The 40 best film soundtracks 1. Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003)

The Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA worked with director Quentin Tarantino on the collection of music that would accompany Uma Thurman’s character The Bride on her bloody quest for revenge. What is particularly brilliant is the alternation between non-diegetic sound and the silence that precedes and lasts during some of the most tense action sequences. When it comes to the most crucial battle between O-Ren Ishii and The Bride at the end of the film, they first chose the disco flamenco intro from Santa Esmeralda's Latin arrangement of “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood”. At the gory conclusion, where O-Ren falls, RZA and Tarantino used Meiko Kaji’s “The Flower of Carnage”. The song was first used in the 1973 martial arts film Lady Snowblood, in which Kaji starred. She sings: “I’m a woman who walks at the brink of life and death/ Who emptied my tears many moons ago” and then: “I’ve immersed my body in the river of vengeance.” It's as though the song was written with The Bride in mind.

Miramax