Editor’s Note: The Albumism staff has selected what we believe to be the 100 Greatest Soundtracks of All Time, representing a varied cross-section of films and musical genres. Click “Next Soundtrack” below to explore each soundtrack in the list or for easier navigation, view the full introduction & soundtrack index here.

When Harry Met Sally
Columbia (1989)
Selected by Justin Chadwick

One of the greatest love stories ever committed to celluloid, and one of the greatest New York City movies of all time, When Harry Met Sally demanded a soundtrack that could convincingly convey the power of romance and the grandeur of the greatest city in the world. And in the Harry Connick Jr. orchestrated collection of standards by the Gershwin Brothers, Rodgers and Hart, Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman, among other songwriting icons, the film got precisely the album it deserved. Meanwhile, in the charismatic Connick Jr., a star was born.

No song better encapsulates the film’s premise than his take on the Rodgers and Hart classic “I Could Write a Book,” in which he croons in the second verse, “And the simple secret of the plot / Is just to tell them that I love you a lot / Then the world discovers as my book ends / How to make two lovers of friends.”

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LISTEN & WATCH:

Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s Debut Album ‘Read My Lips’ Turns 25 | Album Anniversary

With her debut solo affair, Ellis-Bextor made the dancefloor feel elegant and faintly surreal, a place where heartbreak could wear lipstick and emotional catastrophe could arrive with a four-on-the-floor beat.

Paul Simon’s ‘Graceland’ Turns 40 | Album Anniversary

Four decades later, ‘Graceland’ remains true to what it was from the start—a beautiful, tangled, genuinely collaborative album that changed what pop music could sound like.

The Rolling Stones’ ‘Tattoo You’ Turns 45 | Album Anniversary

When listening to ‘Tattoo You,’ you would never know that it is this Frankenstein's monster of an album that was pieced together with songs that came from their most creatively fertile period.