IMDb Staff Favorite Soundtrack or Score (Pre-1995)
by hb | created - 06 Feb 2015 | updated - 18 Feb 2015 | PublicThe IMDb staff was asked "What is your favorite soundtrack or score?". From this list, whose opinion do you most agree with?
We had a lot of answers, many staff members submitted several; this is a selection of our answers from before 1995. It excludes perennial favorites like Star Wars and television.
The complete list is here.
Discuss your own selection here.
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1. Touch of Evil (1958)
PG-13 | 95 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A stark, perverse story of murder, kidnapping and police corruption in a Mexican border town.
Director: Orson Welles | Stars: Charlton Heston, Orson Welles, Janet Leigh, Joseph Calleia
Votes: 109,781 | Gross: $2.24M
2. Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
PG-13 | 166 min | Western
A mysterious stranger with a harmonica joins forces with a notorious desperado to protect a beautiful widow from a ruthless assassin working for the railroad.
Director: Sergio Leone | Stars: Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson, Claudia Cardinale, Jason Robards
Votes: 348,982 | Gross: $5.32M
3. American Graffiti (1973)
PG | 110 min | Comedy, Drama
A group of teenagers in California's central valley spend one final night after their 1962 high school graduation cruising the strip with their buddies before they pursue their varying goals.
Director: George Lucas | Stars: Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Paul Le Mat, Charles Martin Smith
Votes: 98,116 | Gross: $115.00M
4. Deep Red (1975)
R | 127 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
A jazz pianist and a wisecracking journalist are pulled into a complex web of mystery after the former witnesses the brutal murder of a psychic.
Director: Dario Argento | Stars: David Hemmings, Daria Nicolodi, Gabriele Lavia, Macha Méril
Votes: 42,610
5. Rancho Deluxe (1975)
R | 93 min | Comedy, Romance, Western
Two drifters, of widely varying backgrounds, rustle cattle and try to avoid being caught in contemporary Montana.
Director: Frank Perry | Stars: Jeff Bridges, Sam Waterston, Elizabeth Ashley, Clifton James
Votes: 2,148
6. Manhattan (1979)
R | 96 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
The life of a divorced television writer dating a teenage girl is further complicated when he falls in love with his best friend's mistress.
Director: Woody Allen | Stars: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Mariel Hemingway, Michael Murphy
Votes: 147,205 | Gross: $45.70M
7. Blade Runner (1982)
R | 117 min | Action, Drama, Sci-Fi
A blade runner must pursue and terminate four replicants who stole a ship in space and have returned to Earth to find their creator.
Director: Ridley Scott | Stars: Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Edward James Olmos
Votes: 822,762 | Gross: $32.87M
8. Conan the Barbarian (1982)
R | 129 min | Action, Adventure, Fantasy
A powerful warrior seeks to avenge the genocide of his people and the murder of his parents at the hands of a snake cult.
Director: John Milius | Stars: Arnold Schwarzenegger, James Earl Jones, Max von Sydow, Sandahl Bergman
Votes: 162,441 | Gross: $39.57M
9. Beverly Hills Cop (1984)
R | 105 min | Action, Comedy, Crime
A freewheeling Detroit cop pursuing a murder investigation finds himself dealing with the very different culture of Beverly Hills.
Director: Martin Brest | Stars: Eddie Murphy, Judge Reinhold, John Ashton, Lisa Eilbacher
Votes: 202,985 | Gross: $234.76M
10. The Return of the Living Dead (1985)
R | 91 min | Comedy, Horror, Sci-Fi
When two bumbling employees at a medical supply warehouse accidentally release a deadly gas into the air, the vapors cause the dead to rise again as zombies.
Director: Dan O'Bannon | Stars: Clu Gulager, James Karen, Don Calfa, Thom Mathews
Votes: 68,870 | Gross: $14.24M
11. Stand by Me (1986)
R | 89 min | Adventure, Comedy, Drama
A writer recounts a childhood journey with his friends to find the body of a missing boy.
Director: Rob Reiner | Stars: Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, Jerry O'Connell
Votes: 441,420 | Gross: $52.29M
12. Dogs in Space (1986)
R | 103 min | Drama
Two man are the key members of a band called 'Dogs in Space' and share a house in a Melbourne suburb with a variety of young music fans and social misfits, including a college student and a transient and apparently nameless teenage girl.
Director: Richard Lowenstein | Stars: Michael Hutchence, Saskia Post, Nique Needles, Deanna Bond
Votes: 1,372
13. E.T. (1982)
PG | 115 min | Adventure, Family, Sci-Fi
A troubled child summons the courage to help a friendly alien escape from Earth and return to his home planet.
Director: Steven Spielberg | Stars: Henry Thomas, Drew Barrymore, Peter Coyote, Dee Wallace
Votes: 437,340 | Gross: $435.11M
14. Pretty in Pink (1986)
PG-13 | 97 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A poor girl must choose between the affections of dating her childhood sweetheart or a rich but sensitive playboy.
Director: Howard Deutch | Stars: Molly Ringwald, Jon Cryer, Harry Dean Stanton, Annie Potts
Votes: 88,539 | Gross: $40.47M
15. The Untouchables (1987)
R | 119 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
During Prohibition, Treasury agent Eliot Ness sets out to stop ruthless Chicago gangster Al Capone, and assembles a small, incorruptible team to help him.
