The 30 Best Film Scores By Ennio Morricone

“The Bird With The Crystal Plumage” (1970)
At the start of the ’70s, Italian cinema screens began to bleed giallo horror, and who was there to inject the spook into people’s imaginations more menacingly than your creepy neighbor’s porcelain doll collection? Only the most ubiquitous Italian film composer around, the man who was working at a staggering pace of 12-13 scores a year during this time. The first of Morricone’s unforgettable contributions to the genre came for Dario Argento’s debut feature (and one of his best) “The Bird With The Crystal Plumage.” More likely than not, Morricone was inspired by Krzysztof Komeda’s lullaby composition in “Rosemary’s Baby” when he turned out his own eerily sublime la-la-la nursery rhyme for Argento, peppered with paranoid trumpets and xylophones, crystallizing the sensation that someone with evil intentions is standing right behind you.

“Investigation Of A Citizen Above Suspicion” (1970)
Tricky, slick, slightly perverse and eternally tiptoeing above suspicion, Morricone’s score for Elio Petri’s Academy Award-winning satire is one of his most infectious melodies. “I had to write a kind of music for the grotesque with a folkish feel to it,” Morricone explains in this Criterion feature, and his combinations of the mandolin and jew’s-harp with typical orchestral instruments is second-to-none in terms of instilling a sense of devilish fun. Ever the experimenting avant-garde artist that he was during this early peak of his career, Morricone’s creativity with synthesizer sounds and his supernatural ear for whittling out musical hooks make “Investigation Of A Citizen Above Suspicion” one of his most popular tunes, frequently heard in his live concerts.

“Maddalena” (1971)
Morricone was serving up scores like a bat out of hell in the early ’70s, so often the majesty of his music was light-years ahead of the actual film he composed it for. This is never more evident than with Jerzy Kawalerowicz’ “Maddalena,” a throwaway picture about a woman looking for love and finding it in a priest. It’s been more than 40 years, so it’s OK to admit that the only truly great thing to come out of the whole affair is Morricone’s eloquent and symphonic score. Reteaming with Edda Dell’Orso for the glorious 9-minute opener “Come Maddalena,” and composing “Chi Mai” (which would later be popularized even further by the BBC in “The Life And Times Of David Lloyd George”), Morricone punctuated what is perhaps his single most-prolific year with his signature fusion of jazz, choral hymns and endlessly resonant polyphonies.

“Lizard In A Woman’s Skin” (1971)
It’s paranoia central in the baroque hues that permeate Morricone’s giallo score for “Lizard In A Woman’s Skin,” which was reissued last year by record company Death Waltz with an appropriately stunning cover design. This Lucio Fulci cinematic nightmare inspired one of Morricone’s grandest compositions; a beautiful cacophony of jazz, funk, church organs, windpipes, whistles, and Edda Dell’Orso’s voice. These are elements that have been part and parcel of so many Morricone scores before it, yet through his surgical arrangement, they feel inexhaustibly fresh and seductive. Whether by the flutes of “La Lucertola,” the surf guitar of “Notte di giorno” or the dreamy plunge down the Fulci rabbit hole of “Spiriti,” this is another Morricone score that’ll make you think your stereo is possessed by some demon who’s got really, really, great taste in music.

“Cold Eyes Of Fear” (1971)
If you’re in the mood for Morricone’s most avant-garde side, the side that makes the most dissonant sounds in a David Lynch film sound like Buddy Holly, look no further than “Cold Eyes Of Fear.” Enzo Castellari’s thriller holds a wobbly candle to the other giallos of its time, but this mercurial, acid-jazzy soundtrack from the Maestro will crawl under your skin and make you walk on pins and needles for hours on end, with the cello chords and trumpets reoccurring in many a nightmare to come. Hands down the most purposefully disharmonious of Morricone’s scores, “Cold Eyes Of Fear” is staring into the cinematic abyss by way of sounds and chimes. It’s also one of the composer’s career highlights in giallo arrangement, starkly reminiscent of his early days as an avant-garde improvisator in Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza.

