Francis Ford Coppola‘s Apocalypse Now (1979) uses Richard Wagner‘s “Ride of the Valkyries” to terrifying effect, depicting the brutality and horror of impersonal aerial warfare in the Vietnam War.

While Godfather III is definitely the weakest movie in the eponymous trilogy, partly due to a miscasting of Mary Corleone, I have nothing but praise for the wonderful, almost inspirational use of Cavalleria Rusticana in the finale of the movie.

The Talented Mr. Ripley x Eugene Onegin.

Wagner is used as incidental music or background to probably more films than any other operatic composer.

Some of you may remember the 1987 thriller Someone to Watch Over Me.

Interrupted Melody was the wonderful biographical film about the singer Marjorie Lawrence. I thought it was a wonderful blending of opera with a 1950s Movie.

Tristan transcriptions for violin, piano, and orchestra.

Jeanette MacDonald singing in her movies got the ball rolling for my lifelong interest in opera.

Greta Garbo as diva Rita Cavallini with an Italo-Swedish accent.

I love the use of the Liebestod at the end of Romeo + Juliet. It’s such a lush, romantic way to end the movie. The most Baz Lurhmann thing ever.

Impossible to pick any one film clip, but it’s hard to imagine a more evocative use of operatic music than Lars von Trier‘s Melancholia.

I think Babette’s Feast is a more or less perfect film and has been my favorite since the first time I saw it.