Ennio Morricone/Awesome Music

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly (Concert) BBC Proms
Deborah's Theme
A Fistful of Dynamite
Ecstasy of Gold
- Which is not only often covered by Metallica, but also has this fantastic remix
The Mission (Remains one of Morricone's most memorable pieces.)
The Untouchables
Days Of Heaven.
On Earth As It Is In Heaven
The Legend Of The Pianist On The Ocean
The Ballad Of Sacco And Vanzetti
Casualties of War
Canone Inverso
The Big Gundown
Especially the themes for Sergio Leone's films.
The Once Upon a Time in the West theme is certainly good enough for Hans Zimmer, who pilfered it for "Parley" in Pirates of the Caribbean At World's End.
- Which he then pilfered from himself for Rango in the track "Rango Returns".
- And Muse, who pilfered it as an live opening to one of their songs - just guess which one. Not as a backing track, either, it's played on an actual harmonica by their bass player.
Il Vizio di Uccidere from For a Few Dollars More. Clearly a precursor to Ecstacy of Gold!
I challenge anyone to come up with a better 'showdown scene' theme than Sixty Seconds to What? from For a Few Dollars More. Awsome tension-building music and the payoff to a major plot thread in musical form? doesn't get much better than that.
- "The Trio" is also known as "Il Triello": the soundtrack version is fine, but when you see what the film version plays over...
- Ecstasy of Gold is just epic enough to be put into any context.
- This version conducted by Morricone himself is spine-chilling enough, but this one has James Hetfield.
From The Mission, by Ennio Morricone: Ave MarÃa Guarani and Gabriel's Oboe
From Da Uomo A Uomo, though probably first heard by many on Kill Bill, Death Rides a Horse.
- If you find the flute annoying, you might prefer this Alessandro Alessandroni version starting at about 3:00 in.
- And from the sequel, Silhouette of Doom (you heard it in the teaser trailer)
The film The Legend of 1900 is an entire movie about a pianist who lives on a cruise liner. And yet, for all the film's music, the piece that stands out is, although haunting and powerful, the most simple.
Morricone is famous for his spaghetti western scores but he is also famous for others too. Among others:
- Malena. Live performance.
- Cinema Paradiso.
These two from Mission to Mars:
- [1]
- [2]
Both the intro and main themes from The Untouchables.
From John Carpenter's "The Thing":
- [3].
- [4].
- [5].
- Perhaps the most impressive bit is how easily it can be mistaken for one of Carpenter's own scores. The man really commits.
Several scores used to portray the brutality of the Civil War in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, The Story of a Soldier, a heartwrenching ballad as sung by POWs, The Carriage of Spirits, and The Strong.
For what it's worth, Sergio Leone himself considered Once Upon a Time in America to have the best score of any of his films. A sample.