@Alyssa Wexler

Created with FreeYourMusic.com where you can transfer playlists to Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and others

Created with FreeYourMusic.com where you can transfer playlists to Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and others

Created with FreeYourMusic.com where you can transfer playlists to Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and others

Created with FreeYourMusic.com where you can transfer playlists to Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and others

Created with FreeYourMusic.com where you can transfer playlists to Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and others

Created with FreeYourMusic.com where you can transfer playlists to Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and others

Created with FreeYourMusic.com where you can transfer playlists to Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and others

Created with FreeYourMusic.com where you can transfer playlists to Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and others

Here’s a place to catch up with the newest music from film, TV, and stage—sources as relevant to musical culture now as they were nearly 100 years ago. From Broadway ballads to blockbuster scores, cast recordings and beyond, the tradition holds. Our editors update picks regularly, so if you hear something you like, add it to your library.

Check out a selection of great film music from a decade of blockbusters.

A memorable lineup demands an array of music across all genres.

By the '70s, the American New Wave cinema movement was in full swing, with audiences being treated to adventurous films on a nearly weekly basis. With no more room for the stale and the old, these films grabbed top-tier talent to craft the soundtracks that would remain in heavy rotation for decades. Cinematic hits from Curtis Mayfield, The Who, James Brown, and many others are included here.

Want to dance like the Zombies do? Listen to this collection of songs that get them up and moving!

If you've watched a movie trailer in the 21st century, then you've certainly heard the grand-scale productions of Two Steps From Hell. Founded in 2006 by composers Thomas Bergersen and Nick Phoenix, the prolific composers specialize in short bursts of symphonic intensity built from epic strings, soaring choirs, and heroically thumping drums. It's a minimalist palette that's slyly molded to suit a wide variety of projects. Their sci-fi work, including the Star Trek reboots, comes touched up with electronics, while their scores for Harry Potter take on a delicious air of fantasy.

Clint Mansell attained indie credibility with Pop Will Eat Itself in the ‘80s and ‘90s, before his subsequent film scores made him one of cinema’s most sought-after composers. The story of how the Stourbridge musician became a Hollywood maestro is almost worthy of a film itself, with spellbinding cuts like <I>Moon</I>’s “Welcome to Lunar Industries” and <I>Requiem For A Dream</I>’s “Lux Aeterna” transcending their respective movies. Mansell also has a gift for collaboration, whether he’s working with the Kronos Quartet or teasing a brilliantly understated performance out of Slash for Darren Aronofsky’s <I>The Wrestler</I>.

Director Damien Chazelle’s 2016 film, <I>La La Land</I>, delighted audiences with its bright colour palette and whimsical modern-fairytale feel. And helping him bring that jazz fantasia to life was his former Harvard roommate and go-to soundtrack provider, Justin Hurwitz, who crafted an Oscar-winning score that combined intimate piano-bar instrumentals with wondrous orchestrations redolent of 1940s Hollywood classics. <I>La La Land</I> expanded upon the jazz fundamentals Hurwitz brought to Chazelle’s previous film, <I>Whiplash</I>, but the duo have since travelled far from the basement bebop club. For the director’s 2018 sci-fi drama, <I>First Man</I>, Hurwitz delivered dramatic symphonic themes as grand as outer space itself.

Over a 50-year career, Elmer Bernstein demonstrated a remarkable ability to convey not just the tenor of a scene but the spirit of an epoch with his indelible film scores. His delicate woodwind compositions for Todd Haynes' colorful drama Far from Heaven perfectly capture the subtle uneasiness beneath the innocent facade of the ‘50s, while the open intervals and unmistakably American melodies of The Magnificent Seven instantly conjure dusty saloons and high-noon gunfights. To journey through this playlist is to encounter some of the most memorable moments in cinematic history.

Australian composer Johnny Klimek writes film soundtracks charged with suspense, often working alongside director/composer Tom Tykwer. He’s drawn to dark, dissonant symphonic scores: The duo’s theme to Tykwer’s <I>Babylon Berlin</I> employs surging brass and percussion to match the series’ noir atmospheres. He’s not immune to more sensitive styles, though; his <I>Cloud Atlas</I> themes are lush and sentimental. He’s no stranger to electronic textures, either: Techno remixes of Klimek and Tykwer’s <I>The Matrix Resurrections</I> soundscapes recall the pulsing trance of their groundbreaking 1998 <I>Run Lola Run</I> score.