The sweeping lyricism of this late Romantic composer's symphonic works and songs was influenced by both European and American folk music, including African-American and Native American songs in the later works. Like most compositions which have been quoted in film soundtracks, there is one work that tends to be used the most; in this case, that piece is the well-known theme set to words in the song "Going Home," from Dvorák's Ninth Symphony, From the New World.
Based on a true story, the film Paradise Road (1997) depicts the Japanese attack on Singapore in 1942. A boat carrying mostly European women and children escapees is strafed by Japanese airplanes and they are forced to abandon the ship. They swim ashore at different places on the island of Sumatra and are eventually rounded up by brutal Japanese soldiers and placed in a prison camp. The women and the few children survive as best they can, even managing to form a vocal ensemble that sings orchestral pieces, including a beautiful wordless arrangement of the "Going Home" theme from Dvorák's Ninth, as well as "Finlandia" by Sibelius, Chopin's piano Prelude in C Minor, Bolero by Maurice Ravel, as well as various folk ballads. The music in the movie is based on the actual scores of 30 of the arrangements which survived the war.
In the action thriller Clear and Present Danger (1994), CIA agent Jack Ryan (Harrison Ford) is sent to Bogota, Columbia, initially to investigate the murder of one of the U.S. President's friends, a business man with secret ties to the drug cartels. When Dan Murray, Jack's friend and a government agent, and other officials are killed in a vicious street battle, their bodies are sent home with full honors. A moving arrangement for brass choir of the "Going Home" theme from Dvorák's Ninth Symphony accompanies the ceremonies.
This same theme also appears in the surreal Underground (1995) (aka Once Upon a Time There Was a Country), about secret weapons manufacturing; Sydney Pollack's comedy Sabrina (1995); Escalier C (Staircase C, 1985); Ken Russell's intense and surreal Crimes of Passion (1984); Harry Munter (1969); the travelogue Beautiful Banff and Lake Louise (1946); and Night Descends on Treasure Island (1940) which shows the Golden Gate International Exposition at nighttime.
Dvorák's opera Rusalka, also known as The Water Nymph, has received several television and film realizations, including one for American TV in 1986, three in Australian films of 1977, 1963, and in 1910; the opera is also excerpted in the German film Goldflocken (Flakes of Gold, 1976).
The composer's lighthearted Humoresque is played on the early electronic instrument called the theremin in the wonderful biopic Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey (1993) and also provides part of the score for Humoresque (1946), a romance-drama with Joan Crawford and John Garfield.
Parts of Dvorák's Symphony No. 7 were used for the 12-episode Japanese television series Sore ga kotae da! (1997) and his Symphony No. 8 is excerpted in the documentary on the Valle d'Aran, Doscientos lagos (1975).
In the seven-minute Danish film portrait Ellen Birgithe Nielsen spiller (1943), the subject herself sings the composer's famous "Songs My Mother Taught Me, Op. 55/4," a warm sentimental tune, often sung in four-part harmony by vocal ensembles. The piece was first published in America in 1880 shortly before the composer visited the States.
Dvorák's songs appear in the dramatic film Barbora Hlavsová (1943) ("Kdyz mne stará matka"), and Kouzelny' dum (The Magic House, 1939) ("Milostná písen").