The 20 Best Movie Soundtracks of All Time
Miramax Films
Film is a visual medium, but ever since the silent era ended, sound—and especially music—has been an essential part of the movies. There are even some films whose music is as good (if not better!) than the action on screen. These are the movies with killer soundtracks: Perfect collections of songs that complement the film’s plot and mood while also standing alone as great albums .
It’s important to note that a soundtrack is not the same thing as a score. A score is music, typically instrumental, that’s been composed for a film. Think John Williams’ stirring Star Wars themes or Howard Shore’s epic fantasy music for The Lord of the Rings . A soundtrack, on the other hand, consists of songs that are featured in (or inspired by) a movie. Sometimes they include brand-new songs that a popular band or musician wrote just for the film, but frequently they’re a collection of pre-existing songs.
Read on for 20 of the best movie soundtracks ever. Some feature songs that perfectly capture an era of history, others brought new life to forgotten songs, and then there are those that simply rock. (You won’t find classic Disney movies or other musicals on this list—musicals are great, but they’re not quite the same thing as a killer soundtrack!) Read on to discover what you should watch and listen to next.
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Interscope
There’s more to the soundtrack of 2018’s A Star Is Born than just “Shallow.” In addition to Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper’s epic power ballad (sorry, Ally and Jackson Maine’s epic power ballad), the soundtrack also features other great original songs from the film, including “Always Remember Us This Way” and “Maybe It’s Time.” Another stand out is “Why Did You Do That?,” though your mileage may vary on whether or not that song is intentionally bad or actually good.
30th Century
It makes sense that the soundtrack to Edgar Wright’s 2017 action flick about a getaway driver is also a really, really good album to play while driving. The record features an eclectic group of artists, including Run the Jewels, Sky Ferreira , Queen, Blur, The Beach Boys, and Simon & Garfunkel (whose song “Baby Driver” gives the movie its name). What do all these songs have in common? They sound especially good with the wind in your hair.
Atlantic
In a just world, Dua Lipa would’ve been nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Song right alongside Billie Eilish and “I’m Just Ken.” Indeed, “Dance the Night Away” is one of the many songs that make Barbie such a pink-colored delight, alongside tracks from Lizzo , Charli XCX , Tame Impala, and Pink Pantheress . Special mention goes to Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice , who spit new life into Aqua’s ‘90s pop classic “Barbie Girl.”
BMG Entertainment
Whitney Houston doesn’t just star in this 1992 action film, which also features Kevin Costner as a bodyguard assigned to protect a pop singer from a stalker. She also provided several songs to the record that is the highest-selling soundtrack album of all time. Houston’s take on Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You” is the obvious standout track.
RELATED: The 65 Best Cover Songs of All Time .
Madison Gate/Sony Music/Masterworks
No other soundtrack on this list is as good to listen to while staring tearfully into a fireplace like Timothée Chalamet’s Elio does at the crushing end of the acclaimed 2017 coming-of-age romance. In addition to featuring new songs from Sufjan Stevens , the soundtrack also features Giorgio Moroder , The Psychedelic Furs, and Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto .
Motown Records
Were it only for “Fight the Power,” which Spike Lee asked the seminal hip hop group Public Enemy to write as a theme song for his breakout 1989 film, this soundtrack would still be an all-timer. Luckily the rest of the album is a great score for the hottest day of the summer—or any day, really.
Paramount/Epic Soundtrax
Some soundtracks are great because they pluck lesser-known songs out of obscurity and give them new life. That’s not really the case for Forrest Gump ’s double soundtrack, as the majority of the songs on it, including “Hound Dog,” “For What It’s Worth,” and “Fortunate Son,” are already pretty well-known. That’s to the soundtrack’s credit, though, as it’s a collection of songs that perfectly score the decades that Tom Hanks’ title character lives through. It’s a sonic trip through the ‘50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s, and before the days of streaming music, having all of those hits compiled on two discs was pretty useful for long road trips.
Epic Records/Fox Music
Zach Braff’s 2004 movie Garden State has faced some backlash for its millennial twee-ness, but when Natalie Portman’s character says, “You gotta hear this one song—it’ll change your life” and then played “New Slang” by The Shins? Well, she wasn’t necessarily wrong. Garden State ’s soundtrack is an incredible collection of early ‘00s indie, including Coldplay, Zero 7, and Iron & Wine, plus some older songs from the likes of Nick Drake and Simon & Garfunkel that manage to perfectly fit into the movie and album’s aesthetic.
