Synth Soundtracks
16 Episodes
Once the sound of the future, now awesomely retro, synth soundtracks add a splash of otherworldly atmosphere to some of the coolest movies ever made. Using state-of-the-art analog and digital technologies, pioneering musicians like Sun Ra (SPACE IS THE PLACE) and Ryuichi Sakamoto (MERRY CHRISTMAS MR. LAWRENCE) created immersive soundscapes that expanded cinematic storytelling and forever changed the art of movie soundtracking. Alternately eerie, icy, pulse-pounding, and thrillingly emotional, these scores tunnel into your eardrums at ecstatic frequencies hitherto unexplored.
Coprogrammed by Synth History/Danz CM
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00:41Episode 1
Synth Soundtracks Teaser
Episode 1
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Tenebrae
Episode 2
Directed by Dario Argento • 1982 • Italy
Starring Anthony Franciosa, John Saxon, Daria NicolodiDario Argento raises the giallo genre to new heights with this darkly humorous and notoriously grisly murder mystery, widely considered one of his finest works. American mystery author Peter Neal (Ant...
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1:29:52Episode 3
Messiah of Evil
Episode 3
Directed by Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz • 1973 • United States
Starring Marianna Hill, Michael Greer, Joy BangA woman (Marianna Hill) arrives in a sleepy seaside town after receiving unsettling letters from her father, only to discover that the town is under the influence of a strange cult th...
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1:52:49Episode 4
Liquid Sky
Episode 4
Directed by Slava Tsukerman • 1982 • United States
Starring Anne Carlisle, Paula E. Sheppard, Susan DoukasOne of the coolest and most outrageously stylish oddities to emanate from the 1980s indie underground is a postpunk science-fiction fantasia set in New York’s zonked-out bohemian demimonde....
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Manhunter
Episode 5
Directed by Michael Mann • 1986 • United States
Starring William Petersen, Kim Greist, Joan AllenMichael Mann’s hypnotic, hyperstylized adaptation of Thomas Harris’s novel “Red Dragon” was the first film to introduce audiences to the infamous Hannibal Lecter. Will Graham (William Petersen) is a...
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1:10:40Episode 6
Delta Space Mission
Episode 6
Directed by Mircea Toia and Călin Cazan • 1984 • Romania
Starring Mirela Gorea, Marcel Iureș, Dan ConduracheSet to a killer synth prog soundtrack, the first animated film from Romania is a loopy and lysergic science-fiction eyeball-twirler that plays something like 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY on psyc...
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1:29:35Episode 7
Next of Kin
Episode 7
Directed by Tony Williams • 1982 • Austrlia, New Zealand
Starring Jacki Kerin, John Jarratt, Alex ScottWhen a young woman (Jacki Kerin) inherits a creaky retirement home, she finds herself plunged into a waking nightmare of murder, madness, and a legacy of evil that may be inescapable. Awash in...
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Solaris
Episode 8
Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky • 1972 • Soviet Union
Starring Natalya Bondarchuk, Donatas Banionis, Yuri YarvetGround control has been receiving mysterious transmissions from the three remaining residents of the Solaris space station. When cosmonaut and psychologist Kris Kelvin is dispatched to i...
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1:21:41Episode 9
Space Is the Place
Episode 9
Directed by John Coney • 1974 • United States
Starring Sun Ra, Barbara Deloney, Raymond JohnsonAvant-jazz mystic Sun Ra brought his pioneering Afrofuturist vision to the screen with this film version of his concept album. It’s a wild, kaleidoscopic whirl of science fiction, sharp social comment...
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2:03:25Episode 10
Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence
Episode 10
Directed by Nagisa Oshima • 1983 • Japan
Starring David Bowie, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Tom ContiIn this captivating, skewed World War II drama from Nagisa Oshima, David Bowie regally embodies Celliers, a British officer interned by the Japanese as a POW. Rock star Ryuichi Sakamoto (who also composed ...
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Scanners
Episode 11
Directed by David Cronenberg • 1981 • Canada
Starring Stephen Lack, Jennifer O’Neill, Michael IronsideWith SCANNERS, David Cronenberg plunges us into one of his most terrifying and thrilling sci-fi worlds. After a man with extraordinary—and frighteningly destructive—telepathic abilities is nabb...
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1:45:46Episode 12
The Last Wave
Episode 12
Directed by Peter Weir • 1977 • Australia
Starring Richard Chamberlain, Olivia Hamnett, GulpililRichard Chamberlain stars as Australian lawyer David Burton, who takes on the defense of a group of aborigines accused of killing one of their own. He suspects the victim has been killed for violatin...
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Stalker
Episode 13
Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky • 1979 • Soviet Union
Starring Alisa Freindlikh, Aleksandr Kaidnovsky, Anatoly SolonitsynAndrei Tarkovsky’s final Soviet feature is a metaphysical journey through an enigmatic postapocalyptic landscape, and a rarefied cinematic experience like no other. A hired gui...
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1:25:24Episode 14
Shogun Assassin
Episode 14
Directed by Kenji Misumi and Robert Houston • 1980 • Japan, United States
Starring Tomisaburo Wakayama, Kayo Matsuo, Minoru OkiThe legendary midnight-movie sensation that firmly embedded samurai mythology within American pop-culture consciousness, this English-dubbed reedit of the first two fil...
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1:20:04Episode 15
For All Mankind
Episode 15
Directed by Al Reinert • 1989 • United States
In July 1969, the space race ended when Apollo 11 fulfilled President Kennedy’s challenge of “landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.” No one who witnessed the lunar landing will ever forget it. Al Reinert’s documentary FOR...
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1:17:21Episode 16
White Rock
Episode 16
Directed by Tony Maylam • 1977 • United Kingdom
British documentary film-maker and producer Tony Maylam invigorated the sports documentary genre with WHITE ROCK, an idiosyncratic and utterly engaging account of the XII Olympic Winter Games Innsbruck 1976. He did so by placing music front and cen...