As always, my film calendar runs through to March and the Oscars ceremony. That’s the window I give myself to try and see as many films as possible. This year I’ve managed 110+ films so far. And every year around this time I put out the annual soundtrack mix. A reminder of the distinction I always make, this is about score, music specifically composed for a film, not needle drops of existing tracks placed in a movie. Those deserve their own mix entirely. Every now and then something slips in when a song is so bound up in a film’s DNA that it almost stops being a needle drop and becomes something else. Not this year though, everything is original score...as far as I know.
Two handicaps I always have to flag. One is whether I’ve actually seen the film. It’s hard to have a real feel for a score without that context. A couple of films here I haven’t seen and are from composers I know well, so I went and listened to the record anyway and the music is great. But that’s why certain films aren’t represented, not because the scores aren’t good, just because I haven’t seen them yet. The second handicap is availability. There were scores I wanted to include, The Mastermind had a great score, some beautiful elements in the Brazilian film The Secret Agent alongside some fab needle drops, but I couldn’t track down the soundtracks. Documentaries especially tend to be near impossible to find. I can only dig so far before time runs out.
What we do have is around 60-70 minutes of genuinely great music across a wide range of moods and styles.
The one that I keep coming back to is the Sirat score. I could have filled the mix with just that. I had to stop myself. It’s that good, and you’ll see it’s the last track in the selection as a result, a closer that takes this to another place!
Johnny Greenwood shows up again and I mean, what else is there to say. One Battle After Another is not straightforward score writing, it never is with him. It surprises you. I cannot believe he still hasn’t won an Academy Award. There Will Be Blood. Phantom Thread. The body of work is extraordinary. And this year my hope is Jonny Greenwood walks away with the Oscar.
There’s also an Eddie Palmieri track written for the most recent Spike Lee joint, Highest 2 Lowest. Serious New York salsa energy. It hits completely different from everything else in the mix and that’s exactly why it’s in there.
The full range here goes from classical to ambient and droney, moody and cinematic, to genuinely weird and fun like the Bugonia and Testament of Ann Lee soundtracks...happy, sad, quirky. I’ve loved hearing score from bona fide music artists/bands I love like Nala Sinephro, Matthew Herbert, Hania Rani, M83, and Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead fame.
I had a great experience this year working with the Vietnamese American composer Dylan Trần on a film I produced called On Healing Land, Birds Perch (which you can watch here). He did a beautiful score and in record time! Here the whole score here.
The full list of films featured in the mix include...
Sentimental Value, One Battle After Another, Sirat, Jay Kelly, Frankenstein, The Smashing Machine, Hot Milk, Sorry Baby, Bugonia, Train Dreams, Eddington, Marty Supreme, Highest 2 Lowest, Testament of Ann Lee, On Healing Land Birds Perch, Resurrection, and music from the series Industry and the play Waiting for Godot (a sneaky one I slipped in).
Click to listen to the mix in a new window that will pop up. Let me know what you think.
Soundtracks of 2025 tracklist
Nala Sinephro - Dawn [The Smashing Machine]
Matthew Herbert - Dido’s Lament [Hot Milk]
Lia Ouyang Rusli - The Year with the Baby [Sorry, Baby]
Hania Rani - Rachel [Sentmental Value]
Jerskin Fendrix - Bees [Bugonia]
Bryce Desner - A Faint Understanding [Train Dreams]
Bobby Krlic - Slogan Ideas [Eddington]
Jonny Greenwood - Operation Boot Heel [One Battle After Another]
Ben & Max Ringham - Will Night Never Come [Waiting for Godot]
Daniel Lopatin - Marty’s Dream [Marty Supreme]
Eddie Palmieri - Da Lowdown [Highest to Lowest]
Jonny Greenwood - Trust Device [One Battle After Another]
Nicolas Britell - I’m sorry about the Eiffel Tower [Jay Kelly]
Nicolas Britell - Jay Kelly Theme piano and strings [Jay Kelly]
Alexandre Desplat & Eldbjørg Hemsing - Victor’s Tale [Frankenstein]
Daniel Blumberg - Search for Ann [Testament of Ann Lee]
Nathan Micay - My Luck has Turned [Industry]
Nala Sinephro - Mark [The Smashing Machine]
Dylan Tran - Cue 9 [On Healing Land, Birds Perch]
M83 - Clamor of Time [Resurrection]
Nicolas Britell - Joie de vivre felt piano [Jay Kelly]
Bryce Desner - The Great Mystery [Train Dreams]
Daniel Lopatin - Vampire’s Castle [Marty Supreme]
Kangding Ray - Les Marches [Sirat]
If soundtracks are your thing then you can find all my soundtrack focused mixes here on Mixcloud including past yearly round ups like this one from 2023. For the films I’ve produced I’ve also made mixes of the music, you can find the soundtrack for Clemency here and for Bring Your Own Brigade here.
If there are scores you loved this year that aren’t here, or ones that are and you just want to pile on about how great they are — drop it in the comments. Always want to know what I missed.
Music and film. Never gets old.
**In the navigation bar above you can hit the “tunes” button and find all the music posts all in one place. Genius!
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