Atlantic/WEA
Martin Scorsese sometimes is accused of glorifying organized crime in his movies, as even though the ultimate message of the films is almost always about how destructive such forces are… he also makes them look really cool. Look no further than how Goodfellas scores horrifying violence to great, energetic songs “Layla,” “Rags to Riches,” and “Sunshine of Your Love.” The 1990 crime drama isn’t ultimately pro-mob—far from it—but it is pro-good music.
Columbia Masterworks
Mike Nichols’ beloved 1967 comedy has a soundtrack that’s almost as beloved, thanks to Simon & Garfunkel. The folk duo contributed five songs to The Graduate , including “Mrs. Robinson,” which is about an older woman (played by Anne Bancroft ) who famously seduces Dustin Hoffman’s recent college grad. “The Sound of Silence” and “Scarborough Fair,” two other classic songs, are also on the track list.
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Polygram
Grosse Pointe Blank , a 1997 movie starring John Cusack as a professional assassin who returns to his hometown for a high school reunion, is a good movie but it hasn’t exactly endured as one of the greats from the decade. The soundtrack, though, is a killer collection of ‘80s hits that would’ve been playing at a 10-year reunion in the mid-’90s, such as “Rudie Can’t Fail,” “Under Pressure,” “Let My Love Open the Door,” and “Blister in the Sun.” These songs sounded great in the ‘80s, they sounded great in the ‘90s, and they still sound great today.
Hollywood/Marvel Music
All of the “Awesome Mixes” that score the Guardians of the Galaxy Movies—songs from the ‘60s and ‘70s that Star-Lord’s mom loaded his Walkman up with before he was abducted into the Marvel cosmos—are great. The first movie’s soundtrack might still be the best, though, as the sheer joy of having a blockbuster sci-fi action movie feature music from the likes of Blue Swede, The Jackson 5, and Rupert Holmes was such an unexpected subversion. It’s a huge part of the reason why the Guardians movies work as well as they do. In turn, the films have made songs like “Come and Get Your Love” relevant to a whole new generation.
Rhino Entertainment
Diablo Cody and Jason Reitman’s beloved 2007 coming-of-age comedy is a fantastic collection of mid-’00s indie music and other songs with a similar vibe, prompted in no small part by star Elliot Page’s suggestion that the title character would probably listen to the band the Moldy Peaches. The soundtrack album does indeed end with the cover of “Anyone Else but You” that Page and Michael Cera’s characters sing in the film, but it also includes the original song, plus tracks from Belle & Sebastian, Cat Power , The Kinks, Buddy Holly , and Sonic Youth.
Lost Highway/Mercury
You could name pretty much any film from the Coen Brothers as boasting one of the greatest soundtracks of all time ( The Big Lebowski is a classic especially/even if you hate the Eagles), but their 2000 folk take on The Odyssey might be the best. O Brother, Where Art Thou? ’s soundtrack features great bluegrass and soul songs, such as “Big Rock Candy Mountain” and “I’ll Fly Away,” plus several versions of “I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow,” the track the Soggy Boys record on a lark that ends up being the answer to all their problems.
MCA
Most of Quentin Tarantino’s movies have incredible soundtracks, as the director’s signature style and attention to detail extends to his song choices, too. Pulp Fiction , his 1994 hit, is probably the best of them all, though. The record includes snippets of some of the movie’s incredible dialogue interspersed with the surf rock and soul tracks that help give it its unique, energetic feel, including tracks “Jungle Boogie,” “Son of a Preacher Man,” and Dick Dale & His Del-Tones’ “Misirlou,” which memorably opens the film and the album.
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Warner Bros.
Prince’s soundtrack album for his 1984 film of the same name isn’t just widely regarded as a good soundtrack album. You’ll hear Purple Rain in contention for being one of the best albums—period—of all time. Featuring rocking, psychedelic songs “When Doves Cry,” “Let’s Go Crazy,” and the title track, “Purple Rain,” this album has a legacy that eclipses the movie it scores. (The movie is good too, though.)
Hollywood
West Anderson is another one of those directors whose movies almost always feature impeccable soundtracks. The Royal Tennenbaums is a standout among standouts, featuring songs from Paul Simon , Nico , The Velvet Underground, John Lennon , The Ramones, and more. Unfortunately, the soundtrack album doesn’t feature songs from The Rolling Stones and Van Morrison despite their importance in the film. Even without them, though, the album is an incredible collection, and you can always just rewatch The Royal Tenenbaums to get the full impact of Anderson’s choices.
