10 Movies With Unexpectedly Brilliant Soundtracks

City Of Angels does pretty much whatever it can to provoke an emotional response from its audience. Meg Ryan's a heart surgeon; Nicolas Cage is a literal angel... so, already the protagonists couldn't be more perfect. But then Ryan gets all sad when one of her patients dies. Cage gets sad 'cause Ryan's sad. And then, when they fall in love, they find out they might not even be able to be together, because angel-law. You crying yet?

But, for such an emotionally manipulative film, the soundtrack is surprisingly subtle and sincere. U2's "If God Will Send His Angels" is nowhere near as overblown as its title would have you think and Peter Gabriel's "I Grieve" is just pure ethereal atmosphere.

The producer of the film got very lucky with the release date, with two of the biggest acts in contemporary music (U2 and Sarah McLachlan) releasing songs with the word "angel" in the title" a year before the movie's release date. But there are also some surprisingly vintage numbers and even more surprising, they're all blues songs, from the likes of John Lee Hooker and Eric Clapton.

The Goo Goo Dolls' crossover hit "Iris" ended up receiving the most exposure. But few songs here are as immediately striking. Several are over seven minutes long, making the soundtrack surprisingly audacious.