Paris, Texas: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Ry Cooder has done some of the best soundtracks in the last 20 years or  so (I wouldn't live withoutThe Long Ridersor the two-discMusic By  Ry Coodercompilation, either)--most of them superior to the movies.  (Sorry  about that, Walter Hill--but it's true.)  His lonesome, steel-guitar music for  Wim Wenders'Paris, Texasis one of those cases where the movie and its  music are equally great.  I can't imagine one without the other.  Every time I  hear Cooder's opening theme, I see those wide western spaces and Travis (Harry  Dean Stanton) wandering through them; and every time I see a still from the  movie, I can hear Cooder's music playing in my head.--Jim Emerson