10 best movie soundtracks of all time (Featured on Stuff.tv, November 2022)

In short, even the greatest slices of celluloid magic are nothing without the greatest pieces of music serving as an almighty warcry.

Ah, cinema, what a beautifully rendered treat for the eyes. According to very smart people, visual stimuli account for around 85% of human perception. By that theory, you’d think the audible side of things takes up much smaller importance in the way we perceive the world.
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However, does that mean we should be content with the silent, moving pictures of the early 1900s alone? Hell no, we don’t just want to have our cake and eat it; we want to clear out the buffet cart and be asked to leave by management.

It’s thanks to this yearning for greater things that treat the ears and the eyes that means yes, we can have Ride of the Valkyries in Apocalypse Now; we can tell that Baby had The Time of My Life; and we can watch Thor, God of Thunder, lay waste to undead legions to the mighty riffs of Immigrant Song.
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In short, even the greatest slices of celluloid magic are nothing without the greatest pieces of music serving as an almighty warcry.

With that in mind, here are 10 contenders for best movie soundtrack. Just don’t @ us, please.

​Top Gun

Who could predict a recruitment ad for the US Navy would have such an impact on pop culture (and many 80 kids’ career aspirations)? Top Gun’s soundtrack is just as iconic, featuring a vast array of tracks that remain ludicrously catchy nearly 40 years later. That’s thanks to some absolute belters, including Harold Faltermeyer’s unmistakable and rifftastic Top Gun Anthem, Berlin’s breathless Take My Breath Away or Cheap Trick’s synth-popping Mighty Wings.
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Say what you will about Tom Cruise, but we’re convinced that without Kenny Loggins’ Danger Zone, fighter pilots would have gone extinct long ago.

​Baby Driver

You don’t get much for your money these days, but no one told Edgar Wright that, going off this 30-track masterpiece. This album accompanies the story of Baby, a tinnitus-afflicted wheelman stuck in a life of crime and heist getaways. However, its main USP is that every scene in Baby Driver is masterfully choreographed to its music. A car chase set to Bellbottoms? Check. Every bullet fired set to beats from Hocus Pocus’ Focus (that yodelly one from the Nike World Cup ad)? Yup.
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It’s a popping soundtrack that’s a smorgasbord of rock, soul and almost everything in between.

​Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

Scott Pilgrim’s soundtrack is just as lively as its silver screen equivalent, perfectly capturing the frenetic pacing and editing of its comic-booked-based showdowns. With plenty of grungy bass and guitars, including tracks from Blood Red Shoes, Plumtree, and The Rolling Stones, this album is chock full of thump.
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The song lyrics for Sex Bob-Omb, the on-screen band in which our eponymous hero plays bass, are written by Beck, gifting it some extra music royalty.

If there’s one drawback, it’s the criminal omission of Brie Larson’s cover of Metric’s Black Sheep, which features in the film itself.

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