Best Film Scores and Movie Soundtracks by AFI and Entertainment Weekly Best Film Scores and Movie Soundtracks: See below AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores, a selection of the top 25 Film Scores voted upon in 2005. The Magnificent Seven 1960 Elmer Bernstein 9. Erich Wolfgang Korngold 12. Out of Africa 1985 John Barry 16. The Pink Panther 1964 Henry Mancini 21. The Mission 1986 Ennio Morricone 24. On Golden Pond 1981 Dave Grusin 25. A Hard Day's Night 1964 - The Beatles It was the G7sus4 heard 'round the world. You may not recognize that chord by name, but you'd instantly know it as the ringing opening salvo of ''A Hard Day's Night,'' the soundtrack that turned a nation into a glee club. In 1964, the Beatles had already taken over our radios and TV sets when they decided to commandeer our movie palaces, too. The resulting film was an exhilarating fusion of the backstage musical and postmodern absurdism. To re-create the hysteria that had greeted their ''Ed Sullivan Show'' appearances, the Fabs had to come up with tunes that would out-pleasure ''Please Please Me. We can't think of a better definition of a great soundtrack. But a better place to start is with the film, in which the tale of singing sibs and their remarkably musical governess in Nazi Austria found its voice in Julie Andrews. If ''TSOM'''s rep suffers hipsters' sneers, that says more about our times than the songs. Is there a more inspiring anthem than ''Climb Ev'ry Mountain''? A simpler expression of comfort amid fear than ''My Favorite Things''? A few weeks ago, these earnest themes seemed outdated. Now, this tale of finding joy in a world gone mad is impossible to resist. Whether at a Brooklyn ballroom or Studio 54, disco delivered participatory escapism, and it hardly mattered who provided the beat. But if ''Stayin' Alive'' was a reason to live, even the lesser lights on this double LP gave us happy feet. Sondheim Sondheim, Bernstein, Shakespeare... Those first three eggheads might not have seemed the likeliest trinity to end up slumming with barrio boys, but their Manhattan-based update of ''Romeo and Juliet'' was a musical zenith that Callas and the Crips could both enjoy. Is its innocent vision of gangland, articulated in wistful songs, a little bit dated in this post-gangsta culture? But we still dress up to ''I Feel Pretty,'' still dream of better times to the romantic strains of ''Somewhere''... Because we're cool, boy -- real cool. It's unsettling, then, to realize how ''Oz'' almost turned out. If the final product feels seamless, credit the brains, heart, and nerve of E. Harburg would be ''Oz'''s unsung auteur -- if his words weren't being sung to this day. Superfly 1972 - Curtis Mayfield A textbook case of a soundtrack that artistically dwarfs the film that spawned it, Curtis Mayfield's opus is a testament to the powers of a musician at the top of his game. Mayfield's music imbued the blaxploitation quickie with a moral pulse, taking aim at the scourge of drugs in the inner city. It was one of Mayfield's gifts that his songs could sound joyful and heartbroken at the same time, suggesting the complexities of the human experience. All that changed with Mike Nichols' gently satiric swipe at the establishment and the emerging counterculture. Even though half of it is devoted to a mood-music score, this landmark introduced ''youth music'' to grown-ups' movies, the reverberations of which are still being felt. While that tune as well as the film's love theme have become pop-culture signifiers invoking instant parody or homage, the score itself brought Fellini collaborator Nino Rota long-overdue acclaim in America, and it remains a disturbing benchmark for its very sense of quiet. Purple Rain 1984 - Prince ''Purple Rain'' is a monument to mad ambition. Until '84, America knew Prince as the raunchy Minneapolis groove-crafter behind hits like ''1999. Or maybe you're just one of the few who has never seen Stanley Kubrick's sci-fi classic and had your classical-loving world rocked by his marriage of 19th-century music and 21st-century imagery. When Kubrick dumped the score he'd commissioned from Alex North and decided to use his own temp track as soundtrack to ''the ultimate trip,'' he ensured that few would ever again listen to ''Also