10 Best Nostalgic Mixtape Movie Soundtracks

Choice cuts: Echo & The Bunnymen - "The Killing Moon", Tears For Fears - "Head Over Heels", Joy Division - "Love Will Tear Us Apart"

A complete flop stateside (where a release just a month after 9/11 did no good for a movie whose whole plot revolved around a crashed jet engine), Donnie Darko first found the audience that would ensure its enduring cult classic status in the UK. Which makes sense because it's also the Brits that gave the movie its ethereal 80s atmosphere in the form of some of the best of our post-punk and new wave sounds.

Wunderkind director Richard Kelly never quite managed to recapture the lightning in a bottle of his debut feature (not even in his inferior director's cut, which switches around some of the iconic soundtrack cues), but there are sequences here which are a testament to his talent, matching perfectly the visuals of long, dreamlike takes with the psychedelic and synth-laden indie music of the movie's 80s setting.

From the Lynchian opening moments of Donnie waking by the roadside and cycling through pine trees and into 80s suburbia, backed by Echo & The Bunnymen's richly atmospheric, string-heavy The Killing Moon, you know just the kind of time, place and feel that the movie is going for.

And, after all, what other weird 80s-set cult sci-fi has a period soundtrack so iconic that it could spawn a UK Christmas number one? The cover of Tears For Fears's 1982 hit Mad World from the movie's score composer Michael Andrews and frequent collaborator vocalist Gary Jules did just that, though.