The languid piano of In Bruges, the western-flavored guitar of Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, the fairy-tale harp and flute of The Banshees of Inisherin. When you think back on a Martin McDonagh film, the music still playing in your head is almost always Carter Burwell's. The soundtrack for the pair's new film, Wild Horse Nine, will be released digitally by Hollywood Records on Friday, November 6 — the same day the film opens in US and UK theaters.

According to Film Music Reporter, Burwell's involvement was reported back in March. Album details arrived on November 4, but no track list has been published yet. So this piece isn't about how many tracks are on the album — it's about what this partnership is likely to sound like this time.

Easter Island on the Eve of the Chilean Coup

The story is set just before the 1973 coup in Chile. Two CIA officers are sent from Santiago to Easter Island (Rapa Nui): veteran Chris and his protégé Lee. Chris is living with terminal cancer, and his growing bond with two rebellious college students they meet on the island complicates the trip.

The cast includes John Malkovich, Sam Rockwell, Steve Buscemi, Tom Waits, Mariana Di Girolamo, Ailín Salas and Parker Posey. Filming began on Rapa Nui in March 2025 and wrapped in Santiago in April. The film premiered in competition at the Venice International Film Festival on September 3, where Malkovich won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor. It runs 118 minutes, is a UK–US–Chile production, and is distributed by Searchlight Pictures.

Rockwell appeared in Three Billboards and Seven Psychopaths, and Waits was also in Seven Psychopaths. In other words, McDonagh's regulars have gathered on a remote island in the South Pacific — and Burwell joins them for the fifth time.

Burwell Doesn't Score the Jokes

A quick recap: Burwell has scored every feature McDonagh has directed — In Bruges (2008), Seven Psychopaths (2012), Three Billboards (2017) and The Banshees of Inisherin (2022). The last two earned him Academy Award nominations for Best Original Score.

What makes McDonagh's films so distinctive is that violence and jokes share the same frame. A conventional score would play the comic scenes light and the tragic ones heavy. Burwell doesn't. His music sounds faintly sad even when a scene is funny, and oddly tender even when it's cruel. Because the music never explains what you're supposed to feel, the audience is left hanging: am I allowed to laugh? I'd argue that at least half of that famous McDonagh discomfort comes from this refusal to explain.

On Banshees, Burwell set an Irish island not to Celtic folk but to fantasy-leaning colors that feel like a storybook or a Disney film. He didn't "explain" the island with local color. By that logic, there's no guarantee he'll simply reach for exotic Pacific sounds for Easter Island this time either.

What to Listen For: An Island, the Cold War, a Dying Man

With no track list out yet, what follows is speculation. Three things I'll be listening for:

  • How the island sounds: Another "island film" after Banshees, now in the South Pacific in the 1970s. Will he borrow the sounds of the place, or bring in a different world entirely?
  • Cold War spy-film conventions: The leads are CIA officers. Will Burwell quote the jazz and suspense idioms of '60s and '70s spy films with a straight face, or tilt them just enough to be funny?
  • A theme for a man facing death: Chris, terminally ill, confronts what he has done. Will a quiet theme return at the end as a kind of grace, the way it does in the final stretch of Three Billboards?

Since the album drops on opening day, you can choose to listen before seeing the film, or afterward to check your answers. Personally, with McDonagh, I'm firmly in the "watch first" camp. That scene where you weren't sure whether to laugh — which way was the music leaning? You'll want to play the album again just to find out.