RSO
How popular was the soundtrack to the 1977 John Travolta disco movie? When it came out it was the bestselling album in music history until Michael Jackson’s Thriller knocked from the No. 1 spot. The record is a disco classic, featuring the Bee Gees hits “Stayin’ Alive,” “Night Fever,” and “How Deep Is Your Love,” as well as songs from Yvonne Elliman , Kool & the Gang, KC and the Sunshine Band, and more. Disco can never be dead, not as long as copies of this album still exist.
ABKCO
Edgar Wright was faced with a difficult conundrum when adapting the beloved Scott Pilgrim graphic novel series. The title character is in a band, but Sex Bob-Omb is a glorified garage band. They couldn’t actually sound great or too polished, but they needed to sound… good. So Wright enlisted alternative artist Beck to make original Sex Bob-Omb songs that sound authentic. They’re joined by tracks from Metric, Broken Social Scene, The Rolling Stones, Plumtree, and more on the action-comedy’s soundtrack.
Republic
With great power comes great responsibility. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse soundtrack features a bunch of powerful, mostly up-and-coming artists, so it has a responsibility to be good. Luckily, the album more than delivers, featuring “Sunflower” by Post Malone and S wae Lee and “What’s Up Danger” by Blackway and Black Caviar, plus additional tracks from Juice WRLD , XXXTentacion , Jaden Smith , and Nicki Minaj.
30 Travel Movies to Help Inspire Your Next Trip
Sony Pictures Releasing
One of the great things about movies is that they can take you places without you having to squeeze into an uncomfortable airplane seat or with all the other hassles that real-life travel entails. There are lots of great movies about people setting out to see the world , so let the big screen scratch your wanderlust by checking out these 31 films.
Some of the movies on this list are romantic, following two people as they come together in that special way that happens when you’re away from home. Others are about journeys of self-discovery, showing what can happen when you hit the road solo. Some movies are uproarious comedies that will transport you away from your troubles as you laugh along to the antics on screen. There are also movies that are less of a vacation than they are an adventure, sure to get your blood pumping. And there are some scary movies about travel—the sort that might make you think, “You know, actually, maybe let’s make this one a staycation.”
Don’t bother packing your bags. All you need to do is hit “play” to embark on any one of these 30 great travel movies.
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Romantic Travel Movies
Diane Lane stars in this charming 1996 movie as a recently divorced woman who travels to Italy in an attempt to break out of her post-divorce funk. (In her defense, her husband was cheating on her and he got to keep the house, so she’s right to be miffed.) Once in Tuscany, though, she somehow becomes the owner of a villa, and as she begins to make a new life for herself, the potential for new love emerges amidst some of the most beautiful scenery and delicious-looking wine ever put to film. It’s the type of movie that will have you looking up flights to Florence.
A destination wedding counts as travel, and the breakout comedy of 2023 was shot on location in Australia. Glenn Powell and Sydney Sweeney play two people who left on bad terms after a one-night stand only to have to make nice when their mutual friends get married. Anyone But You is enough to make you want to take a trip Down Under, although perhaps without all the rom-com shenanigans.
Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz play lovelorn women who swap homes so that they can get away from their respective heartbreaks over Christmastime. When Winslet’s Iris and Diaz’s Amanda get to Los Angeles and London, respectively, they find new love in Jack Black and Jude Law’s characters. The 2006 movie, from the great Nancy Meyers , works extra well as a travel movie because, thanks to the house-swapping premise, it’s a reminder that everyone’s home is somebody else’s trip.
The first of Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy introduces audiences to Ethan Hawke’s Jesse and Julie Delpy’s Céline as they meet on a train from Budapest and decide to spend the night together wandering Vienna. Widely regarded as one of the more romantic movies ever made, Before Sunrise will also make you want to explore Vienna with someone you’ve just met—someone who maybe you could see yourself spending the rest of your life with.
Technically, Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris is a travel movie (because Owen Wilson’s character is visiting Paris with his fiancee, played by Rachel McAdams ) and a time travel movie (because he goes back in time to 1920s). It’s a romantic movie both because of the relationship Wilson’s Gil strikes up with Marion Cotillard’s Adriana and because of how it romanticizes Paris and nostalgia—and deftly interrogates that romanticism.
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Movies About Traveling Solo
Dev Patel stars in this 2016 film, which is based on the true story of Saroo Brierley , who was separated from his parents in India at a very young age and adopted by an Australian couple. Once he grew up, he went back to his birth country in an attempt to find his biological parents. Saroo’s trek through India and into his own forgotten past is a tear-jerking, emotional travel story, and Lion was rewarded with six Oscar nominations.
