If you've created the ultimate home theater setup for your space – whether that's a full room full of elite speakers and an AV receiver, or just one of the best soundbars for your living room – you obviously want to give it something meaty to chew on, right?
Previously, I've written about 10 Dolby Atmos movies that can show off what your home theater can do – but in that feature, I was mostly focusing on the big blockbuster overall soundtracks, with 3D effects a bit part of it (though I did pick some for their score).
In the last year, I've been enjoying many releases of Atmos movies focused on music, so I wanted to make a new list that picks out some of these because while sound effects moving in 3D space can be super-impressive and mind-blowing, they don't move the soul in the way that a soaring score or dynamic recreation of an orchestra can.
So here are some movies where music is the star of the Atmos mix, and that will show your setup off beautifully, no matter whether it's a Dolby Atmos soundbar connected to one of the best TVs, or a powerful speaker system with one of the best 4K projectors. Oh, and I probably don't need to tell you this, but these will sound better if you grab a physical disc and play them on the best 4K Blu-ray players in lossless quality rather than streaming them – though there's one frustrating exception in here.
Oblivion
This score from French electro outfit M83 has been on rotation for me ever since this movie came out – but the film is generally a sumptuous Atmos showcase, full of cool positional effects (the drones are some of the best sound design I've heard in any movie, ever) as well as wall-to-wall musical bangers.
Director Joseph Kosinski knows how make the most of movie music – he also made Top Gun Maverick, which appeared in the previous recommendation for Atmos movies, and Tron: Legacy, which would be in this list if we weren't still waiting on the new 4K Blu-ray with Atmos mix to arrive (and which will be a day-one purchase for me).
Oblivion is full of soaring synths, soulful strings, deep drums and vibrating basslines. You get a great sense of this right from the opening, while the drone attack is another standout scene, and there's a fantastic sequence of music over the finale.
Moonage Daydream
A fascinating movie that's kind of a secret concert movie wrapped up in the guise of a documentary, but it's not really a documentary of any kind at all. This is a movie about David Bowie's exploration of, and myth-making about, himself – as told by transitioning through different recorded live performances, recordings and interviews. It's an art installation as much as a movie, and this has given it a mixed reception – but I loved it, and it's great as long as you accept that it's not interested in revealing much about Bowie's real life, and wants to envelop you in Bowie the legend.
The way it puts you at the center of these fantastic live shows, layering in Bowie's voice from elsewhere in his life to explain what he was feeling and trying to achieve at different stages from his career (or just the many, many inspirational things he would say – Bowie-as-life-coach seems to be an endless mine of quotes), is such a fantastic showcase of the different strength of Atmos. Live music is recreated in superb dynamic range, while the 3D sound allows for all these other elements to wash over you and into the space you've been occupying with Bowie. It's a very impressive piece of soundscaping.
There is one caveat here: the Dolby Atmos mix is only available on the Criterion Blu-ray. There is a regular 4K Blu-ray, and it's also available on streaming, but they're both in 5.1 only. I've written about this being a frustration before, and obviously the Blu-ray in particular is still a great bit of sound reproduction… but having originally seen this in theaters, I made sure I got the Atmos disc for home, because I didn't want any kind of watered-down version.
Hans Zimmer: Live in Prague
So, Christopher Nolan doesn't like Dolby Atmos or anything beyond five channels of sound, so his movies' fantastic soundtracks don't appear in these lists… except for the great 45 minutes of them played live you get from this beautiful orchestral live show, along with other great Zimmer scores, including Gladiator and Man of Steel.
This is a concert movie through and through, and while it's not the most visually interesting option here, it's just great to see the sheer range of instruments and elaborate playing that goes into making these iconic tracks (though I will say that seeing actual Johnny Marr playing the simple guitar riff from Inception's Time feels like maybe it's slightly underutilising his talents).
And speaking of Inception, when that section starts, having the famous "BWAAAAHM" noise circle around you will really see what your system's woofers are made of. This is the only section of testing the movies here that caused my cat to become alarmed and need reassurance, so take that as a combined recommendation and warning.