Director: Brian De Palma | Stars: Kevin Costner, Sean Connery, Robert De Niro, Charles Martin Smith
Votes: 330,691 | Gross: $76.27M
16. Drowning by Numbers (1988)
R | 118 min | Comedy, Drama
Three generations of women share the same problem--marriage woes--and want to put an end to it.
Director: Peter Greenaway | Stars: Bernard Hill, Joan Plowright, Juliet Stevenson, Joely Richardson
Votes: 10,968 | Gross: $0.42M
17. My Neighbor Totoro (1988)
G | 86 min | Animation, Comedy, Family
When two girls move to the country to be near their ailing mother, they have adventures with the wondrous forest spirits who live nearby.
Director: Hayao Miyazaki | Stars: Hitoshi Takagi, Noriko Hidaka, Chika Sakamoto, Shigesato Itoi
Votes: 379,975 | Gross: $1.11M
18. The Lost Boys (1987)
R | 97 min | Comedy, Horror
After moving to a new town, two brothers discover that the area is a haven for vampires.
Director: Joel Schumacher | Stars: Jason Patric, Corey Haim, Dianne Wiest, Barnard Hughes
Votes: 161,046 | Gross: $32.22M
19. Edward Scissorhands (1990)
PG-13 | 105 min | Drama, Fantasy, Romance
The solitary life of an artificial man - who was incompletely constructed and has scissors for hands - is upended when he is taken in by a suburban family.
Director: Tim Burton | Stars: Johnny Depp, Winona Ryder, Dianne Wiest, Anthony Michael Hall
Votes: 523,622 | Gross: $56.36M
20. Quigley Down Under (1990)
PG-13 | 119 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
Sharpshooter Matt Quigley is hired from Wyoming by an Australian rancher paying a very high price. But when Quigley arrives Down Under, all is not as it seems.
Director: Simon Wincer | Stars: Tom Selleck, Laura San Giacomo, Alan Rickman, Chris Haywood
Votes: 24,527 | Gross: $21.41M
21. Until the End of the World (1991)
R | 158 min | Action, Drama, Sci-Fi
In 1999, Claire Tourneur's life is forever changed after she survives a car crash. She rescues Sam and travels the world with him. Writer Eugene Fitzpatrick follows and writes their story as a method of recording dreams is being developed.
Director: Wim Wenders | Stars: William Hurt, Solveig Dommartin, Pietro Falcone, Enzo Turrin
Votes: 11,324 | Gross: $0.75M
22. Reservoir Dogs (1992)
R | 99 min | Crime, Thriller
When a simple jewelry heist goes horribly wrong, the surviving criminals begin to suspect that one of them is a police informant.
Director: Quentin Tarantino | Stars: Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Chris Penn
Votes: 1,087,767 | Gross: $2.83M
23. The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
PG | 76 min | Animation, Family, Fantasy
Jack Skellington, king of Halloween Town, discovers Christmas Town, but his attempts to bring Christmas to his home causes confusion.
Director: Henry Selick | Stars: Danny Elfman, Chris Sarandon, Catherine O'Hara, William Hickey
Votes: 375,031 | Gross: $75.08M
24. Dazed and Confused (1993)
R | 103 min | Comedy
The adventures of high school and junior high students on the last day of school in May 1976.
Director: Richard Linklater | Stars: Jason London, Wiley Wiggins, Matthew McConaughey, Rory Cochrane
Votes: 199,351 | Gross: $7.99M
25. Backbeat (1994)
R | 100 min | Biography, Drama, Music
A dramatization of the Hamburg, Germany phase of The Beatles' early history.
Director: Iain Softley | Stars: Stephen Dorff, Sheryl Lee, Ian Hart, Gary Bakewell
Votes: 6,577 | Gross: $2.39M
26. Jurassic Park (1993)
PG-13 | 127 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
A pragmatic paleontologist touring an almost complete theme park on an island in Central America is tasked with protecting a couple of kids after a power failure causes the park's cloned dinosaurs to run loose.
Director: Steven Spielberg | Stars: Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough
Votes: 1,066,593 | Gross: $402.45M
27. Natural Born Killers (1994)
R | 119 min | Action, Crime, Romance
Two victims of traumatized childhoods become lovers and psychopathic serial murderers irresponsibly glorified by the mass media.
Director: Oliver Stone | Stars: Woody Harrelson, Juliette Lewis, Tom Sizemore, Rodney Dangerfield
Votes: 251,688 | Gross: $50.28M
28. The Crow (1994)
R | 102 min | Action, Crime, Drama
A man brutally murdered comes back to life as an undead avenger of his and his fiancée's murder.
Director: Alex Proyas | Stars: Brandon Lee, Michael Wincott, Rochelle Davis, Ernie Hudson
Votes: 202,960 | Gross: $50.69M
29. Hackers (1995)
PG-13 | 105 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
Teenage hackers discover a criminal conspiracy with plans to use a computer virus that will capsize five oil tankers.
Director: Iain Softley | Stars: Jonny Lee Miller, Angelina Jolie, Jesse Bradford, Matthew Lillard
Votes: 74,828 | Gross: $7.56M
30. Waiting to Exhale (1995)
R | 124 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Based on Terry McMillan's novel, this film follows four very different African-American women and their relationships with men.
Director: Forest Whitaker | Stars: Whitney Houston, Angela Bassett, Loretta Devine, Lela Rochon
Votes: 12,188 | Gross: $67.05M
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