Frances Ha (soundtrack)

Frances Ha's soundtrack consisted of compositions from Georges Delerue,^[1] Jean Constantin and Antoine Duhamel, who wrote music for films produced in the French New Wave.^[2][3] It also featured popular music, such as "Modern Love" by David Bowie, "Blue Sway" by Paul McCartney, "Every 1's a Winner" by Hot Chocolate amongst several others. "Modern Love" is featured in a sequence where Frances runs through the streets—the sequence is inspired by the similar scene from Mauvais Sang (1986) directed by Leos Carax.^[4] This song was also featured in the film's first promotional trailer.^[5] According to Baumbach, the structure and rhythm of the script essentially led him to provide the scope for the musical moments, where the film had little moments and then a sequence will play out after the end of it. He found the music to be "strong, grand, romantic and joyous".^[6]

Frances Ha's soundtrack was critically acclaimed. El Hunt of Evening Standard attributed that "there's a hell of a lot of great music crammed into this black and white indie comedy".^[7] Oliver Lyletton of IndieWire called the soundtrack to be "amazing", complementing Baumbach's use of music.^[8]

The use of the songs "Every 1's a Winner" and "Modern Love", led it to be listed in the best musical moments of 2013, according to The Hollywood Reporter and Stereogum.^[9][10] Paste included the film's soundtrack as "one of the best film soundtracks of 2013".^[11] MovieWeb and /Film and listed Frances Ha as one among the best film soundtracks of the 2010s.^[12][13] Pitchfork ranked the soundtrack at number 29 on the 50 greatest film soundtracks of all time.^[14]