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Movies of Sound Era Without Musical Score

Movie list created by milica

Sort by: Showing 28 items

Decade: Rating: List Type:

1214

8.3

8.1

Network

The only music heard in the film comes from commercials and television show themes.

100

6.5

6.6

Mogambo (1953)

One of only two MGM films not to have a scored musical soundtrack.

6.8

One of Our Aircraft Is Missing (1942)

The film has no musical score at all. The opening titles play over the sound of the bomber's engines.

213

7.7

7.3

Targets (1968)

Aside from background music played on a car radio, there is no musical soundtrack for the movie.

349

7.4

The Child (2005)

There is no score in this film, not even during the credits. The only music heard is a recording of The Blue Danube playing on a car stereo.

7.2

7.4

Executive Suite (1954)

This was one of the few Hollywood films of the era not to have a musical score. The opening credits are shown to the accompaniment of traffic noises and the tolling of a bell.

289

7.1

The Panic in Needle Park (1971)

There is no music in this movie whatsoever. Ned Rorem composed a score for the film that was ultimately removed from the final cut (the isolated score is included as a special feature on the Blu-ray).

6.8

6.5

7 Days

There is no music in the entire movie, not even during the end credits.

357

7.3

7.1

Catch-22

The film has no original musical score.

342

7.7

7.8

The Day of the Jackal

The film features no soundtrack music after the first five minutes other than diegetic background music from marching bands, street musicians and radios. Fred Zinnemann deliberately refused to use it on the grounds that soundtrack distracts the movement and tension generated.

2850

7.5

7.6

The Birds (1963)

There is no musical score for the film except for the sounds created on the mixtrautonium, an early electronic musical instrument, by Oskar Sala, and the children singing in the school.

Although there is no musical score for this film, composer and Alfred Hitchcock collaborator Bernard Herrmann is credited as a sound consultant.

315

7.2

7.4

Interiors (1978)

The picture has no music score except for brief excerpts of background music.

1740

Dog Day Afternoon (1975)

After the initial title sequence (Elton John, "Amoreena") there is no background or incidental music on the soundtrack (the start of the Looney Tunes opening music is heard after the TV/phone interview, but it's cut-off after a few seconds, and also Uriah Heep's "Easy Living" is heard briefly through a hand-held radio).

747

8.1

The Celebration

The movie's score is minimal. Its first musical piece is a rendition of Frank Mills's "Music Box Dancer," played over the closing credits.

6.9

Stray Dogs

The film has no musical score.

201

Fail-Safe

Hal Schaefer wrote a score for the film but director Sidney Lumet decided to release it without any music. However a promotional single by The Hal Schaefer Quintet, "Fail Safe Parts 1 and 2" was released on the Colpix label.

257

7.3

7.4

The China Syndrome (1979)

All of the music in the film, including the title song "Somewhere In Between" by Stephen Bishop, comes from normal sources of music within the film: car radios, barroom jukeboxes, television commercials, etc. There is no traditional "soundtrack" of music that the audience can hear but the characters cannot. Michael Small composed a complete musical score for this film, but director James Bridges and the producers of the film did not like it. This is why the film was completely devoid of music except for the song sung by Stephen Bishop at the beginning of the film. In 2009 Intrada Records released and extremely limited (1000 copies) CD of Small's score which sold out in 24 hours.

This is one of only a few American movies where no music is played over the end credits.

856

7.4

7.3

Caché (2005)

There is no music, save for the theme on George's show, and background music at Anne's publishing party.

5.4

6.6

Chronic (2015) (2015)

There is no musical score.

717

8.3

A Separation (2011)

No background score was used in the whole movie except for the end credits.

7.5

7.1

The Homecoming (1973)

The film has no musical score at all.

225

7.5

7.6

The Defiant Ones (1958)

Other than Sidney Poitier's singing, all of the music in the film comes from radios.

3186

5.8

6.5

The Blair Witch Project

It has no conventional score. The score of this movie is the soundscape of the forest and the creepy noises.

4144

7.9

8.2

No Country for Old Men

The Coens minimized the score used in the film, leaving large sections devoid of music. The concept was Ethan's, who persuaded a skeptical Joel to go with the idea.

Carter Burwell's score consists of only 16 minutes of music, with several of those in the end credits. Score music is used quite sparsely throughout the film, blending elusively into the background. Some can be heard during Bell's opening narration, during Chigurh's quarter speech, when Bell shows up at the aftermath of the motel shootout towards the end of the film, and the closing credits.

7.5

Custody (2018)

This film has no score throughout.

598

7.9

The Last Picture Show (1971)

Peter Bogdanovich used no music except popular songs from the period all heard in a naturalistic context over radios.

412

8.1

Winter Light (1963)

The film employs no score aside from the diegetic organ music. Bergman planned to use Sarabande from Suite No. 2 in D minor for Cello, BWV 1008 by Johann Sebastian Bach for the scene where Tomas and Märta leave the scene of Jonas's suicide, tying in with the use of the piece in Through a Glass Darkly, but eventually abandoned the idea as "contrived".

1520

8.5

8.3

M (1931)

The film was one of the first to use a leitmotif, a technique borrowed from opera, associating a tune with Lorre's character, who whistles the tune "In the Hall of the Mountain King" from Edvard Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite No. 1. Later in the film, the mere sound of the song lets the audience know that he is nearby, off-screen. It's the only "music" in the film.