what are your favorite movie soundtracks.

"Streets of Fire-- a Rock and Roll Fable", w/ soundtrack by Ry Cooder. Excellent. Also "Cross Roads" where some of the music is by Ry Cooder-- don't know if he also did the soundtrack, but excellent anyway. Cheers. Craig.

I'll second Crossroads by Ry Cooder - one of my favorites. Also like Shipping News and Wild at Heart.

1. Fillmmusik collection by Irmin Schmidt that includes unfortunately unknown movies for me since I'm very poor in German: Rote Erde, Flight to Berlin, Im Hertzen Der Hurricane and others...
2. Paris Texas by Ry Cooder
3. Broken Vessels by Bill Laswell
4. Metroland by Mark Knophler
5. Last Man Standing by Ry Cooder
6. Pulp Fiction
7. Natural Born Killers
8. Once Upon a Time in America by Ennio Morricone
9. Heat

Here are some soundtracks that aren't collections of pop songs that I still listen to and love:
Paris, Texas soundtrack by Ry Cooder
The Hours--piano music by Steve Reich
The Piano--original music composed by Michael Nyman
Koyanuutsu or whatever--really cool soundtrack but I can't remember the spelling of the name of the movie
Last of the Mohicans--music by Trevor Jones
The Mahabharata--on the Realworld label
Of Mice and Men--music composed by Mark Isham
Bugsy--music by Ennio Morricone, a soundtrack master
Ennio Morricone, Film Music vol. 1 and 2--collection of great compositions by the master

Two of my favorite film scores (others by these folks are good too, but these are their best):

the Score (not soundtrack) for American Beauty. All mostly percussion music but haunting and beautiful

The score for Chocolat. A fabulous disc, one of my favorites of all time. Perfect to cook to.

The Thin Red Line is also very good.

-Ed