Ravenous, the music made the movie, without that eerie score it would suck.

Titus, powerful music that fit the tempo and power of the film. Without the score it would not have the same epic grand feel to a small movie

That's all I can think of right now.

Patton or Papillon without the music? *shudder* The films would still be good, but they would be less magical.

any movie that was scored by Bernard Herrmann, as well?

For some reason, Fenton's Dangerous Beauty comes to mind as well. I don't know why, but I can't picture it with anyone else's music, even though Portman was supposed to write the score as first.

A few that meet the criteria, IMHO:

STRIPES (and really any of the Reitman/Bernstein collaborations, including MEATBALLS and GHOSTBUSTERS)

BLUE THUNDER (I know lots of folks out there hate Rubenstein's work; without the Ode-to-Technology ambiance supplied by the score, this film probably wouldn't work at all)

SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE (I just don't think that we would recall the movie with such fondness had it not been epic sweep by one of the great scores in history)

RISKY BUSINESS (remove Tangerine Dream's contributions, and it would play flat, or weird, or both.....LOTS of comedies require just the right score to really work)

BACK TO THE FUTURE and its sequels (take away the Silvestri scores, and they might as well have continued filming with Eric Stoltz)

....and SEVERAL of Tim Burton's movies lose their appeal without Danny Elfman there. BATMAN, PEE WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE, and EDWARD SCISSORHANDS would all play smaller and out-of-kilter without Elfman's work.

IMHO.

Mark, GHOSTBUSTERS?! I LOVED that movie! That movie is so cool I don't even pay attention to the music, asside from that little piano piece. It's one of the most quotable movies ever made...I mean, come on! "Look! Cemetrical book stacking, just like the Philidelphia Mass Turbulance of 1847." "Your right, no HUMAN BEING would stack books like this."

Or in the same scene..."Listen...Do ya smell something?!"

I think Ghostbusters is a rare exception to the film score world where all we really needed was that one song and the piano music...the rest of the score is just background noise to me. But hey, I've always been known to have a difference in opinion.

There is a hell of a lot more than a song and a piece of piano music. And a lot of it is very effective in the film. I would go so far as to say that it made several scenes.

In addition to the piano theme (nominally a theme for the Ghostbusters themselves, more of a theme for New York), there is the beautiful 'cello theme for Dana Barrett which not only illustrates the intelligence and musical ability of the character, but also gets perverted into bizarre tonal territory during her possession scenes the undercurrent of seriousness was vital to the scene. Although Peter quips with Zuul about her libido, it is also one of the few times in the film where he is behaving like a doctor; if the music wasn't backing up that, it might have been swallowed up by the hilarity of the scene.

Bernstein's large scale orchestral cues for the finale also have a strong effect on the audience's perception of those scenes, giving them a sense of danger and urgency that may have been just slightly undercut by the fact that the planet is being threatened by a 112.5 foot Marshmallow Man.

Just because the film isn't hitting you over the head with what the score is doing (not to mention the fact that the score co-exists on the music track with several songs) doesn't mean that it isn't serving an important purpose in the film.

While I believe Ghostbusters is an excellent film that leans on its score and uses it very well, I think that the music is only one element; for one thing the actors inhabit their roles, Edlund's visual effects are convincing enough without going over the top, De Cuir's brilliant production design convinces even us New Yorkers that the film is set here, even though most of it was shot in L.A.

Hey, I LOVE - and can quote extensively from - GHOSTBUSTERS, too! I may have overstated it; sorry if it seemed I was dissing one of the truly great comedies of all time. Looking at the title of the thread, I probably shouldn't have included GHOSTBUSTERS here. Too many good things about it for it to "die" without Bernstein's score.

I will, however, stand by my assertion that it would be a lesser, and flatter, movie without Elmer's great score. This is even more true of STRIPES (IMHO, of course) and MEATBALLS. Being an admitted musical moron, I could not articulate all of the exact reasons why.......Swash, the check is in the mail, pal.

An example of a movie that would totaly and completely DIE without the score would be the previously mentioned "Dragonheart," which seemed to be filmed around the music...especialy the swimming scene, the main title, the flying sequence, etc. Although the characters of Draco and Bowen are very cool, there is little to no intriguing story besides Draco's link to the King, and the rebellion. Also the Dialogue and battle scenes were pretty week. ILM Effects were, of course, really cool.

Another example would be "Starship Troopers" by Basil Poledouris. There is so much music that stands out here that the movie would be dull without it...especialy the battle scene on Klandethu, when the drop ships are firing cannons to send off the troops. The music to that scene is simply astounding, as are other cues like when Dinese Richards' character takes a high-flying ride through tunnels and around ships to get to the big ship and boasts "Today I get to fly THAT!" (A cue that, unfortunately, never made it to the disc). Starship troopers was an OK film, but the score made it worth watching again and again.

While Ghostbusters had very defined themes, it doesn't add much to the experience of watching the movie over and over again. I simply love the film, with or without the music. But that's just my humble opinion.