When it comes to film, we’re suckers for movies with electronic soundtracks. Often the preserve of the sci-fi and horror genres, the careful use of electronic music in film soundtracks has created some of the most memorable moments in cinema.
In this blog we dive deep into the best scored electronic music films of all time, from the synth soundtracks of Wendy Carlos to Mica Levi’s contemporary classical experiments. Along the way we’ll be answering questions like what was the first electronic music film score? Does Hans Zimmer use electronic music? And which director also composed his own electronic film scores?
Pioneers
The first electronic music film score was created by married couple Bebe and Louis Barron for the 1956 film Forbidden Planet. Inspired by Norbert Wiener’s 1948 book Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine (1948) Louis Barron constructed electronic circuits to generate various bleeps and beeps, making heavy use of ring modulation. The sounds were then further manipulated post-recording, using reverb, filters and tape manipulations.
The Best Electronic Music Film Scores
- A Clockwork Orange – Wendy Carlos (1972)
- The Fog – John Carpenter (1976)
- Blade Runner – Vangelis (1982)
- The Matrix – Don Davis (1999)
- The Virgin Suicides – Air (1999)
- Tron: Legacy – Daft Punk (2010)
- The Social Network – Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross (2010)
- Drive – Cliff Martinez (2011)
- Under the Skin – Mica Levi (2013)
- Blade Runner 2049 – Hans Zimmer & Benjamin Wallfisch (2017)
- Uncut Gems – Daniel Lopatin (2019)
A Clockwork Orange – Wendy Carlos (1972)
Synth pioneer and sometime Moog consultant Wendy Carlos created unforgettable scores for two of Stanley Kubrick’s films: The Shining and A Clockwork Orange. Mixing classical standards by Purcell, Elgar and Beethoven with her own innovative synth compositions, Carlos’ work on the latter was genuinely groundbreaking – her Beethoven rework ‘March from A Clockwork Orange’ was the first recorded song to feature a vocoder for singing.
Throughout, this unexpected collision between classical musicianship and contemporary songwriting proved an essential part of the film’s world-building, creating an atmosphere that was cold, distant and uncanny. As Electronic Sound put it, “The machine-generated tones themselves provided a futuristic feel, but also served to distort and contaminate the original, debasing it… It’s an almost punk approach in its disregard for the norms and niceties of classical music, and A Clockwork Orange prefigured punk’s cartoonish violence and nihilistic rejection of society’s rules.”
The result is one of the best synth scores ever.
The Fog – John Carpenter (1980)
From Halloween to Assault on Precinct 13, director John Carpenter composed iconic music for so many of his own films. For our money, his theme to 1980’s cult horror film, The Fog, ranks up there with his finest moments. Bringing to mind Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells – famously used in The Exorcist – The Fog’s main theme features haunting, arpeggiated synths, and the ominous chime of electric piano to powerful effect.
Blade Runner – Vangelis (1982)
Electronic scores don’t get much more seminal than Vangelis’ Golden Globe-nominated efforts for Ridley Scott’s dystopian noir. Regularly cited as the best sci-fi score of all time, Blade Runner saw the Greek composer concocting an immersive sonic universe with his arsenal of synths, from the mysterious chords that power the main titles to the sleazy saxophone-flecked lounge jazz of the love theme. Both strangely timeless and utterly of its time, it delivers a dark vision of the future that remains utterly unforgettable, more than 40 years on.
The Matrix – Don Davis (1999)
Another iconic dystopian soundtrack came courtesy of composer Don Davis, who matched the dizzying action of seminal sci-fi masterpiece The Matrix by unleashing a barrage of synths, French horns, lush string work, piano, percussion, and waterphone.
The Virgin Suicides – Air (1999)
It’s impossible to think of Sofia Coppola’s stunning adaptation of Jeffrey Eugenides’ novel without admiring the composition skills of Air. Indeed, their two dreamy contributions to The Virgin Suicides soundtrack still rank amongst the French Touch duo’s most streamed songs. Featuring soft vocals from Phoenix’s Thomas Mars, the central love theme ‘Playground Love’ evokes an atmosphere of wistful romance with soft washes of mellotron and the celestial twinkle of electric piano chords.
Tron: Legacy – Daft Punk (2010)
Picking up the baton from Wendy Carlos – who composed the score to the original Tron movie – French house pioneers Daft Punk took charge of the soundtrack for the long-awaited sequel to the sci-fi franchise. What follows is a beautifully retro-futurist hybrid score, finding Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo adding orchestral muscle to their atmospheric, 80s-tinged electronics. The arpeggiated, reverb-drenched synth anthem ‘Son of Flynn’ remains particularly powerful.
