Most effective use of music in a film not an original soundtrack

"Walk"

Goodbar made GREAT use of what was at the time current music. One of the best examples of this, I always think.

Baby Driver. Miles' iPod playlist is basically songs that support each scene.

Allegri's 'Miserere' in MAURICE.

[quote] "I was yours once till death if you'd cared to keep me, but I'm someone else's now..."

The Silence of the Lambs

"Don't Leave Me This Way" in Looking for Mr. Goodbar

Mahler 5 Adagietto in Death in Venice.

"Be My Baby" in Dirty Dancing

"Then He Kissed Me" - Adventures in Babysitting

"Wouldn't It Be Nice" in Shampoo.

oops that wasn't the original, THIS is >

It's always that one asshole filling up these threads. Which is why I usually skip over them now. My entries are Rossini's "The Thieving Magpie" overture, and the standard "Singing In The Rain" in "A Clockwork Orange"

Also Sprach Zarathustra in "2001."

Pachelbel's Canon in DL fave "Ordinary People."

"Cat people" by David Bowie for "Inglorious Basterds"

"Priscilla, Queen of the Desert"

Handel (especially) as well as Vivaldi & Schubert in Barry Lyndon.

"Slave to Love" - Bitter Moon

Forrest Gump

That scene in Manchester by the Sea. Devastating.

That climactic scene in Heavenly Creatures

Opening scene in Watchmen

“I’m Into Something Good” - Naked Gun.

Also…”Unchained Melody” in Ghost.

All of the oldies in American Graffiti, starting with Bill Haley & His Comets' "Rock Around the Clock," which sets the mood for what's to follow.

Sister Act: I Will Follow Him.

The perfect rousing finale that leaves you feeling really good as you walk out of the theater.

Sister Act: I Will Follow Him.

The perfect rousing finale that leaves you feeling really good as you walk out of the theater.

Sister Act: I Will Follow Him.

The perfect rousing finale that leaves you feeling really good as you walk out of the theater.

I hear that "I Will Follow Him" is quite effective in Sister Act.

Lovefool by the Cardigans for that Romeo and Juliet movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes.

They really are teenage fools dying for love at such a young age.

Pick a song, any song, from BOOGIE NIGHTS.

The Verve's Bittersweet Symphony in Cruel Intentions.

"I Say a Little Prayer" - "My Best Friend's Wedding."

"Strange Behavior" scene featuring the Lou Christie's "Lightning Strikes"

Very 80's! Was a 22 year old assistant movie theater manager and every show the ushers and candy staff would run in and dance in the back while the audience had no idea they were there. Fun times..

Strauss in Year of Living Dangerously.

Colonel Bogey March, The Bridge on the River Kwai

(I know, I know. But it was so brilliantly done.)

Trainspotting - Perfect Day

My favorite of all time is "Nashville." I know "the industry" hated the music, but the fact that the actors co-wrote the songs and performed them, and the music was thematically integrated still makes it a rare pleasure.

R32, interestingly enough, Bittersweet Symphony was supposed to play at the very end of Scream 2 when Sidney walks away from the massacre, but there were rights issues and they had to use a soundalike song by Collective Soul.

It would’ve worked great there too.

This is from the 1980s movie Reckless.

Most of the movie is pretty boring.

But the scene below comes out of nowhere when lightning strikes about halfway into it - and it's worth it to sit through the boring stuff to get there.

Bad boy Aidan Quinn decides to ditch the more traditional sounding music everyone is dancing to and proceeds to electrify the screen for a brief but memorable moment.

Apocalypse Now, Ride of the Valkyries

Both the original version and Isabella Rossellini's cover of "Blue Velvet" in the film of the same name.

Lynch generally makes good use of rock and pop songs in his work.

Before reading this thread, two scenes immediately came to mind. They were both mentioned!

1) The use of Singing in the Rain in A Clockwork Orange - (perhaps the most brilliant use of a song ever!), and 2) 3 postings above, Aiden Quinn dancing to Romeo Void in Restless.

Props to both posters.

I'll add one more: Blondie's Call me in American Gigolo.

Loved how Scorsese used Shipping Up To Boston in The Departed. He always uses pop songs and standards well.

All the songs used in Tarantino’s films

One of the biggest for me is the use of the overture to Gounod's "Faust" over the credits for "The Age of Innocence."

Elmer Bernstein wrote a great score for that film, but even he is not at the level of Gounod.

Bizet’s “Carmen” is featured throughout the original “Bad News Bears”.

"Inna Gadda Da Vida" towards the end of Manhunter. The movie features William. H. Petersen as an FBI profiler and Dennis Farina as his supervisor, so in the metaverse can be seen as a CSI/L&O crossover.

