Morricone escreveu algumas das trilhas sonoras mais conhecidas dos western spaghetti do cineasta Sergio Leone: Per un pugno di dollari (br: Por um Punhado de Dólares), de 1964, Per qualche dollaro in più (br: Por Uns Dólares a Mais), de 1965, Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo (br: Três Homens em Conflito), de 1966, e Once Upon a Time in the West (br: Era uma Vez no Oeste), de 1968. Suas composições mais recentes incluem as bandas sonoras de Once Upon a Time in America (br: Era uma vez na América), de 1984, The Mission (br/pt: A Missão), de 1986, The Untouchables (br/pt: Os Intocáveis), de 1987, Nuovo cinema Paradiso (br: Cinema Paradiso), de 1988, Lolita, de 1997, Malèna, de 2000, e Inglorious Basterds (br: Bastardos Inglórios), de 2009.
He is considered one of the most prolific and influential film composers of his era.[1][2] Morricone has composed and arranged scores for more than 500 film and TV productions.[3] He is well-known for his long-term collaborations with international acclaimed directors such as Sergio Leone, Brian De Palma, Barry Levinson, and Giuseppe Tornatore.
He wrote the characteristic film scores of Leone's Spaghetti Westerns A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) and Once Upon a Time in the West (1968). In the 80s, Morricone composed the scores for John Carpenter's horror movie The Thing (1982), Leone's Once Upon a Time in America (1984), Roland Joffé's The Mission (1986), Brian De Palma's The Untouchables (1987) and Giuseppe Tornatore's Cinema Paradiso (1988). His more recent compositions include the scores for Oliver Stone's U Turn (1997), Tornatore's The Legend of 1900 (1998) and Malèna (2000), De Palma's Mission to Mars (2000), Lajos Koltai's Fateless (2005), and Tornatore's Baaria - La porta del vento (2009).
Morricone has won two Grammy Awards, two Golden Globes, five Anthony Asquith Awards for Film Music by BAFTA in 1979–1992 and the Polar Music Prize in 2010. He has been nominated for five Academy Awards for Best Music, Original Score during 1979–2001. He received the Academy Honorary Award in 2007 "for his magnificent and multifaceted contributions to the art of film music".