Black Panther
Stepping away from movies about music for a moment, Ludwig Göransson's Oscar-winning score here is great fun to explore in its best form, full of bouncing percussion and rich low-end hits. The Wakanda theme became instantly one of the most recognizable movie themes since… well, the first Avengers movie, really.
The whole stretch from T'Challa's flight back to Wakanda through to the waterfall battle with M'Baku is full of great music and fun sound staging, but the whole movie is elevated by having a seriously good system to nail those underlying tracks. And it definitely doesn't hurt that it gets straight into one of the all-time great credit songs (also Oscar-nominated, but beaten by Shallow from A Star is Born… and we'll return to that later).
You can see why Christopher Nolan snapped up Ludwig Göransson to replace Hans Zimmer as his music collaborator based on this innovative score – and, incidentally, while Göransson's phenomenal Oppenheimer score isn't in Dolby Atmos as part of the movie, it actually is available in Atmos when played on Apple Music and Tidal. So… loophole.
Stop Making Sense
The greatest concert movie of all time? You wouldn't find any argument from me, and it was mixed for Atmos as part of its IMAX re-release recently, released on a shiny new 'Collector's Edition' disc from studio A24. I'm actually not a big Talking Heads fan – nothing against them at all, just never been a band I invest a ton of time into – but I can watch this over and over, and just wrap myself in the combination of the beautiful live music production and the smart and joyful staging.
As the camera roves around the mix of performers on stage, the Atmos mix gives greater focus to each one the camera lands on – the movie is already great for the time it gives to every musician, and having it reflected in the sound as well just further improves the whole direction of the thing.
The particular mix of voice, instruments and synths in the selection of tracks here, and their arrangement, is such a great combo with the clarity that a nice lossless Atmos presentation gives you – you can hear every element of a tune like Burning Down the House even as it rises to its most energetic and complex. Combined with a fantastic 4K HDR transfer of the visuals, this is such a fantastic audiovisual 18-course meal.
Maestro
This, infuriatingly – looking at you, Netflix – isn't available on 4K Blu-ray, and likely won't be unless Criterion swoops in as it did for Power of the Dog. Director Bradley Cooper has spoken about how this movie about composer Leonard Bernstein was shot with IMAX in mind, with impeccably recorded and mixed orchestral sections, including the stand-out recreation of Bernstein and the London Symphony Orchestra's performance of Mahler's Second Symphony in a cathedral – all recreated and recorded live for the movie in the same cathedral, to capture the perfect acoustic rendition of it. I saw this movie in its very limited theatrical run, and the whole soundtrack is absolutely stunning.
Alas, you will only be able to hear the compressed streaming version of this recording for the foreseeable future, though it is still 100% worth it, which is why it's on this list. I've already spoken about the cathedral scene, but music is essential throughout the whole movie and is treated with the utmost care. The better your system, the better the movie becomes. It's not just about the music – the movie plays carefully with silence too, and ambient noise, and it moves between them deliberately and effectively.
I mentioned A Star is Born earlier, which was Cooper's first movie and is actually available in Atmos. It also has truly fantastic music scenes, including a performance recorded at a huge concert, capturing the crowd and atmosphere excellently. But Maestro is even more about the music than that movie, so while I recommend both thoroughly, Maestro takes center stage.
Drive
An iconic soundtrack of tunes, provided with a mix that really extracts the bass and power of a home theater system. With standout track Nightcall having broken Shazam records recently after its appearance at the Paris Olympics closing ceremony, it only felt right to call out the movie I know the song from here, because nothing does the kick drum or the pulsing bassline of A Real Hero more justice than a nice chunky home theater subwoofer.
The score itself is big, vibey, and will make the most of a hefty system. Cliff Martinez's tracks seem to draw inspiration from Michael Mann's Thief (as does all the rest of Drive) and its Tangerine Dream score. I would happily include Thief in this list if it had a Dolby Atmos mix, but since it's currently only in 5.1 DTS-HD, Drive will fit the bill nicely instead. It's by turns eerie, slow, threatening, pacey, a little magical, a little brutal.
With the needle drops in between to punctuate, and little dialogue to sully the whole musical soundscape, Drive is a rich piece of retro-modern Atmos atmosphere.
