Whether you’re a big fan of movies and award ceremonies or not, the Oscars always generate a lot of controversy, either for the nominations, the winners, the speeches, or even just the jokes!

One thing that is never controversial, however, is the music that is either written for, or used in, movies, and over the years there have been original scores by composers such as Howard Shore and John Williams that will sit, come the future, among the classical compositions of foregone generations.

But apart from original scores, popular music also complements the themes and settings of many movies with chart hitting songs, some of which become so iconic that they immediately conjure up scenes from the movie when you hear them: like Nilsson’s “everbody’s talkin’ at me” and a young John Voight in cowboy hat and tasseled leather jacket, shivering in the cold of a New York City street; or the opening strains of Andy Williams’ “speak softly love” counterpointing the brutal tragedy of the epic Godfather series.

So today Hong Kong Beat celebrates the Oscars by taking popular tracks from Best Motion Picture winners across almost 10 decades that were, or became, chart hits in their own right – and surprisingly only 19 winners have a place in this collection, though there are some movies, like Forrest Gump, that have soundtracks almost like a greatest hits collection.

See if you can spot the movies from the song, and which tune appeared in two winners 🙂