12 of the best… Ennio Morricone Scores

On 6th July 2020, a certain contender for the accolade of the greatest film composer of all time, sadly passed away aged 91. His unparalleled career included contributions to over 500 films, from his beloved Italy to Hollywood and all over the world. I can’t pretend to have seen even a quarter of them, but I do know the impact his work has had on me as a movie fan, for at his very best he was simply and majestically unsurpassed.

No one else I can think of as a composer of film scores conveyed more emotion in such a wide range of genres. Whether it was the threat and tension of the spaghetti westerns he worked on with Sergio Leone in the late 60s, or the melancholy and nostalgia of Once Upon a Time In America, The Mission and Cinema Paradiso – his music and themes told the story as much as any image. They often trod a fine line with sentimentality, but always managed to stay on the right side. Simply, he was a master at his craft.

Some of his very best work is less known, or even so obscure you would do well to find it. And somewhere in the mix are dozens of familiar scores to familiar films that you didn’t know were him at all. Movies like The Thing, Bugsy and Days of Heaven. Choosing only 12 was hard work, as the choice is all but endless! But here is a selection that I believe represents both the core of his work and a great introduction to someone who doesn’t know that much about his full career.

He received an honorary Oscar in 2007 and finally one in his own right for Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight (it was easily the best thing about that film) in 2016. Legend has it he did not win for perhaps his finest ever work on Once Upon a Time in America because the clerk responsible for submitting the paperwork failed to do so. There are no accolades high enough to measure his acheivement, so let’s simply say thank you and listen again with fond, happy memories.

This list is in chronological order, with no explanation. The music is the music.

RIP Ennio Morricone 1928 – 2020