carter Burwell's incredible score for Miller's Crossing. Also, the Crowning Moment of Awesome attempted assassination to the tune of "Danny Boy."
• Megamind definetely deserves mention... Bad to the Bone, Highway to Hell, Welcome to the Jungle and Bad...
• When Clark defeats the evil Superman in Superman III, and the music starts up...
• The main theme to Cannibal Holocaust is utterly beautiful in spite of it's gruesome subject matter. A fantastic textbook case of Soundtrack Dissonance.
• End Of The Spear has such tunes as "Tears in the Sand", "Jaguar Hunt", "Father and Son", and "Fleeing"
• "Prawnkus" from District 9.
• Mean Green Mother and Dentist from Little Shop of Horrors.
• From Captain America: The First Avenger, there's the song "Star-Spangled Man", a glorious pastiche of every WWII-era ultra-patriotic propaganda tune.
  • Ladies and gentlemen, the Captain America March. It's an Alan spectacular (Menken with the song, and Silvestri with the score)!
  • This song, which plays during the scene when Cap returns from his one-man rescue of the 400 Allied soldiers is just so awesome.
• Patrick Doyle's Thor really needs to be here. This ending sequence is breathtaking, combining beautiful cosmic imagery with epic music. Incidentally this music was also used during his Theme Music Power-Up.
• On the subject of Patrick Doyle, his score for Rise of the Planet of the Apes ought to be included here. Check it.
• More Doyle! You would expect it from a kid movie called a Little Princess but there are some breathtaking pieces, particularly The Trenches", " Captain Crewe and the Solider, The escape and " Papa ( the last of which is also part Tear Jerker turned Heartwarming Moment
• Healing Incantation from Tangled. Truly, truly haunting for a song that is barely above acapella.
• Sweet Dreams running through the opening sequence of Sucker Punch. Both haunting and simply breathtaking.
  • Sung by Lead Actress Emily Browning herself no less.
• The soundtrack for RocknRolla is crowning music of awesome.
• Bill Medley & Jennifer Warnes "Time Of My Life" fronm Dirty Dancing.
• Wong Chia Chi's Theme by Alexandre Desplat in Ang Lee's Lust, Caution It's such a sublime and beautiful score, you won't be able to not want to cry.
• The Big Lebowski. YEAH! YEAH! OH YEAH!
• The trance soundtrack in Alien Cargo, composed by Patrick O’Hearn.
• Ghost Rider. The cover of the song "Ghost Riders in the Sky" by the band Spiderbait in the ending credits (and also an instrumental of the same song while the two ride) is simply awesome.
• The Joshuu Sasori series has two haunting, highly emotionally charged, slightly surreal and all-round incredible songs across the four first films. The fourth film is named after the more famous one. Both are beautifully sung by Meiko Kaji, the main actress, who is also a respected enka singer in her own right, and is known for doing songs for her films.
• Trevor Jones's score for Cliffhanger is made of awesome, particularly the seven-minute plus end credits.
• Tan Dun has done some very impressive work. Prime examples: the Overture to Hero and 'For the World'. See also the quiet heartbreak of 'Gone with Leaves', and feel the Wuxia badassitude of two assassins storming the King of Qin's palace. By themselves.
• "What Are We Made Of" from The Adventures Of Pinocchio, composed by the one and only Brian May.
• Bluto's Villain Song, "I'm Mean", from the live-action Popeye movie.
• "Darkest Side Of The Night" from Friday The 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan.
• Monty Python's music tends towards the silly rather than the awesome, but there is no denying that "Brian" (from Life of Brian) has a suitably epic and awesome feel even if the lyrics are things like "And he started to shave / And have one off the wrist / and want to see girls / And go out and get piiiiiiiiissssed!" Gilliam's animation doesn't hurt the sequence any.
• The soundtrack to The Hunger Games. Chilling, majestic, triumphant, everything it needed to be and more. It was perfect.
• Many Wuxia movies and tv series uses music that can stir you up inside, even if you have no idea what they're saying. Examples:
  • From the Kungfu Master TV series. It gets better if you actually understand what it's saying.
  • Ip Man theme song and its sequel
  • Shaolin Soccer opening.
• Alan Silvestri's entire score for The Avengers is this, but particular props go the the encapsulating "Avengers Theme" and the Tear-Jerking "One Way Trip".
• Christopher Young's entire score for the original Hellraiser is dark, foreboding, mysterious, and imposing. Awards must be given for his "Resurrection" track, which played during Frank's fleshy resurrection as a skinless monstrosity back into the earth from the world of the cenobites.

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