Ladyhawke is a 1985 film starring Matthew Broderick, Rutger Hauer and Michelle Pfeiffer, directed by Richard Donner. The film is set in medieval Europe. Hauer (in one of his rare classic hero roles) plays castle-guard captain Etienne Navarre to Pfeiffer's Isabeau d'Anjou who fall in love, but are torn apart by means of a curse cast upon them by a corrupt Christian bishop who desires Isabeau for himself. By day Navarre is a human but by night he is a wolf. On the other hand, Isabeau is human by night but hawk by day (hence the name of the movie). Broderick plays Philippe Gaston, a plucky young thief turned dungeon escapee, who aids the lovers in a dangerous quest to break the supernatural bonds set upon them by the curse.

The music of the film was composed by Andrew Powell , a composer and orchestrator most well known for his work with Alan Parsons and Eric Woolfson for the Alan Parsons Project. Donner stated in the soundtrack's liner notes that he had been location-scouting with a steady soundtrack of the Projects' albums, and so he married music style to pictures in his mind before the film was even begun. Powell wrote the score and approached Parsons to produce the music, thus making it appear as if it was an instrumental album of the band.