“Cat O’ Nine Tales” (1971)
In direct contrast to “Cold Eyes Of Fear,” Morricone’s compositions for “Cat O’ Nine Tails,” Dario Argento’s second film, is filled with beautiful, almost soulful harmonies, typified by the ‘Ninna Nanna’ main theme, where he again uses Dell’Orso’s vocal prowess to highly hypnotic effects. You’ll probably recognize the fear-inducing “Paranoia Prima” as it was re-appropriated by Tarantino in “Kill Bill Vol. 1,” while the rest of the score is littered with deep bass cello notes and the kind of background noise that paints a thousand dark pictures. By this time —and, no, it’s not a typo, we’re still in 1971— it was clear that Morricone didn’t only master and own the Western genre, but the primordial sounds of Italian slasher films as well.

“Duck, You Sucker!” (1971)
It’s not like he was all about giallos in ’71, though. Morricone was all about anything he could fit into his ridiculously condensed schedule. This included another virtuoso score for a Sergio Leone western, in this case “Duck, You Sucker!” (a.k.a. “A Fistful of Dynamite”). It could very well be the most capricious of Morricone’s Leone scores, with its unforgettable blend of the comical and operatic working wonders, as immediately heard in the film’s “Main Theme.” The swooning strings that take over at one point whisk you away into the magical world of movies, before Dell’Orso’s operatic mezzo-soprano adds an unanticipated layer. The composer himself described this movie in a Quietus interview, above any other, as a great example of his “mingling of tonal music and avant-garde music.”

“What Have You Done To Solange?” (1972)

Ahhh, that piano. Add another winning collaboration with Edda Dell’Orso in a giallo film that’s worth the mettle of a Morricone score. Massimo Dallamano’s “What Have You Done To Solange?” is imbibed in mystery, genuine thrills, and a kind of paranoia that’s tighter than piano wire. From its opening title theme, through the jazzy milieus of “Una Tromba E La Sua Notte,” and the carousel sounds of “Fragile Organetto,” the score is another subtly disjointed and provocative piece of film music that will instantly project images of Fabio Testi’s killer priest and Cristina Galbo’s Elizabeth for those who’ve seen the film, while beckoning those who haven’t to seek it out. Morricone’s score is so paralyzingly good here, it doesn’t even allow you to laugh at the unsubtle dubbing job.

“Revolver” (1973)
This is another case of Morricone’s lesser-known music having been repurposed by Tarantino (this time in “Inglourious Basterds”) and if you’re thinking, “Did you just include everything QT repurposed on this list?” the answer is almost, but not because I set out to do it. Tarantino’s taste in music is formidable, regardless of how you feel about his work or the size of his ego, and while going through Morricone’s vast output, the stuff that sticks out is more often than not what stuck out to Tarantino himself. Though if Sergio Sollima’s “Revolver” was all about the emotionally blistering strings of ‘Un Amico,’ chances are it wouldn’t have made the cut. The 12-minute title-track has remarkable drive, with its layered horns and “Quasi Vivaldi” is a pleasurable little nudge to the famous composer.

“Spasmo” (1974)
The last of the giallos to feature on this list, “Spasmo” stands out from the rest with its beautiful “Bambole” and “Spasmo” movements. By 1974, Morricone had obviously mastered the giallo scores, thanks to his work with Argento and Dallamano, but he still had one mind-bogglingly sensation of a score left in him for Umberto Lenzi. Dreadfully romantic and emotional, the arrangements of synthesizer melodies, human humming and wind instruments resonate well beyond the device that’s playing the music (or, indeed, the screen). Blending the fantastical with the real, as is the giallo tradition, the mixture of the synthesized and the natural in Morricone’s score takes front stage in “Spasmo,” probably one of the most beautiful scores ever composed for a horror film.