Ennio Morricone Dead at 91

It’s a sad day for the world of cinema. Ennio Morricone, perhaps the most prolific and respected  composer in the world of film, has died at 91.

Morricone scored over 400 films along with many television projects and short films, and yet he went without Academy Awards wins until late in his life, finally winning for The Hateful Eight. He was nominated several times for the films Days of Heaven, The Mission, The Untouchables, Bugsy, and Malena.

I’m going to cover some of my favorite work from Morricone and then drop a selected filmography.

The Man With No Name Trilogy: Morricone essentially created the musical style of Spaghetti Westerns with his work on this trilogy, and his score is practically as iconic as Clint Eastwood’s lead character.

Exorcist II: The Heretic: Say what you will about this truly awful film, but Morricone’s score is still pretty damn good.

The Thing: John Carpenter’s classic isolation horror tale is made all the more claustrophobic by the chilling Morricone score that layers the film in a blanket of paranoia almost as thick as the snow on the ground.

Once Upon a Time in America: Keep making new longer cuts of this movie so that we can get more Ennio Morricone music in this movie. It’s extended cut is a staggering journal of life in old America and the score showcases a new side to Morricone’s skillset, and it reunited him with Sergio Leone.

The Untouchables: This feels like Morricone at his most bombastic and heroic. He enhanced the heroes and villains quite nicely and makes an iconic cop film even more unforgettable in the process.

The Hateful Eight: I love The Hateful Eight, and I love the score for The Hateful Eight. The movie could’ve flat-out failed, but Morricone’s music blended so well with Tarantino’s dialogue. It’s a truly special pairing.

Rest in Peace, Ennio Morricone.

Selected Filmography:

• A Fistful of Dollars (1964)
• For a Few Dollars More (1965)
• The Battle of Algiers (1966)
• The Bible: In the Beginning… (1966)
• The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
• Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
• The Invisible Woman (1969)
• Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (1970)
• The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970)
• The Cat o’ Nine Tails (1971)
• The Canterbury Tales (1972)
• Arabian Nights (1974)
• 1900 (1976)
• Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)
• Orca (1977)
• Days of Heaven (1978)
• The Thing (1982)
• Once Upon a Time in America (1984)
• Red Sonja (1985)
• The Mission  (1986)
• The Untouchables (1987)
• Cinema Paradiso (1988)
• Hamlet (1990)
• Bugsy (1991)
• In the Line of Fire (1993)
• Wolf (1994)
• Disclosure (1994)
• U Turn (1997)
• Lolita (1997)
• Bulworth (1998)
• The Legend of 1900 (1998)
• The Phantom of the Opera (1998)
• Mission to Mars (2000)
• Ripley’s Game (2002)
• The Hateful Eight (2015)

Do you have a favorite Ennio Morricone score? Let me know/Drop a comment down below!

-Kyle A. Goethe