You guys are terrible. Anime? Batman?
Ennio Morricone is pretty much the greatest thing ever, out of the 20 or so I've heard his best are "Once Upon a Time in the West," "The Great Silence," and "Cinema Paradiso." His score for "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly" is pretty good, but not up to the level of those. However, the main theme of it is one of the most famous themes in movie history, it is basically THE stereotypical "Western" music these days and you'll probably recognize it even if you don't know what it's from. Not to mention Metallica always uses some other piece from that movie as their entrance music (the orchestra plays it at the beginning of S&M). Not that that is a recommendation though :X
Hmm, random other scores from older movies I think were great are the old ones for Harryhausen movies, like "7th Voyage of Sinbad," "Jason and the Argonauts," and "Golden Voyage of Sinbad." Bernard Hermann did some of them, he's most famous for doing Hitchcock movies (notably Psycho, Vertigo, and North By Northwest, all of which are also great). "Ride the High Country" is another pretty good one I saw recently.
John Williams isn't particularly creative compared to some of the better film composers, but he certainly has some memorable themes. My favorites of his are probably Return of the Jedi, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and Jaws.
I'm also big on some more minimalistic scores...Donnie Darko, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Amelie come to mind as examples of this (when they're not playing shitty pop songs, anyway). Another classic minimalist score I heard again recently is that to "The Third Man," which was done entirely by a solo zither player, it's incredibly distinct and strange.
Finally, some of the best soundtracks of recent years have been those of Asian martial arts movies. "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and especially "House of Flying Daggers" had absolutely gorgeous soundtracks, the latter featuring one of the best love themes I've ever heard.
sorrryyz