This 2014 adaptation of Cheryl Strayed’s memoir Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail stars Reese Witherspoon as Strayed sets out to hike from Southern California to Washington State in an attempt to find herself. The tour of the West Coast’s trails is a tour-de-force for the actor as her character remakes her life one hiking boot-clad step at a time.
In 1977, Robyn Davidson set out on a nine-month journey across the unforgiving Australian Outback with her dog and four camels. She later wrote about her adventure in National Geographic and in her memoir Tracks . In 2013, her story was adapted into a film with the same name. Mia Wasikowska plays Davidson in the movie, which features stunning cinematography of the Australian desert in all its harsh beauty.
A lot of solo travel stories are tales of self-discovery where the voyager has learned something by the time they reach their destination. Into the Wild offers no such catharsis, instead telling the true story of Christopher McCandless , a man who hiked across America and eventually ended up in the Alaskan wilderness—an environment he was not prepared for. It’s a poignant, tragic counterpart to the more common celebrations of wanderlust you tend to see in pop culture.
Julia Roberts stars as Elizabeth Gilbert in this 2010 adaptation of her memoir of post-divorce travel and self-discovery. Feeling her life is aimless and without purpose, Liz elects to travel around the world, stopping in Italy, India, and Bali where she eats, prays, and well, you can probably guess.
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Travel Horror Movies
Ari Aster’s supremely disturbing folk horror movie stars Florence Pugh as a young woman who is begrudgingly invited by her not-great boyfriend and his friends to go to Sweden to observe a commune’s midsummer festival. Upon getting there, Pugh’s Dani soon learns that the Hårga are not all sunshine and flowers, and that there are dark rituals and sinister plots. It’s the type of movie that will make you think twice about a Nordic vacation, and you’ll never look at a taxidermied bear the same way.
This 2005 horror movie, from director Eli Roth , is one of the biggest examples of the so-called “torture porn” subgenre, but there’s more to Hostel than just blood and guts. (There are a lot of blood and guts, though.) The film follows some American backpackers who, while traveling in Eastern Europe, become the victims of a shadowy organization that lets the ultra-rich live out their most depraved fantasies by torturing and killing unsuspecting tourists. Let’s just say that Hostel is not exactly a great promotional tourism campaign for Slovakia—something that the country was actually pretty upset about .
This 2022 film, released by the horror-centric streaming service Shudder, follows a social media influencer who, when traveling in Thailand, meets and befriends a young woman. It’s the type of movie that lives or dies on its twists, but let’s just say that Influencer is what you would get if The Talented Mr. Ripley were set in the social media age and a full-on horror film instead of a thriller.
The Creator director Gareth Edward’s 2010 debut follows a photojournalist as he tries to escort a young woman through Mexico, which has been taken over by kaiju-sized alien monsters. There are moments of beauty and discovery along their journey, as well as high-stress moments of terror when they encounter these creatures, which Edwards brings to life on a shoestring budget—though you can’t tell that by watching.
It’s right there in the title: John Landis’ 1980 comedy horror is about an American in London, although he’s not a werewolf when he first arrives in the UK. No, that happens after he’s mauled by a strange beast in the moors of Yorkshire—and that same beast kills the friend he was backpacking with. When he recovers in London, things get gnarly in the light of a full moon.
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Comedy Movies About Traveling
If you like the misadventures of the Griswold family’s first vacation attempt, great news: There are five sequels to this 1983 Chevy Chase comedy. Before the European , Vegas , or Christmas Vacation , though, Clark Griswold tries to drive his family from Chicago to southern California. Their journey makes for some classic comedy, though it might hit a bit too close to home if you’ve had to endure a family vacation that went awry.
A lot of Wes Anderson’s movies are about travel, including his most recent film, Asteroid City , and The Grand Budapest Hotel . His ultimate travel movie, though, is 2007’s The Darjeeling Limited , which stars Owen Wilson , Adrien Brody , and Jason Schwartzman as three estranged brothers who agree to make a trip through India together in the hopes of reconnecting after their father’s death.
Lots of movies are about travel, but are they about a big adventure, the way Tim Burton’s directorial debut is? Paul Reubens stars as his Pee-wee Herman character, who hits the road in an attempt to recover his beloved bicycle, which has gone missing. Following a psychic’s totally legit vision of his bike in the basement of the Alamo, Pee-wee encounters a ghost trucker, biker gangs, and all the madness of a Hollywood backlot.
