In light of the recent Worcester Music Awards, let’s focus this month’s Netflix binge on movies that have won Oscars/Academy Awards for songs and scores. As great as a script might be, a movie would simply be boring as hell without a musical backdrop to heighten our emotions at crucial climaxes. Though we may not realize we are listening to the music, subconsciously it creates our feeling about what’s happening. Imagine a fight or chase scene with no music or a horror movie with no creepy tone in the back? Yawn.

Of course we have to start with John Williams. Williams has been nominated more than 30 times for an Oscar and has won the award five times. The winning scores are Schindler’s List, Star Wars (1977), E.T., Jaws and Fiddler on the Roof. The last three can be found on Netflix, as well as many of his other nominations – I recommend Catch Me if You Can, The Patriot and The Book Thief – and pay attention to the music.

John Barry has won four Oscars for best songs/scores. In addition to winning the award for the Dances with Wolves score (one of my favorite all-time movies), he also won it for Born Free, a heartwarming movie about a couple who raises a lion cub and must teach it to live back in the wild, which is available on Netflix.

Brokeback Mountain and Babel, with scores written by Gustavo Santaolalla, each won Oscars for their music, and Howard Shore’s two Oscar wins, Lord of the Rings Fellowship of the Ring and Return of the King, have some epic music and are actually two of my favorite soundtracks.

The score for Finding Neverland, with Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet, is one of the most beautiful. Written by Jan A.P. Kaczmarek, it won the score Oscar in 2005.

And honorable mentions go to …

Hans Zimmer, who, in my opinion, has written some of the best film music of all time, despite only winning an Oscar for one film. Scores for Inception, The Thin Red Line, Gladiator, Interstellar, The DaVinci Code, 12 Years a Slave and Batman: The Dark Knight Rises are all his brainchildren. Most of these films you can access with a click of your remote.

James Horner, who, though he has only been awarded one Oscar for his Titanic score, has written some of the most recognized pieces of music for films, including Braveheart, Apollo 13 and A Beautiful Mind.

By Jennifer Russo