The 10 Best EDM-Fueled Movie Soundtracks

The 85th Oscars are being handed out later tonight, and all of this movie business, along with Skrillex's work on Spring Breakers, got us thinking back to the great movie soundtracks that were filled with electronic music. Be it a classic film score or a thematically-driven compilation of music both used and inspired by an iconic film, there have been some great movie soundtracks that were chock full of EDM.

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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The 85th Oscars are being handed out later tonight, and all of this movie business, along with Skrillex's work on Spring Breakers, got us thinking back to the great movie soundtracks that were filled with electronic music. Be it a classic film score or a thematically-driven compilation of music both used and inspired by an iconic film, there have been some great movie soundtracks that were chock full of EDM.

Found in this list you'll get everything: movies about vampire hunters to mathematical equations to riding in fast cars to hacking the planet. Heroin, future battlegrounds, and a shitload of running. Remember where you were when you discovered some of these soundtracks, and pray that we see more EDM-laced soundtracks in the near future.

10. Blade

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(TVT, 1998)

While the first Blade soundtrack isn't drenched in EDM, it does have it's moments; not only did Photek's "Ni Ten Ichi Ryu" get played during a portion of the movie (yet wasn't added to the soundtrack), one of the more memorable scenes featured a bloody vampire rave set to a 1995 remix of New Order's "Confusion." This track would end up being dropped at numerous raves across the country.

Subsequent Blade soundtracks delved into blending hip-hop and EDM, with pairings like The Roots with BT, Mos Def with Massive Attack, and Mystikal with Moby, all to varying degrees of "winning" (and ending up on four different Billboard charts). For what it's worth, the Blade III soundtrack ultimately did the same thing, and charted on a number of Billboard charts as well, but we can't think many people actually remember it.

9. Run Lola Run

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(TVT, 1999)

The plot of Run Lola Run is simple: Lola has 20 minutes to acquire 100,000 German marks to save her boyfriend's life. The scenario is played over three times during the movie's duration, and is essentially a huge music video set to eurotrance. This isn't a bad thing, as it works very well against the film's constantly-moving nature, but without the visual, the repetition really shows.

8. The Saint

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(Virgin, 1997)

The Saint, a thriller from the late '90s starring Val Kilmer, spawned what now looks like a guide to alternative music from that era. The project features Moby, the Chemical Brothers, Underworld, Everything but the Girl, Sneaker Pimps, Fluke, David Bowie, and Dreadzone. If you wanted to give someone an idea of what the "electronica" craze was all about, just sort them out with this disc. It even had Orbital cashing in on an updated version of the 1960s The Saint TV show theme.

7. Trainspotting

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(Capital, 1996)

Trainspotting was an undeniably classic piece of cinematic beauty that was set to what could be seen as a great example of the mid-90s club life in Britain. It blended classic dance tracks like "Born Slippy .NUXX" from Underworld and Goldie's "Inner City Life" with britpop from Blur, Elastica, and others. We also got tracks from oft-forgotten artists like Leftfield, but overall it was one of the best film soundtracks to come out. Ever. So dope that they ended up releasing a second Trainspotting soundtrack a full year after the original's release, featuring tracks in the movie that didn't make the first disc along with music that inspired the filmmakers early in the film's production.

6. Midnight Express

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(Casablanca, 1978)

Giorgio Moroder was a pioneer in the world of using synths in electronic music, a collaborator with everyone from Donna Summer to David Bowie; his soundtrack for the 1978 feature Midnight Exrpess won an Academy Award for Best Original Score. Many might know know his name, but you definitely hear the influence of his late-70s flavor on the dance music for the music release over the decades after.

5. Human Traffic

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(London, 1999)

Human Traffic is heralded as one of the better films about rave culture, sort of a coming-of-age story wrapped with political commentary and banging beats. The two-disc set features a Dillinja track (!!) alongside appearances from William Orbit, Orbital, Death in Vegas, CJ Bolland, and Fat Boy Slim; the second disc is mixed by none other than Pete Tong, who went in deep with the tracklist, using nothing from the first disc.

4. The Jackal

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(MCA, 1997)

Similar to the soundtrack for The Saint (especially since both were 1997 remakes of old TV shows), but this one had a richer selection. While there wasn't much in the way of exclusive material, Goldie got two features on here (with a remix of Bush's "Swallowed" and the classic "Sunray 2" with J Majik), LTJ Bukem, Apollo440, Moby, a Chemical Brothers remix of The Charlatans, The Prodigy, Fat Boy Slim, and Massive Attack.

3. Pi

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(Sire, 1998)

Darren Aronofsky's directorial debut is so complex and thrilling that it could only be matched by the music of Aphex Twin, Autechre, Banco de Gaia, Orbital, and Massive Attack. It even features the classic Ed Rush & Optical remix of Reprazent's "Watching Windows." This is a perfect example of a soundtrack that perfectly complimented the source material with the use of the RIGHT tracks.

2. Tron: Legacy

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(Walt Disney, 2010)

Daft Punk's debut film score was the perfect film, as Tron: Legacy was damn near the perfect fit for them. Their sound was so crucial to the movie that director Joseph Kosinski chased them down for a year to get them to commit, which they ultimately did. An 85-piece orchestra, the influence of composer Wendy Carlos (who composed the original Tron, as well as A Clockwork Orange), and two years of hard work resulted in Daft Punk's last return to the EDM scene. The soundtrack was critically acclaimed, as many knew what we all did: Daft Punk was born for this project.

1. Hackers

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(Edel America, 1996)

In hindsight, Hackers hasn't aged well. In a time when the first Playstation was advanced technology, a film about computer hacking seems super old school. The music, though? We have a feeling the ravers of the day were flocking to theaters to hear pre-Fat of the Land Prodigy tunes (like "Voodoo People") playing in their local theater.

Oh yeah, Angelina Jolie was in this as well. With short hair.

What became the first edition of the soundtrack featured nothing but tunes from the film, including beats from Underworld, Leftfield, Orbital, and Carl Cox. The success of the soundtrack ended up spawning two more (!) versions, primarily of music "inspired" by the film, which worked for dance music junkies, considering it featured things like the Empirion remix of Prodigy's "Firestarter" alongside output from The Orb, Danny Saber, BT, and Cirrus, although Massive Attack's "Protection" is nowhere to be found on any of these discs, despite how prominent it was in the film.

In any case, these three discs are a time capsule to where the dance music scene was at that time.

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