Actual soundtracks?

Does anyone write with (or just listen to) soundtracks from movies and TV shows? Sometimes I just listen through random albums but other times I listen to nothing but soundtracks for a long while (even if I end up making my characters sound like pirates or the Doctor for sudden chunks of my story). I especially like - as I'm sure you couldn't guess - Doctor Who's, Inception's, and Pirates of the Caribbean's. Anyone else use them for creating certain moods in your writing? Good ones you'd like to share? (I can upload all of the ones I've mentioned.) Go ahead!

I am super into soundtracks, mostly from movies and video games. I have a giant 700+ song playlist that is just fantasy-style music (which I primarily use when we play D&D). Right now I seem to really be into Hans Zimmer's stuffs, with a dash here and there of Dragon Age and Portal 2. I do find that the Conan the Barbarian (the original one, not the new one) soundtrack is great for suspenseful scenes, especially if it has something to do with spying or hiding. :)

Soundtracks are gonna be the majority of my music for the month (with some rock, because I'm writing teenagers, haha); I use Pirates of the Carribean 3, Deathly Hallows part 2, X-Men: First Class, and Doctor Who. I feel like I'm missing something though...but I'm hoping based on those my novel turns out pretty epic. :D

For general writing, I love listening to Moby, both enjoyable to listen to, and the story behind the lyrics are always so deep.
For the one I'm going to do though, since it's about parallel universes and sci-fi stuff, I think I'm going to listen to the soundtrack of that point-and-click game, Machinarium.

Here's one of my favorites: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ar1iQGAyWNM

The rest of my playlist is composed of songs from various other artists that seem to fit the feeling.

Oh, I love Hans Zimmer! It seems like he turns out to be the composer of beautiful soundtracks really often.
Is the First Class one good? I don't seem to have noticed the music (even though I watched it twice). I love the Who soundtracks but I get distracted by thinking about the episodes the music is from all the time, haha. I bet it will, that's a lot of great setting :D

Hi Alice! I adore your icon. That's my favourite Doctor Who episode. :D

Lately I've been listening to a bunch of versions of "I Am the Doctor." My favourite is the Proms one. I also second Midnight_indigo about XMFC. That's my favourite soundtrack at the moment.

I also really like The Moulin Rouge! soundtracks. My favourite songs are "Your Song," "El Tango De Roxanne," "The Show Must Go On," and my extra special favourite is "Bolero." That's an amazing track.

I also really dig The Heroes CD that Wendy and Lisa put out. Some excellent music on that. Finally, I'll recommend the first Transformers CD.

Hey!

I generally listen to the three Transformers Soundtracks when writing. I haven't done a nano before but that shall be my main music. Other than that I listen to a bit of Skillet, Corrs or Bruce Springsteen depending on what I am writing. Occasionally I'll listen to different war tribute songs if that is where my story is heading.

Mav

MUSICALS.

I have a playlist on my laptop (which i recently bought speakers for XD) which is literally just songs from musicals - both stage musicals like Rent, Seussical, Jekyll & Hyde etc, and movie musicals like Reefer Madness.

Showtunes just have so much character to them. I find them inspiring because each song tells part of a story, in lyrics as well as tune.

I also love the soundtracks from Machinarium, Portal 2, and Inception. I like the soundtracks from 28 Days Later, Coraline, Requiem for a Dream, Fight Club, .Hack//SIGN, Pan's Labyrinth, The Village, Trigun, Wolf's Rain, and the Harry Potter soundtracks (the 6th is my favourite). My interest is kind of all over the place.

Oh goodness, tons. Right now I may be on a bit of a Prince of Egypt kick (according to last.fm, I have listened to little else for three or four days), but I frequently turn to Lord of the Rings, Sherlock Holmes, How to Train Your Dragon, Pan's Labyrinth, Les Miserables, anything at all by Ennio Morricone (and by proxy, the soundtrack to Tarantino's films), Tales of Symphonia, Shadow of the Colossus, Hunchback of Notre Dame, and probably dozens of others. Most of it is from movies, musicals, and video games, but I do have the theme song to just about every show I've ever seen, as well.

