@Olivia Henthorn

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“Hey Siri, play the Background Music playlist.”

The very best soundtrack adds infinite magic to its movie. In 1934, influential Austrian composer Erich Korngold arrived in Hollywood to write film music, bringing lush German Romanticism to the silver screen. Ever since, composers have conjured huge soundscapes to bring love stories, thrillers, biopics, and more to compelling life. Here are some of the very best, including John Williams, Hans Zimmer, Alexandre Desplat, and one of cinema’s most recent talents, Hildur Guðnadóttir.

Not only are these tracks instantly and eternally associated with the horror flicks they accompany, they've done as much as any other aspect of legendary movies like The Exorcist, Psycho, and The Crow to make those films unforgettably frightening. Prepare to be unsettled by some undeniably creepy but strangely beautiful tunes.

The film composer Hans Zimmer once said that he didn’t write music to tell you what to feel, only that it was time to feel. And as the culture continues to move away from the dominance of the orchestra, scores—for movies, television, and streaming alike—are covering more emotional and stylistic ground than ever, absorbing elements of electronic and pop music in ways that further enrich the interplay between image and sound. With that in mind, here’s a rolling playlist focusing on the best music being written for screens big and small, with a few old favorites thrown in to anchor it. Our editors update selections here weekly, so if you hear something you like, add it to your library.

His elegant touch infuses the silver screen with feeling.

Ennio Morricone's name instantly conjures the sound of sweeping western landscapes and languid, balanced melodies; carnavalesque pop songs (“Uccellacci e uccellini—Titoli di testa”) and soulful mod melodies (“Punto e basta—Titoli di testa”) might not be the first thing you think of. And Morricone's evocative gifts were always more than equal to the task of setting nerves on edge, as with the ominous “Overture” from Quentin Tarantino's 2015 film The Hateful Eight.

Hans Zimmer is so prolific that he's probably written the score to at least one of your favorite movies. Born in Germany in 1957, Zimmer started out playing the keyboard in a couple of bands and writing jingles. He partnered with film composer Stanley Myers in the early ‘80s and started on film scores soon thereafter. Since then he has provided the musical backdrop for over 150 films—everything from Rain Man to The Lion King, Gladiator to The Dark Knight, and Inception to Interstellar.

Do you fall into reverential silence when Game of Thrones' main theme song plays? Soundtrack composer Ramin Djawadi has reset the bar for fantasy shows, earning awards and accolades for his notoriously epic, sensual, and tense accompaniment to the drama playing out on the small screen. To get you in the mood for the eighth and final season, we've rounded up a playlist of Game of Thrones musical highlights like “Winterfell” and the nearly 10-minute “Light of the Seven.” And if you're at a wedding and the DJ plays “The Rains of Castamere,” RUN!