Recommend me some...

[Black Friday]

...symphony. Specifically the large, exciting, epic sort of symphony movie soundtracks try to emulate.

 

[Descendant of Evil]

Katatonia? Dragonforce? Children of Bodom? Sun O)))? They all are myths.

 

[Thoth-Amon]

you need to start with the complete Beethoven symphonies.
get the Karajan 1963 set on Deutsche Grammaphone. You can get it for like 20 bucks brand new on Amazon.
After that you need to aquire the Mahler symphonies. Bernstein has several complete sets of these amazing works.

 

[tagradh]

Mahler is great, I don't really like much Beethoven. Gorecki's 3rd symphony is brilliant also. As you mentioned movies maybe check out some Thomas Newman scores (I love the Road to Chicago shizzle). Check out some Sibelius and Messiaen also.

 

[Thoth-Amon]

I don't really like much Beethoven.

nevertheless Beethoven's symphonies are by and large considered the definitive or gold standards of symhponic works. anyone interested in classical music should be thoroughly familiar with these pieces.

 

[Einherjar86]

Definitely Mahler.

Also:

DVORAK- New World Symphony (epic as epic can get; the fourth movement fucking moves mountains)