Ennio (Ennio: The Maestro). 2021. Italy/Belgium/Netherlands/Japan. Written and directed by Giuseppe Tornatore. Courtesy Piano B Produzioni

A 33-track salute to the movie music of Ennio Morricone

No one seems to agree on exactly how many film scores Ennio Morricone wrote during the course of his six-decade career—rough estimates include “more than 400” (Wikipedia), “more than 500” (The Hollywood Reporter), and “more than 450” (Morricone himself)—but “prolific” is too anemic a word for him. Given his outsize influence and the almost eccentric variety of styles and registers in which he worked, the maestro’s oeuvre might best be described as colossal.

Ennio Morricone, in a still from Giuseppe Tornatore’s Ennio: The Maestro (2021)

Ennio Morricone, in a still from Giuseppe Tornatore’s Ennio: The Maestro (2021)

Sergio Leone’s The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966)

Sergio Leone’s The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966)

Though summing up his prodigious legacy is impossible, MoMA, in collaboration with Cinecittà, Rome, has organized a 35-plus-film salute to Morricone that presents much of the composer’s best-known work (Cinema Paradiso, The Untouchables, the genre-defining spaghetti Westerns of Sergio Leone) alongside more brazen stylistic outings and lesser-known films. From the stylish sleaze of Italian giallo thrillers to overtly political films like The Battle of Algiers and prestige epics like 1900 and Once upon a Time in America, the breadth and adventurousness of Morricone’s approach is far more staggering—and inspiring—than its sheer volume. Hopefully this playlist of music from our film series will whet your appetite for the feast that awaits.

The film series Ennio Morricone screens at MoMA December 1, 2023–January 8, 2024.