A Quiet Place Soundtrack: Composers and Songs by Film

The A Quiet Place soundtrack has two composers across three films: Marco Beltrami scored A Quiet Place (2018) and A Quiet Place Part II, and Alexis Grapsas scored the spin-off A Quiet Place: Day One. Each film has its own score album, and nothing in the series pairs one composer with more than one label.

Marco Beltrami scored both main saga films, and John Krasinski directed both. A Quiet Place (2018) arrived in US theaters on April 6, 2018, and its score album, "A Quiet Place", came out the same day on Milan with 16 tracks. The premise gives a composer an unusual brief: sightless creatures hunt by sound, so the Abbott family lives in silence on an isolated New York farm and speaks in American Sign Language. Music in a film like that has to earn its place, and that is a large part of why the score is worth a close listen.

A Quiet Place Part II (2021) brought Beltrami back. Its album, "A Quiet Place: Part 2", was released on May 25, 2021 by La-La Land Records, three days before the film reached US theaters on May 28, and it runs to 15 tracks. The sequel opens on the first day of the invasion at a small town baseball game, then follows Evelyn, Regan, Marcus and the newborn baby into the wider world, which makes it the more traveled of the two films. One composer across both keeps the sound of the Abbotts consistent while the settings widen.

Alexis Grapsas scored A Quiet Place: Day One (2024), the prequel directed by Michael Sarnoski. The album, "A Quiet Place: Day One (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)", was released on Milan on June 28, 2024, the same day as the US release, and it is the longest in the series at 25 tracks. The story drops Sam, a terminally ill cancer patient, into Manhattan on the day the creatures arrive, which is a very different acoustic world from the Abbott farm. A fresh composer suits that change, and it lines up with the change of director from Krasinski to Sarnoski.

For the actors who appear alongside these scores, see the A Quiet Place cast page.

The signature songs of the A Quiet Place films are "Harvest Moon" by Neil Young in A Quiet Place (2018), "Beyond the Sea" by Bobby Darin in A Quiet Place Part II, and "Feeling Good" by Nina Simone in A Quiet Place: Day One. Each film has one, and each is heard because a character finds a way to make it audible.

Why would a series about silence bother with songs at all? It could be argued that the scarcity is the point: with so little sound allowed, a single recorded song lands harder than it would in an ordinary thriller. The three titles below each arrive through a device or a decision, never as background music.

"Harvest Moon" in A Quiet Place (2018). Directed by John Krasinski, the first film uses Neil Young's song for a quiet moment at home. Lee and Evelyn slow dance while sharing a pair of earbuds, and the audience hears the song at the moment Lee puts one earbud in his ear. The song is a private moment between two parents, which is how the film lets the audience in on it.

"Beyond the Sea" in A Quiet Place Part II. Krasinski's sequel gives Bobby Darin's song a very different job. A radio in the abandoned factory where Emmett has camped plays it on a loop. The kids pick it up through the static and take it as a sign of survivors on an island, so the song works as a plot signal as much as a piece of music.

"Feeling Good" in A Quiet Place: Day One. Michael Sarnoski's prequel saves Nina Simone's song for its closing stretch, which makes this passage a spoiler. Sam walks down a deserted street with headphones on, accepts her fate and smiles. She then unplugs the headphones so the music plays aloud, and a creature appears behind her. The score for the film is by Alexis Grapsas, and the song sits alongside his original music.

1. "Feeling Good": in my opinion the boldest use of a song in the series, because Sam chooses to let the music play out loud and the choice carries the scene.
2. "Harvest Moon": perhaps the gentlest, since a shared pair of earbuds says everything about the Abbotts without a word of dialogue.
3. "Beyond the Sea": the cleverest, because a looping radio turns a pop standard into a clue about where the survivors might be.

If you are watching the saga for the first time, the A Quiet Place movies in order guide sets out both release and chronological order, so you hear each song in the right place.