Sprach Zarathustra'' without thinking of space babies. But it got sun-drenched and bronzed when director Fred Zinnemann chose to shoot the film on location in Arizona. Audiences who wanted a souvenir of the CinemaScope-size movie got a grand one in this album, which happened to sound, yes, as big as all outdoors. The Harder They Come 1973 - Various This vital compilation introduced most Americans to reggae music, and for that alone it deserves our lofty ranking. But ''Harder'''s relevance isn't merely historical. Nearly 30 years after its release, the soundtrack remains one of the few non-Bob Marley albums to make it into the collections of casual reggae fans. And it's no mystery why; these 12 tracks -- featuring Jimmy Cliff's spiritual and sweet ''Many Rivers to Cross,'' the rude-boy menace of his title track, and the Maytals' ''Pressure Drop'' -- are as heartfelt and urgent in their own gentle, loping way as anything coming out of the States at the time. That must be without music. The harpy chorus of violin shrieks that accompany Marion Crane's death changed the art of scoring as surely as ''Psycho'' altered film history. But for proof of his greater subtlety, listen to the music during the heroine's earlier flight from the law. It's not so much foreboding as sad -- mourning Crane even as she caroms toward her fate. Bonus points for history making: It was the first real soundtrack album ever. Prior to this, no one had taken the actual soundtrack from a film and transferred it to disc -- or discs, we should say, since the original release was on a set of three 10-inch 78s. Someday more princely formats would come, but there's a good reason why this chestnut is perennially in print: The Frank Churchill-Larry Morey tunes proved an original 'toon could equal or better Broadway's musical-comedy best. That was still the case in '73, when George Lucas asked ''Where were you in '62? He even invented a plausible reason for the film's wall-to-wall music, a then-revolutionary conceit: Nearly every character was near a radio tuned to Wolfman Jack. Thus it came to be that a generation of Vietnam-hardened hippies was suddenly grooving to ''Green Onions,'' turning a double album full of artists who'd been bypassed by the counterculture into an unlikely retro smash. Trainspotting 1996 - Various 18. Mary Poppins 1964 - Richard and Robert Sherman 21. Once Upon a Time in the West 1968 - Ennio Morricone 22. Grease 1978 - Various 28. Doctor Zhivago 1965 - Maurice Jarre 30. The Rocky Horror Picture Show 1975 - Richard O'Brien 31. Performance 1970 - Jack Nitzsche 36. The Band Wagon 1953 - Arthur Schwartz and Howard Deitz 37. Shaft 1971 - Isaac Hayes 41. Carousel 1956 - Rodgers and Hammerstein 43. The Pink Panther 1964 - Henry Mancini 44. Anatomy of a Murder 1959 - Duke Ellington 45. Let It Be 1970 - The Beatles 46. The Magnificent Seven 1960 - Elmer Bernstein 48. The Sting 1973 - Marvin Hamlisch 52. Funny Girl 1968 - Walter Scharf and Julie Styne 53. Woodstock 1970 - Various 55. The Music Man 1962 - Meredith Willson 56. O Brother, Where Art Thou? Amadeus 1984 - Various 58. Beat Street 1984 - Various 60. The Man With the Golden Arm 1955 - Elmer Bernstein 61. The Mission 1986 - Ennio Morricone 62. Pretty in Pink 1986 - Various 63. The Last Waltz 1978 - The Band 65. Singles 1992 - Various 67. South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut 1999 - Trey Parker and Marc Shaiman 69. Magnolia 1999 - Aimee Mann 70. Spartacus 1960 - Alex North 71. Pump Up the Volume 1971 - Various 72. Ragtime 1981 - Randy Newman 73. The Moderns 1988 - Mark Isham 75. Repo Man 1984 - Various 76. The Sweet Hereafter 1997 - Mychael Danna 78. Out of Africa 1985 - John Barry 79. Stop Making Sense 1984 - Talking Heads 80. Beauty and the Beast 1991 - Howard Ashman and Alan Menken 81. Local Hero 1983 - Mark Knopfler 82. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon 2000 - Tan Dun 84. Rushmore 1998 - Various 85. Lawrence 1984 - Ryuichi Sakamoto 86. This Is Spinal Tap 1984 - Spinal Tap 87. The Long Riders 1980 - Ry Cooder 88. Jackie Brown 1997 - Various 90. Hedwig and the Angry Inch 2001 - John Cameron Mitchell 92. The Piano 1993 - Michael Nyman 93. The Virgin Suicides 2000 - Air 94. Above the Rim 1994 - Various 97. Beetlejuice 1988 - Danny Elfman 99.