Each NaNo novel has had it's own soundtrack. Last year's was Prince of Persia, before that it was Stardust. This year it'll probably end up being Morris: A Life With Bells On, but I'm still scouring film soundtracks for the right 'English village' sound :-)

The Water for Elephants OST is excellent, and I also have a collection of Charlie Chaplin's movie music. Very inspirational.

I love soundtracks! My favourite is currently the Umineko no Naku Koro ni one - from the Visual Novels, not the anime. I have no idea how many songs this soundtrack actually includes since there are eight VNs, but I love about every song I came across.
Also the Lord of the Rings OST, especially Into the West. Then we have the Fairy Tail OSTs 1-3 and Death Note. I still need some soundtracks for the fighting scenes, so I'll have to look up some new ones.

I find music with lyrics very distracting while I'm trying to write and classical music really needs to be listened to, not just played in the background so, for me, soundtracks are almost the only option.
On the brigter side, this year I'm doing fantasy, so it isn't really that hard to find bucketloads of inspiring pieces. In addition to everything already mentioned (Inception=love), I can whole-heartedly recommend the oh-so-otherwordly soundtrack to the document 'In the Shadow of the Moon' (composed by Philip Sheppard, yay for cellists!), and of course anything by Tan Dun (Hero, anyone?).
And thank you for all who suggested game soundtracks - some movie soundtracks are in my mind so intertwined with the movie itself that it's hard to listen to them while trying to be original. I've never played Final Fantasy, but the orchestral version of 'A Man with a Machine Gun' is just _perfect_ for my MC.

I actually listen to video game soundtracks. Tons of Inon Zur and Jack Wall.

@time head: XMFC is excellent! For the most part I didn't notice it during the movie (except for the whole "rage and serenity" part, which was why I bought the soundtrack :D ) but it's really beautiful.

I love Hans Zimmer too! This year a great part of the book takes place in the 30s and 40s so I am collecting music from that period, if anyone has any ideas, they're welcome. I'd like to create my own soundtrack as if my book were a movie, from there I can write my scenes.

I love soundtracks! 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory OST' is so entertaining for me, some songs even give me the inspiration for writing. Whereas 'District 9 OST' gives me the perfect mood, when I think of certain events considering my story, and so does 'Inception OST'!

Oh yeah. I love film scores! But I tend towards dark, atmospheric scores rather than big, epic scores. Pretty much anything by Paul Haslinger (Underworld franchise) and Charlie Clouser (Saw franchise). I'm not a huge Hans Zimmer fan, but I adore the Inception score. And the Harry Potter film scores - particularly the later ones by Nicholas Hooper and Alexandre Desplat - are incredible.

I'm writing a vampire novel this year, so I'll be listening to a lot from Underworld and other various horror films. And possibly some video game soundtracks (think Resident Evil) if I can find them.

Soundtracks are my favourite things. Ever. seriously, I love them. This is my first year doing NaNo, but some of my favourites range from tv shows (even some I no longer watch!) to films, with a smattering of video games. Depending on what specifically I'm aiming for, one of my favourite composers is Bear McCreary (he did the music for Battlestar Galactica which I haven't seen in ages). Dario Marianelli's Atonement and Pride & Prejudice soundtrack is also about eighty shades of amazing.

Another one that is heavily dependent on what I'm writing is Jesper Kyd's Assassin's Creed soundtracks, although I must admit I don't play the games. Doctor Who also shows up, but I find that unfortunately my favourite pieces of Murray Gold's have me focusing more on the theme (“I Am The Doctor” and “The Face of Boe” are especially notable examples), so he doesn't make much of an appearance on my instrumental playlists.

Also, while not actually technically soundtracks, certain pieces of classical music (mostly pieces that aren't overly familiar to me to the point where I focus more on the music than on the writing) can be very effective for the same purpose. (A really great example, though, of classical music meeting soundtracks can be found in Clint Mansell's reworking of Tchaikovsky for Black Swan. Also a fantastic composer!)

Now, of course, I'm babbling, but I just happened across this thread and I love music (especially soundtrack music) way too much not to speak up.