Okay, the top 5 Golden Age composers? Well, looks like there's a lot of unanimousness there: Rozsa, Herrmann, Newman, Waxman, Steiner, Korngold, Friedhofer... the usual suspects battling it out neck and neck. So here's a different challenge, probably one whose answers will be considerably less homogeneous.
We are all film score oddballs, that's why we're here, but:
What is your favorite movie song?
That's right, song, not songs. Not a list, just one song. You gotta pick one.
Rules:
Which songs are eligible? All songs that were actually written for a movie, whether they were title songs (like the James Bond songs), musical songs (e.g. "Somewhere over the Rainbow"), end title songs ("It's a long Road"), background songs, dramatic pop songs ("Streets of Philadelphia"), ballads ("Do not forsake me"), disco songs ("What a feeling"), it doesn't matter as long as the song was specifically composed for a movie (or its trailer or its soundtrack). Tie in songs, that were not actually in the movie but were written for the soundtrack album and bear a significant thematic relation to the actual film music (e.g. "The Piper Dreams") qualify, songs that are not in the movie but merely appear on a so called a "soundtrack album" for commercial reasons or for the heck of it do not qualify.
Not eligible are songs that were merely used in or covered for a movie, but were not actually written for a movie or with the movie in mind. That includes but is not limited to musical songs that were actually written for the stage, such as many perennial musical favorites such as "Maria" from West Side Story or "Singing in the Rain" or "Unchained Melody"*; as good as these songs may be, they were not actually written for a movie, so they are disqualified.
* (Small correction: "Unchained Melody" qualifies; see further down this thread for details.)
But you may pick your favorite song based on how well you like versions other than the one actually heard in the movie. In other words, if your favorite movie song is a cover version of the song (say, you love Eric Clapton's "Somewhere over the rainbow"), but you can't stand the song the way it is sung in the movie (the Judy Garland version), that's alright, it still qualifies.
Some rules, eh? Well, this is my thread and here I get to call the shots.
So, now that the rules are clear, your entries, please, Ladies and Gentlemen:
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