Liebestod at the end of Romeo + Juliet

In the Name of the Father

TV but magic, I thought, the action stops and gives way to a dance sequence that is a blend of ballet and jujitsu that captures the important parts of the story up to that moment and the nature of the relationships between the characters, set to the gorgeous Verses by Verses Ólafru Arnalds and Alice Sara Ott.

It was unexpected, completely out of the tenor of the show and at opening I was "Oh, fuck off this is bullshit" and the end of it I MARY!d I was so moved.

The soundtrack of "Mean Streets" (1973)

The Beautiful Blue Danube in 2001: A Space Odyssey

A TV series, but I love almost all the music used in 'True Blood.'

“Son of a Preacher Man” in Pulp Fiction.

"O, Fortuna" from the Carmina Burana (yes, I know it's overused) in Excalibur - An already exciting segment enhanced by a great piece of music

There's a piece of music in The Right Stuff that's right out of one of Tchaikovsky's symphonies (I think #4) as well as another from his Violin Concerto.

Part of Bernard Herrman's score for Vertigo is inspired by Richard Wagner's "Liebestod" from the opera Tristan und Isolde.

The music of ABBA in Muriel’s Wedding

All of The Big Chill. It makes what was not much more than an average movie pretty damn great (I watched it in flight this summer for the first time in ages)

R43 Does "Call Me" qualify for what OP is asking about?

It's my understanding that it was specifically written by Morodor and Harry for "American Gigolo," so is "original" to the film's soundtrack.

Saint-Saens “Carnival of the Animals” in Days of Heaven…

Unforgettable in Watchmen

I Got You Babe in Groundhog Day

Young Americans playing over the WPA photos at the end of Dogville

We'll Meet Again ending Dr. Strangelove. And the world.

God Only Knows in Love Actually

Free Bird in The Devil's Rejects

The Crow + The Cure:

The Matrix + Propellerheads:

The score for "Kramer Vs. Kramer.

The score for "A Little Romance".

"I Love To Boogie" in "Billy Elliot"

Got 5 On It in Jordan Peele’s Us.

[quote] Most effective use of music in a film not an original soundtrack … Meaning music not a soundtrack written for the movie

OP, you mean music purloined from another source.

Half of 'Star Wars' was stolen from William Walton

Forrest Gump had some great songs used in the movie

Goodfellas. Then he kissed me. One of the greatest movie scenes.

^Oh yes that was so good R74

Also.......

“Holiday” by Madonna, featured in Schindler’s List.

Half of 'Star Wars' was stolen from Gustav Holst.

So many great selections from all of you. Unless I missed it, I’m surprised no one has mentioned 2001, A Space Odyssey.

How has this not been named yet? The End by the Doors in the intro to Apocalypse Now

[quote] How has this not been named yet

Because this VERY long film was so overlong and so over-melodramatic that those in the cinema had fallen asleep and those watching on TV had turned it off.

Werner Herzog’s use of Tsintskaro in Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht is haunting.

That classical music piece used in that climactic scene in Platoon

"Music for a Found Harmonium" at the end of NAPOLEON DYNAMITE.

(Spoilers, obviously.)

Head Over Heels in Donnie Darko

The entire sequence is like a dreamy music video

So many scenes from The Virgin Suicides

The original score is by the French band Air which blends perfectly with original pop music from the early to mid 70s.

Magic Man by Heart:

As someone mentioned up thread, pretty much all of Boogie Nights.

In this scene a boy is looking for his estranged mother. He asks for Maggie, which is her real name. But in this crowd of porn people at a party, everyone knows her by stage name, Amber Waves. Nobody knows who Maggie is. The song in the background is Lonely Boy by Andrew Gold.

The call ends without the boy connecting with his mom. The song swells and the scene cuts to his mom doing coke in the bedroom. She then focuses her gaze on a hot young man diving into the swimming pool. It's Dirk Diggler, who will become her porn scene partner, and will also serve as a surrogate son.

Scorsese movies always have interesting music.

[quote]That classical music piece used in that climactic scene in Platoon

Adagio for Strings- Samuel Barber

^thank you

"Nearer My God to Thee" in TITANIC

Forgot Johnny Depp was in Platoon

Zardoz says 'The gun is good, the penis evil'.

"Foggy Mountain Breakdown" during the vehicle pursuit scene in BONNIE AND CLYDE

“Man of Constant Sorrow” for O Brother, Where Art Thou…

"Whip It" from "The Last American Virgin"

Old Time Rock and Roll in Risky Business.

Everything in Fantasia.

We'll never see art like this again.

Someone upthread mentioned "Say a Little Prayer" brunch scene from MY BEST FRIEND'S WEDDING, but I have always been partial to the opening number. I was dragged to see the film by my Julia Roberts-loving sister, and it got me invested in the movie from the get-go. So creative and fun.

Love My Way by Psychedelic Furs in Call Me By Your Name