The Social Network – Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross (2010)
Winning the Nine Inch Nails founder his first ever Oscar, Trent Reznor’s collaboration with Atticus Ross on Facebook biopic The Social Network is regularly voted one of the best modern, non-traditional scores. Throughout, the soundtrack blends dark synth-pop, industrial rock and haunting piano pieces to create a sense of bubbling unease. However, the introduction of ‘Hand Covers Bruise’ remains the film’s most affecting musical moment, as Pitchfork recalled in their 2022 retrospective:
“An upright piano, luminous and recorded very closely, plays a simple figure, reminiscent of Brian Eno’s “1/1” from Music for Airports, or perhaps Eno’s startup music for Windows 95. Backed by the busy chatter of tremolo strings, the piano theme drifts through the noise like a ghost. It’s dark, light, winsome, menacing— the film’s entire world telescoped down and reduced into 40 burbling seconds. Then, just as the camera pans up to the dorm, a deep, dark synth note resounds, glaring out at you with yellow eyes.”
Drive – Cliff Martinez (2011)
Not many scores dwarf the film itself, but you could argue that the real star of Nicolas Winding Refn's noir-ish action drama was its soundtrack. Mixing romantic electro-pop pieces by contemporary acts like Kavinsky, Chromatics and College with Cliff Martinez’s moody, synth score, Drive was a surprise commercial success.
As Martinez himself reflected on the film’s 10th anniversary, “The words ‘hit’ and ‘soundtrack’ seldom appear in the same sentence. The score to Drive is the closest I’ve ever come to having anything of the sort. And I wish I knew the recipe for it’s success as no one is more eager than me to repeat the experience.”
Under the Skin – Mica Levi (2013)
Jonathan Glazer’s 2013 sci-fi horror masterpiece sticks with you long after you finish watching. So too does the soundtrack, which was created by experimental British composer Mica Levi. Speaking to the Guardian in 2014, Levi explained, “We were looking at the natural sound of an instrument to try and find something identifiably human in it, then slowing things down or changing the pitch of it to make it feel uncomfortable.” What follows is an extremely disquieting but beautiful score driven by quivering synth drones and artificially elongated strings, perhaps best exemplified in the track ‘Love’.
Blade Runner 2049 – Hans Zimmer & Benjamin Wallfisch (2017)
How do you follow up one of the most iconic scores of all-time? By hiring Oscar-winning composer Hans Zimmer to write the sequel, of course. What film scores has Hans Zimmer done?
Try Interstellar, Gladiator and Inception amongst many others.
Tasked with creating a score to Denis Villeneuve’s much anticipated Blade Runner sequel, Zimmer sought additional assistance from British composer Benjamin Wallfisch. Paying homage to the original score, the duo use the same tech Vangelis did, including the iconic CS-80 synthesizer, and mix atmospheric sound design with what Dazed have described as “Zimmer’s brand of bellowing horns, booming drums and high-pitched, sonically resonating synthesisers.” Get an insight into their creative process in this short feature:
Uncut Gems – Daniel Lopatin (2019)
Thanks to the high-stakes antics of protagonist Howard Ratner (Adam Sandler), the Safdie Brothers’ movie Uncut Gems has become a byword for cinematic tension. A significant part of the credit can be laid at the door of Daniel Lopatin – AKA Warp-signed electronic experimentalist Oneohtrix Point Never – who contributed one of the most memorable film scores this century.
There are nods to Vangelis in Lopatin’s slightly queasy synth washes, while his inspired decision to cut and splice choral vocals adds a magnificent atmosphere of the uncanny. As the Guardian put it in their glowing review: “Lilting flutes and oboes, reminiscent of the recent wave of reissued Japanese ambient, evoke the daze between bouts of stress; soft-porn sax conjures the trashy glamour of the diamond district; wordless chants and choirs suggest a mind clawing at language and meaning.”
Poor Things – Jerskin Fendrix (2023)
The only thing odder than Yorgos Lanthimos’ adaptation of Alastair Gray’s postmodern gothic horror is Jerskin Fendrix’s Oscar-nominated soundtrack. Manipulating a palette of woodwind instruments and synthesised, breathy vocal samples, Fendrix brings the childlike curiosity of Emma Stone’s Bella Baxter to life and helps add flesh to Lanthimos’ fantastical, Frankenstein-like vision.
End Credits
Wondering why scores are so integral to cinema? Or how you go about licensing music for film? We’ve got all the answers on our blog. Head to The Edit to read more about the art of music in film by exploring the best classical music soundtracks, or to find out just what is the difference between a film score and a soundtrack.
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