Netflix’s Oscar-nominated animated movie has a setup that’s not too dissimilar from that of National Lampoon’s Vacation . Aspiring filmmaker Katie Mitchell can’t wait to get away from her family and start film school. Her dad, voiced by Danny McBride , feels his daughter slipping away and opts to have the whole fam drive her across the country rather than take a plane to school. At the same time, an A.I. gone rogue has started a robot uprising. Oops!
In addition to featuring a hall-of-fame cameo from Matt Damon as the singer of “Scotty Doesn’t Know,” Eurotrip is a classic, if not especially intelligent, teen sex romp. It’s not the movie to watch if you want to get a feel for Europe, but it is what you put on when you want to enjoy some good, dumb laughs.
RELATED: 23 Movies Like Interstellar That Will Also Bend Your Brain .
Adventure Travel Movies
Ben Stiller directed and stars in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty , an imaginative adaptation of a 1939 short story about a mild-mannered man who gets lost in his daydreams. When circumstances force Walter to embark on a trip around the world, he starts living his daydreams for real, going to Greenland and the Himalayas. Featuring a fantastic soundtrack and gorgeous cinematography of some truly beautiful, off-the-beaten-path places, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is the type of movie that might make you stop just thinking about taking a trip and actually buy a ticket.
William Friedkin , best known for directing The Exorcist , also helmed this 1977 thriller about possibly the worst road trip of all time. When four people, all on the run from their various sordid pasts, find themselves trapped in a remote oil village in Colombia, they are desperate to get out by any means necessary. The opportunity presents itself when the bosses need people to drive boxes of dynamite that are extremely unstable and could blow at any minute across miles of rainforest. There is one sequence in Sorcerer that’s some of the most unbelievably tense filmmaking you’ll likely ever see. (Note that it’s a remake of another classic film, Wages of Fear , should you want another movie that’ll keep you on edge.)
Johnny Depp stars as an average man who finds himself smack in the middle of an international criminal incident when on vacation in Europe after a woman, played by Angelina Jolie , tries to trick the authorities into thinking Depp’s the fugitive they’re looking for. Thrills, laughs, and a little romance ensue.
Charlie Hunnam plays real explorer Percy Fawcett in this adaptation of the book by the same name from author David Grann , who also wrote Killers of the Flower Moon . The film follows the British explorer in the early 1900s as he tries, time and time again, to prove the existence of a mythical city deep in the jungles of Brazil. Think of it as a somber, reflective take on a real-life Indiana Jones, one whose obsession with traveling to hostile environments in search of knowledge may prove to be his undoing.
This gripping survival drama about the infamous 1996 Mount Everest Disaster, as documented by Jon Krakauer in the book Into Thin Air, is the type of film that will probably make you consider an all-inclusive beach resort for your next vacation rather than mountain-climbing.
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Movies About Roadtrips
This biopic follows the man who would become the Che Guevara when he, as a young man in the early ‘50s, travels across South America with his friend Alberto Granado . The film, which is based on Guevara’s trip diary, is both a road movie and a coming-of-age film about an important historical figure, as we see him become radicalized by the poverty and inequality he sees on this journey.
Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan star in Ethan Coen’s romp from earlier this year, and it wouldn’t be inaccurate to call Drive-Away Dolls “ The Big Lebowski , but just the silly parts.” Set in the late ’90s, it follows two lesbian friends who learn that the car they’ve rented has a human head and a briefcase in the trunk—and that some shadowy types really, really want whatever’s in that case back.
Burt Reynolds stars in this 1977 classic, which was the second-highest-grossing movie of its release year after the original Star Wars . He plays a legendary bootlegger who accepts a job to smuggle 400 cases of Coors from Texarkana to Atlanta in under 28 hours. Along the way, he encounters a runaway bride played by Sally Field , and Sheriff Buford T. Justice, who wants to stop the Bandit. Smokey and the Bandit also features an incredible theme song, “ East Bound and Down ,” and while the lyrics describe the plot of the movie almost beat-for-beat, you’ll find that it’s a fitting song to blast on your own car stereo when you’re on the road.
Il Sorpasso , which is sometimes given the English title The Easy Life , is a masterpiece of 1960s Italian cinema. It follows a boisterous middle-aged man who decides to take a timid, bookish college student he meets under his wing for a good time out on the road—whether or not the younger man actually wants to tag along or not. Hilarious and poignant when you might not expect it, Il Sorpasso ’s well worth the watch.
This seminal adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson’s novel of the same name stars Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro as they drive to Sin City under the influence of an absurd amount of drugs. In that way, it’s the ultimate travel movie. It’s about a trip, but it’s also about a trip .
