10 Underrated John Williams Tracks

Williams' final collaboration with Stone is also, coincidentally or otherwise, Stone's last great movie. Nixon is a long (over three hours, in fact) descent into the dark heart of America's most infamous president (played with sweating, paranoid energy by Anthony Hopkins).

The film is structured like a classic Hollywood epic, with Nixon's ascension to the White House coming at what would have been Intermission in the old days. Nixon rides a wave of fear and violence into the Oval Office and his speech to the 1968 Republican Convention in Miami is accompanied by superimposed images of riots and chaos.

Williams' track, The Turbulent Years, is a dizzying piece that pulsates with threatening horns and ominous drums. In the moments where it turns more soaring, it shows how Nixon thought he was the one to lead the country out of the darkness. Essentially, it's a piece where a heroic theme and a villainous theme fight for dominance, much like Nixon battling his inner demons.

It's clear why Williams is such an important collaborator for the directors he works with. He understands their films as much as they do and composes music to communicate that understanding to an audience.