The 20 best movie soundtracks and scores of the 1970s

The cinematic soul breakthrough of the 1970s transformed what was once considered mere bubblegum pop into capital-A "Art." With Isaac Hayes' work on "Shaft" and Curtis Mayfield's cultural touchstone "Super Fly" leading the way, it's easy to forget just how big a cultural impact Jimmy Cliff's reggae score for "The Harder They Come" had. "The Harder They Come" ushered reggae music into the mainstream, with breezy numbers like "Sitting in Limbo" introducing movie-goers to a laid-back style that has been imitated countless times since (but rarely topped).

You may love it, you may hate it, but there's no way around it: you have one of those songs stuck in your head right now. It's the rare soundtrack where even the lesser-known numbers ("Beauty School Dropout," "Look at Me, I'm Sandra Dee," almost everything Sha-Na-Na did) feel just as memorable as the big highlights. Plus, it's nearly impossible to deny the power of that Barry Gibb-penned title track . The fact that "Grease" came out just a year after "Saturday Night Fever" proved that both the brothers Gibb and star John Travolta weren't going anywhere soon.

Part of the brilliance of Stanley Kubrick was his constant mixing of high art and pulp together, with the two concepts often existing in the same frame. While the bourgeois ran face to face with a bit of the ol' ultraviolence in "A Clockwork Orange," the groundbreaking score by Wendy Carlos was just as confrontational, taking refined and memorable works of classical music and digitizing them at a time when purely electronic music was new and alien. Cheap synth sounds and vocoders decorate familiar themes like Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and transform the familiar into something a bit warped, twisted, and otherworldly – just the way Kubrick likes it.

OK, forget about "Stayin' Alive." Yes, it's the song we all know, but what made the soundtrack to "Saturday Night Fever" so iconic was its mixture of high camp and great songwriting. It's easy to forget this soundtrack featured a platform-shoed redo of Stokowski's "Night on Bald Mountain" along with Kool & The Gang offering a total goof of a number in the form of "Open Sesame." That said, the Bee Gees' remain the stars of the show here. From the triumphant rock posturing of "Night Fever" to the saccharine-cheese ballad of "How Deep is Your Love," the brothers Gibb did it all, including pulling one of the greatest songs they've ever penned ("Jive Talkin'") off of an album they already put out two years prior and presenting it here like it was a new work. Was it shrewd? Yes. Did it work? Absolutely.

There was nothing in the soundtrack to "American Graffiti" that was as paradigm-shifting as the movie itself, but as the decades passed, this 41-track collection grew in power and influence, and years later critics truly got to laud it for what it was: a sensational survey of early rock & roll hits. The power of the motion picture budget allowed all of these songs to exist in the same place, with everyone from Chuck Berry to The Big Bopper to The Beach Boys rubbing elbows in what many consider the best album-length summation of an era so driven by singles, one-offs, and novelty hits. In the realm of "American Graffiti," it's all the same sock-hop, so put it on shuffle if you want: you're going to have a good time no matter what the order is.

The brilliance of Nino Rota could not be denied, as the veteran Italian film composer – who was already well-known for his work on Franco Zeffirelli's Shakespeare films – kept his score to the Francis Ford Coppola simple. Lacing classic Italian instrumentation together with simple, memorable melody lines, the score for "The Godfather" became iconic the second it dropped. Less impressed, however, was the Academy, who withdrew Rota's nomination for Best Original Score when it was discovered that he borrowed some of the film's themes from a previous movie he soundtracked. (Don't feel too bad though: Rota won in 1974 for his work on "The Godfather Part II.")

What couldn't John Williams do in the '70s? In a decade where he put out the instantly-recognizable themes for "Jaws" and "Superman: The Movie," such forward-thinking scores still must bow down to "Star Wars," a soundtrack where virtually every major character got an iconic melody forever associated with them. From the shock of the main title's opening notes to the threatening cellos that dominate "Imperial March" to the goofy one-off that is the sound of the Mos Eisley cantina band, it's hard to think of a single piece of orchestral film work that feels just as relevant now as it did when it came out four decades ago. 

While we all want to do the time warp again, let's put on some eyeliner and then take a real good look at all the other great moments that compose an incredible "Rocky Horror Picture Show" experience. From Susan Sarandon's impish ragtime ballad "Touch-A Touch-A Touch Me" to Meatloaf's breakout feature "Hot Patootie / Bless My Soul" to Tim Curry's gloriously over-enunciated "I Can Make You a Man," the early rock & roll vibes that emanate out of the "Rocky Horror" make for a one hell of a campy singalong experience, even as producer Lou Adler ended up chopping two lesser numbers from the stage versions: "Planet Shmanet Janet" and "The Sword of Damocles."

Jerry Goldsmith has been nominated for 18 Academy Awards and won only once (for his very deserving score for 1976's "The Omen"). Yet even with movies like "Logan's Run" and"Patton" under his belt, the jazzy, lucid soundscape Goldsmith constructed for "Chinatown" proved to be quite unique. From the repeating single note that runs through  "Noah Cross" to the James Bond-sounding opening of "The Last of Ida," Goldsmith knew how to mix beauty with tense, piano-pounding setpieces and the lone sad trumpet at its core perfectly fitting Jake's journey. Making all this more impressive is the fact that all of it was supposedly written with a mere ten days notice. 

Though Liza Minnelli gets all of the love for bringing Bob Fosse's vision of "Cabaret" to life, one can't discount the truly incredible work by Joel Grey, his voice bobbing and weaving and embracing comic tones at the turn of a dime. At times, his Master of Ceremonies threatens to steal the show. As the Kander/Ebb songs keep bustling and moving, the film soundtrack (like "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" before it) soon became the new blueprint upon which any future attempts of the production would be built.

