AFI's 25 Greatest Movie Scores of All-Time

For the AFI's purpose, a film score is an "original music composition written to serve as the dramatic underscore" (their quote) to a feature-length movie.

The key words are "original" (written specifically for the movies in question) and "underscore" (instrumental music that accompanies dialogue or visuals).

West Side Story and The Sound Of Music were both Broadway musicals to begin with, and their scores (with a couple of new songs for Sound Of Music) were simply imported into the movie versions. So, they wouldn't qualify as original movie scores (or as instrumental scores, since the bulk of their music consists of vocal numbers).

 

Where is Predator score by Alan Silvestri ?

 

+1 to SUPER FLY

I also really enjoyed Neil Young's "Dead Man" soundtrack. but that's not exactly mainstream

 

I would add:

Dr. Zhivago - Maurice Jarr

Romeo and Juliet - Nina Rota

 

"Local Hero" (1983) Mark Knopfler
"Our Town" (1940) Aaron Copland

 

I'll add:

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (Jerry Goldsmith)
There Will Be Blood (Jonny Greenwood
Sunshine (John Murphy)

 

On a related note, aren't the AFI due to update their "Top 100 (American) Films of All Time" list? I believe they said it would be updated every 10 years, the first and second versions being released in 1997 and 2007 respectively.

 

It'll be really cool if they did, but AFI hasn't done a list of any sort since the 2007 version of the Top 100, so I fear the chances are slim for a 2017 update.

Also, I never realized this, but AFI did do a list of the 25 greatest American movie musicals of all time (the list is from 2006):

AFI's 100 Years of Musicals

 

No North By Northwest makes this list highly suspect.