Manufacturer: EMI

Manufacturer: Columbia

Manufacturer: Decca

Ostensibly a collection of Cooder's film music, the two-CD Music by Ry Cooder delivers the cinematic quality of a good soundtrack album but packs the kind of ferocious jams--featuring crack players such as John Hiatt, Jim Keltner, David Lindley, and Jim Dickinson--that you'll never hear on a John Williams score. Cooder's melancholy acoustic and electric-slide moans are a constant, though ...

Manufacturer: Warner

Manufacturer: Concord

The soundtrack to Danny Boyle's end-of-the-world flick 28 Days Later is as bleak as you might expect from a film that involves deranged, blood-spewing zombies and the destruction of modern civilisation as we know it. While there are a few "names" here--in the shape of American power-pop band Grandaddy, ambient pioneer Brian Eno and dance producer Blue States--the majority of this ...

Manufacturer: Xl

Too many soundtracks feel interchangeable, and rare are the composers who really capture a movie's core. But Javier Navarrete has succeeded in his Oscar-nominated score for Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth, a dark fantasy set in 1944 Spain. The first cue, "Long, Long Time Ago," sets the melancholy tone with piano and voice; the spectral piano pops up several more times, and the theme is ...

Manufacturer: Milan

Manufacturer: Varese Sarabande

Patrick Doyle eats classic literature adaptations for breakfast. The talented Scots composer was clearly born to write for this medium after his many Shakespearean collaborations for Kenneth Brannagh. His first dip into the world of Jane Austen is as much a joy as any of those. The two songs opening and closing the disc immediately make it an essential. Soprano Jane Eaglen's performances of "Weep ...

Manufacturer: Unknown Label

Manufacturer: DECCA