[Thor Joachim Haga]

I’ve selected my 10 favourite scores from last year in this 50-minute episode, for anyone interested.

But I’d be curious to hear about yours. If you haven’t heard a lot of 2025 titles, I’d love to hear about your favourite archival releases instead.

[Jon Aanensen]

F1

[Sigbjørn]

Can’t really think of any.

[Thor Joachim Haga]

F1 made the top 10….just!

And Sigbjørn, what about archival releases? And if none of those either, what about any 2025 classical albums?

Anything goes (that was released in 2025), really.

[Malte Müller]

Wow, only heard and heard of a few of the scores and films you listed. Sadly have listened to far to few 2025 releases yet. Somehow not able to catch up… But for archival releases I would pick the two Goldsmith re-recordings: CRAWLSPACE/PURSUIT and CHAIRMAN (although a somehow boring pick ;-))

[Nicolai P. Zwar]

The film score album of the year for me was the new recording of Jerry Goldsmith’s music for “THE CHAIRMAN” (Intrada), conducted by William Stromberg.

The classical music release of the year for me was the Berlin Philharmonic Set of Arnold Schönberg‘s music conducted by Kirill Petrenko.

So those may be my “winners”.

But there are some other 2025 albums I very much enjoyed:

Greg Bernall & Chris Upton: NEW WAVE and Daniel Lopatin: MARTY SUPREME
Both of these were cool modern explorations and applications of a type of film music seemingly from another era. Synthpop grooves and dreamy ambient textures in NEW WAVE, and a totally unexpected Tangerine Dream/John Carpenter-esque approach in MARTY SUPREME. I have not seen either movie, but I already enjoy the scores.

Jerry Goldsmith: Pursuit / Crawlspace / The People Next Door
It’s great to have these little-known, wonderful chamber scores for mostly forgotten TV movies in such meticulous and beautifully produced recordings.

Thomas Newman: Of Mice and Men

And wow, Daniel Harding’s new recording of Puccini’s TOSCA answers the question of whether we needed another recording of it with an enthusiastic “yes”.

There are some albums I got in 2025 that may not technically be 2025 releases, and surely some others I have overlooked or just forgotten about right now. I’m sure I will remember them the moment I hit “sent”.

I have not yet heard F1, though I have the score in my collection.

[GerateWohl]

I am undecided between the release of The Reivers and the new Jaws edition. But probably I vote for The Reivers.

[Thor Joachim Haga]

I would like to reiterate that even if you haven’t heard any new scores in 2025, or taken note of any archival releases, ANYTHING GOES in this thread. Classical, pop, rock, electronic, whatever. As long as it was released in 2025.

Now that some time has passed, I can just as well post my lists here, for anyone possibly interested. But I do still recommend listening to the podcast linked in the first post for music clips and reasonings.

TOP 20 FILMS (NORWEGIAN PREMIERE DATES):

1. 28 Years Later (Boyle)
2. Arcadian (Brewer)
3. The Gorge (Derrickson)
4. A House of Dynamite (Bigelow)
5. Marty Supreme (Safdie)
6. Nobody 2 (Tjahjanto)
7. Affeksjonsverdi (Trier)
8. Keeper (Perkins)
9. Ash (Flying Lotus)
10. The Exit 8 (Kawamura)
11. Presence (Soderbergh)
12. Avatar: Fire and Ash (Cameron)
13. Fremmed: Det første opgør (Hedegaard)
14. Ice Grave (Hunzinger)
15. Bugonia (Lanthimos)
16. Predator: Badlands (Trachtenberg)
17. Weapons (Cregger)
18. Black Phone 2 (Derrickson)
19. One Battle After Another (Anderson)
20. The Astronaut (Varley)

Honourable mentions: Tron: Ares (Rønning), F1: The Movie (Kosinski), Warfare (Mendoza), Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning (McQuarrie), The Naked Gun (Schaffer), Den stygge stesøsteren (Blichfeldt), Please Don’t Feed the Children (Spielberg), The Lost Bus (Greengrass)

Worst movies: Mickey 17, The Man in My Basement, Bloat, Eddington, Heim, War of the Worlds, Superman

TOP 25 FEATURE FILM SOUNDTRACKS:

1. Marty Supreme – Daniel Lopatin
2. New Wave – Greg Bernall & Chris Upton
3. Dark Sanctuary: The Story of the Church – Joe Virus
4. The Surfer – Francois Tetaz
5. Slocum et moi – Pascal le Pennec
6. Highest 2 Lowest – Howard Drossin
7. L’oro del Reno – Marco Pedrazzi
8. The Shrouds – Howard Shore
9. Point of Change – Stephen Warbeck & Lewis Morison (festival 24)
10. F1 – Hans Zimmer
11. Hollywood Grit – Nick Gomez
12. Patsers – Hannes de Maeyer
13. Moi qui t’amais – Philippe Sarde
14. The Doom Busters – Ben Pearson
15. Nachtvlinders – Merlijn Snitker
16. Three Days of Fish – Christiaan Verbeek
17. Kaamelott – Deuxième Volet (Partie 1) – Alexandre Astier
18. A Light in the Harbor – Taro Iwashiro
19. Four Letters of Love – Anne Nikitin
20. Swiped – Chanda Dancy
21. Le Routard – Ludovic Bource
22. Presence – Zack Ryan
23. A Necessary Escape aka Dakar Chronicles – M83
24. Where the Wind Blows – Jason Livesay & Nolan Livesay
25. Ash – Flying Lotus

[ryanpaquet]

ARCO – Arnaud Toulon

I have to say that I really enjoy this score – the film was decent too. Good first film by the Director and some real emotional moments. Score features some lovely piano, motifs, stirring string work, and haunting vocals. I also really love the ending them. I was happy to see a CD release is coming on Rambling Records in Japan next month, I will probably try to get this on CD before it sells out and become super rare.

[Thor Joachim Haga]

Yeah, remember sampling that last year. Pretty good.

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