8. Dusty Springfield, ‘Son Of A Preacher Man’
Pulp Fiction (1994)

The Moment:

Travolta's cool cat hitman Vincent Vega slides up to the boss' house to take his wife out for the evening, preening and nervous as hell. Thurman's Mia - unseen to this point - let's him in with a husky hello over the intercom and puts on Dusty, and we know he's in for a hell of an evening...

Tarantino Says:

“That section of the story where he goes over to her house, and she’s getting ready, and he’s got to take her out – I wrote that maybe five or six years before I wrote Pulp Fiction.

I just had this idea in my head for a story like that. And it was always scored to Son Of A Preacher Man – that’s how it was playing, and that was the beat of the music as he walked into the room. So that was just something that was always in my mind.”

7. Bobby Womack, ‘Across 110th Street’
Jackie Brown (1997)

The Moment:

Fantastically funky, understatedly cool – the jangling bass and guitars of Womack’s classic (from the 1972 blaxpoitation flick of the same name) strike up over the Miramax logo before a soulful cry eases us into the film’s first, long tracking shot of heroine Jackie, picking up momentum with the song as she struts through a airport on her way to do business.

Tarantino Says:

“More or less the way my method works is you have got to find the opening credit sequence first. That starts it off from me.

I find the personality of the piece through the music that is going to be in it. It is the rhythm of the film. Once I know I want to do something, then it is a simple matter of me diving into my record collection and finding the songs that give me the rhythm of my movie.”

Next: Down In Mexico, Little Green Bag