Director Gus Van Sant, who first became acquainted with Smith's work several years ago, used several of the singer's recordings as background for the underdog drama "Good Will Hunting". While "Miss Misery", a haunting, low-key ballad about making errors and seeking redemption, was composed for the film, five other songs written and sung by Smith were incorporated into the final cut. Several critics favorably compared Smith's music to that of Simon & Garfunkel's songs used in 1967's "The Graduate". But unlike that pop duo, Smith received the recognition of the Academy.

Pushing his profile higher, he signed a recording contract with DreamWorks which released his album "XO" in the summer of 1998, named one of the year's top 20 albums by Spin magazine. The following year, his cover of the Beatles' "Because" was included on the soundtrack to the Oscar-winning film "American Beauty." His latest album, "Figure 8," was issued in 2000; partly recorded at London's Abbey Road studios, it was reminiscent of The Beatles and The Beach Boys' most serious works. Smith had begun writing songs for his sixth solo release, "From a Basement on the Hill," a planned double album but in late 2003 the musician, who had waged a battle with drugs and alcohol which he had once seemed to win, had apparently fallen into the kind of dark, melancoly depression that frequently characterized his music and commited suicide with a single, self-inflicted stab wound to the chest.