What separated "The Last Waltz" from other films of its ilk was the fact that Martin Scorsese's love of the music shone through every frame. You could say this for most filmmakers, but few are able to have their cameras show up at just the right times to capture just the right moments, which "The Last Waltz" did this, and did it in spades. The soundtrack, in both its original 1978 configuration and its much-loved 2002 revamp, careens from The Band being at the top of their game to songs by Dr. John, Muddy Waters, Joni Mitchell, and so many other '70s songwriting luminaries. As a live record, the sound is pristine, but as a historical document, the star-studded concert conceit was rarely bettered. 

While this list is filled with many iconic musical moments in movies, few cues will ever be as perfect as the opening to Woody Allen's "Manhattan." Static shots of the city's brick buildings waking up as "Rhapsody in Blue" plays under it, Allen's narration soon kicking in as his love letter to New York starts off. You may only need the soundtrack just for that one song (hey, it is a full 16 minutes), but don't discount the numerous other gems found in here, including the whisper-soft rendition of "Love is Here to Stay" and a wonderfully under-wrought rendition of "Embraceable You."

As revered as he is as a horror/sci-fi filmmaker, John Carpenter was also a dynamite composer. Reportedly forced into the role of soundscaper due to a restrictive budget, Carpenter absolutely made the most out of his synth-driven work on this still-underrated actioner. The synth strings may sound dated, but the sparse sprinkling of percussion gives his bold major chords room to breathe, resulting in an atmosphere that's just as gritty as the Los Angeles war zone his characters find themselves in. There's a lot of great moments here, but that main theme is hard to top.  

Horror movies of the '70s had a knack for being wrapped up in truly-iconic themes, from Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells" now forever being associated with "The Exorcist" to John Carpenter's fearful piano playing guiding "Halloween" straight into midnight movie history. That lead theme will haunt us for decades to come, but don't forget about the tension he built in other moments: there may be a workman-like quality to mood-establishing pieces like "Myers' House" and "The Shape Lurks," but these plaintive, simple arrangements go along way to establishing a sense of normalcy in the audience, lulling their ears into safety while Michael Myers waits for the perfect time to strike. 

Well before "Eye of the Tiger" became the de facto song to cut montages against, Bill Conti helped establish the world of Rocky Balboa in triumphant terms. "Gonna Fly Now (Theme from Rocky)" is always funkier than you remember it, the deep bass in those drums keeping things on a steady groove, but what made the music to "Rocky" work so well is how unexpected its themes were. "Going the Distance" sounds triumphant despite being rendered with renaissance fair vibes. The conga drums in "The Final Bell" may still get your heart racing to this day, proving that just like Rocky himself, some things just age better than others. 

In truth, not a lot of people will immediately remember the "Chase" theme from "Midnight Express," but even to modern ears, there's something earnest about the synth-driven funk that Giorgio Moroder was able to create with this thing, earning him his first of three Academy Awards (the other two were for songs, but this was his first and only win for Original Score). Make no mistake: certain elements remain a bit dated (the keyboard washes on "The Wheel" are a prime example), but in an era ruled by disco strings, a straight-up synth-instrumental effort like this proved wholly unique, matched only by the likes of future '80s soundtrack impresarios Tangerine Dream. 

While they may still bill themselves as one of Italy's preeminent prog rock outfits, Goblin's many collaborations with Dario Argento resulted in a career that's lasted much longer than any of their peers. While "Dawn of the Dead" (aka "Zombi" in Europe) remains their calling card, some people remember the soundtrack for "Suspiria" more than the movie itself. From the psychedelic guitars on "Black Forest" to the moody bells on the main theme, Goblin managed to cover a lot of ground within Argento's horror-movie confines, making it a rare soundtrack that absolutely works as a stellar piece of music even if you've never seen the movie it was made for. 

Make no mistake: "Love Story" is a sentimental weeper in the worst way, playing up high melodrama almost to the point of parody. Nonetheless, it was a massive box office success, making back nearly 62 times its budget. This was no doubt aided by Francis Lai's lush, Academy Award-winning score, with finely plucked classical guitars and an ocean of orchestral strings intermingling to create a sense of grandiosity to a story that ultimately focuses only on two people. Lai's score at times reflects the era perfectly (the soothingly light folk-pop of "Snow Frolic" cries out for a singer to carry it home), and at times falls into expected melodramatic trappings, but people the world over loved the film and its score unironically – and as we know, love means never having to say you're sorry. 

When you're on a roll like John Williams was in the 1970s, there's virtually no stopping you. The fact that his groundbreaking score for "Close Encounters" came out the same year that "Star Wars" did should tell you something about the level he was operating on at the time. Yet the most surprising aspect of these two iconic releases is how notably different from each other they sound. Reportedly having written more than 900 variants of the five-note theme the aliens end up using to communicate, Williams creates ample room on the soundtrack to achieve that grand-scale curiosity he is so good at curating, drafting fine and engaging melodies for Spielberg's characters to make discoveries in. It was going to be damn hard for "Close Encounters" to rival "Star Wars" in terms of influence, but enough people have ripped off Williams' techniques since that one might even argue "Close Encounters'" deserves to be placed above "Star Wars" in the canon of legendary film scores. 

Five years after dropping the score for Roman Polanski's signature achievement "Chinatown," composer Jerry Goldsmith was back with another game-changing soundscape, this time for Ridley Scott's sci-fi horror hybrid. Lusher than you remember, Goldsmith had a great ability to mix themes inviting curiosity with an overwhelming sense of dread, his pieces proving to be long and drawn out, building tension slowly instead of going for a direct smash-cut horror money shot. It elevated the material on screen from potential B-movie to serious art, and while in space no one can hear you scream, at least you should still be able to hear the sweet strains of this score.