The film, originally released in 1929, was silent and accompanied in theaters with live music. It has since been released a number of times with different soundtracks:
- 1983 – A new composition[25] was performed by Un Drame Musical Instantané, based on Vertov's writings, among which was his Ear Laboratory. Electronic sounds, ambiences, voices were mixed to the 15-piece orchestra. An LP was issued in 1984 on Grrr Records.[26]
- 1993 – French composer Pierre Henry, known as a pioneer of musique concrète, created a soundtrack for the film.[27]
- 1995 – A new composition was performed by the Alloy Orchestra of Cambridge, Massachusetts, based on notes left by Vertov.[28] It incorporates sound effects such as sirens, babies crying, crowd noise, etc. Readily available on several different DVD versions.[29]
- 1996 – Norwegian composer Geir Jenssen (aka Biosphere) was commissioned by the Tromsø International Film Festival to write a new soundtrack for the movie, using the director's written instructions for the original accompanying piano player. Jenssen wrote half of the soundtrack, turning the other half to Per Martinsen (aka Mental Overdrive). It was used for the Norwegian version Mannen med filmkameraet at the 1996 TIFF.[30] This version of the film has not been re-released elsewhere, but the soundtrack was released separately with Jenssen's contributions on Substrata 2 in 2001 and Martinsen's on an album of the same name in 2012.[31]
- 1999 – In the Nursery band made a version,[32] for the Bradford International Film Festival. Currently available on some DVD versions, often paired with the Alloy Orchestra score as an alternate soundtrack.
- 2001 – Steve Jansen and Claudio Chianura recorded a live soundtrack for a showing of the film at the Palazzina Liberty, in Milan on 11 December 1999. This was subsequently released on CD as the album Kinoapparatom in 2001.
- 2002 – A version was released with a soundtrack composed by Jason Swinscoe and performed by the British jazz and electronic outfit The Cinematic Orchestra (see Man with a Movie Camera (The Cinematic Orchestra album)). Originally made for the Porto 2000 Film Festival. It was also released on DVD in limited numbers by Ninja Tune.
- 2002 – A score for the film by Michael Nyman was premiered performed by the Michael Nyman Band on 17 May 2002 at London's Royal Festival Hall. A British Film Institute DVD of the film was released with Nyman's score. This score is readily available on several different DVD editions. It has not been issued on CD, but some of the score is reworked from material Nyman wrote for the Sega Saturn video game Enemy Zero, which had a limited CD release, and Nyman performs a brief excerpt "Odessa Beach" on his album The Piano Sings.
- 2003 June – American multi-theremin ensemble The Lothars performed a semi-improvised soundtrack accompanying a screening of the film at the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline, Massachusetts. They repeated their performance three years later, in December 2006 at the Galapagos Art Space in Brooklyn, New York.
- 2006 Absolut Medien, Berlin, released a DVD with the 3 soundtracks from Michael Nyman, In the nursery, and a new soundtrack from Werner Cee.
- November 2007 – France based group Art Zoyd presented a scenic version of the film with an additional video by artist Cecile Babiole. A studio recording of the soundtrack was released on CD in 2012.[33]
- 2008 – Norwegian electronic jazz trio Halt the Flux performed their interpretation of the soundtrack[34] at the Bergen International Film Festival.
- October 2008 – London based Cinematic Orchestra undertook a show featuring a screening of Vertov's film, which preceded the re-issue of the Man With A Movie Camera DVD, in November.
- 30 November 2008 – American Tricks of the Light Orchestra accompanied a screening of the film on Sunday at Brainwash Cafe in San Francisco.
- July 2009; Mexican composer Alex Otaola performed a new soundtrack live at Mexico's National Cinematheque, aided by the "Ensamble de Cámara/Acción".
- 2009 – The American Voxare String Quartet performed music by Soviet Modernist composers to accompany a screening of the film.
- August 2010 – Irish instrumental post-rock band 3epkano accompanied a screening of the film with an original live soundtrack in Fitzwilliam Square in Dublin[35]
- July 2010 – Ukrainian guitarist and composer Vitaliy Tkachuk performed his own soundtrack for the film, with his quartet, at a Ukrainian silent cinema festival "Mute Nights" in Odesa, the city where this movie was made.[36]
- 20 May 2011: The French pianist Yann Le Long, the violoncellist Philippe Cusson and the percussionist Stéphane Grimalt performed, for the first time, the soundtrack written by Le Long for the film at the Centre Culturel du Vieux Couvent, Muzillac, France.
- March 2014: Sarodist, beat maker, and multi-instrumentalist composer James Whetzel performed live a 51-piece new all-original soundtrack to Man with a Movie Camera at SIFF Cinema Uptown in Seattle, WA, USA. Soundtrack features sarod, electric sarod, analog synthesizers, accordion, mandolin, bass, guitar, dhol, dholak, darbouka, bendir, rumba box, electronic drums, and 41 other pieces of percussion. Whetzel successfully completed a Kickstarter project for the soundtrack in July.
- 2014 – Spanish band Caspervek Trio premiered a new soundtrack for the film at La Galería Jazz Club, Vigo, with further performances in Gijón, Ourense and Sigulda (Latvia).[37]
- September 2014: Swedish indie rock band bob hund premiered a new soundtrack at Cinemateket in Stockholm, with subsequent performances in Helsinki, Luleå, Gothenburg and Malmö.[38]
- 2016 – Donald Sosin, John Davis and others performed their collaborative score at the Museum of the Moving Image, Astoria, New York.[39]
- 2022 – SilentFilmDJ D'dread performed a live DJ Set to a AI colored version of the film for at.tension Festival, Lärz, Germany.[40] The film with the DJ Soundtrack is released via YouTube[41]
- 2022 - Austin based indie chamber music group Montopolis is currently touring performing a new live score to accompany the film.[42]
- 2024 - Los Angeles composer, Alexander Tovar, conducted a sold out performance at the Cats Crawl in East Hollywood with the Orchid Quartet Collective with Michael Sobie scored for piano quintet. [43]
