Two scores of film composer Alex North's have had a strong influence on me: Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus (1960) and Joseph Mankiewicz's Cleopatra (1963).

Watch the battle sequence in Spartacus and the way North synchronises percussion attacks with edits in the film. A director would have been forgiven for thinking such an approach might come across as crude, but in North's hands, it has a compelling and totally opposit effect. Musically, it is devastating.

In Cleopatra, cleverly, North invents and uses a style of music for the film that is simultaneously ancient Roman and avant-garde 60s. Experience for example the cue for Cleopatra's Entry into Rome. The music in this extended sequence is powerful and utterly original.

Other scores to discover are The Bad Seed (1955) and The Agony & the Ecstasy (1965).