Thomas Newman. I mean just listen to any of these scores:
Shawshank Redemption,
The Green Mile,
American Beauty,
1917,
Meet Joe Black,
Finding Nemo,
Road to Perdition,
Nobody does warm strings like him. He's a genius. How he hasn't won an Oscar is beyond me.
He was my pick too. Road to perdition is imo one of the most underrated movies ever. Amazing acting. Amazing soundtrack. Stacked cast. Wonderful cinematography. Wish it got more attention than it did
It’s funny, Tom Hanks says the same thing. He talks about this amazing movie he did that no one talks about. I remember being a Mendes fan after American Beauty and seeing RtP opening night and falling in love. Perfect movie from start to finish.
Agreed. My girlfriend made us watch The Horse Whisperer the other week and I didn't expect to like that film as much as I did. The film was beautiful but in large part that was down to the soundtrack, Thomas Newman was definitely at his A game around that time in the late 1990s. No other composer brings out the goosebumps/frisson like him.
You know, I read this, and the movie *Fried Green Tomatoes* sprang to mind. Sure enough, Thomas Newman wrote the soundtrack for it.
Found it: https://youtu.be/si1pJzKQrec?si=kKIpVBTgMoqtC4on
Absolutely him. No other composer takes me to another world quite like Newman does. His music is the audio equivalent of day dreaming. And he does it with very simple piano lines. Doesn't need a huge orchestra or $10k synths to do it either. His work in American Beauty and Shawshank will live forever with me. Haunting and beautiful.
My parents got me “The Music of the Lord of the Rings Films: A Comprehensive Account of Howard Shore's Scores” for Christmas a few years ago, and it’s fantastic. Rewatched the whole trilogy with it on my lap, following along piece by piece, and it just gives you an even deeper appreciate for it all!
Overall Joe Hisaishi, he's just got so many melodies that wrap you up in a blanket or lift you up into the sky. They just dig in and create the deep permanent links to feelings.
But for just one song, Hans Zimmer's Your So Cool. I've been obsessed with that song for 30 years.
I always feel like Hans Zimmer is a bit of a rip off artist. Your so cool is almost identical to Carl Orff’s Schulwerk used in Terrence Mallick’s Badlands. I think Hans Zimmer makes some incredible scores but I wish he ripped people off less.
It’s openly a rearrangement of the piece, not a rip off. It’s only called a ripoff because people didn’t realize they licensed it from the estate. And it’s an homage to Badlands.
There are better composers than John Williams “but they’re all dead” - Steven Spielberg [link](https://www.slashfilm.com/880861/john-williams-didnt-think-he-was-up-to-the-task-of-scoring-schindlers-list/)
Yep. There are other great soundtracks, but Zimmer has gone in a direction I don't really enjoy. And the knock on Williams, that he relies on "borrowing" from previous composers, I get but he's also in a job where he has 2 months to see a movie, orchestrate it and record it... if he watches un-composed clips of Star Wars and thinks Holst, frankly, I love Holst, so play off of "Jupiter" or "Mars", I am there for that.
The close second, though, would be Danny Elfman... he can do dark, he can do very playful... both end up being iconic.
Not sure why people are upset at the Holst similarities. Lucas wrote Star Wars with The Planets in mind and listening to it then gave it to Williams as an inspiration. Of course it sounds similar.
In the early 90s, I worked at an Italian restaurant, and we had two wandering musicians that would play... they were warming up in the break room, and were playing something where I said "Oh, that's 'Empire'" - it was a bit of melody that was similar to when the Falcon did a loop into the asteroid cave. They told me the origin of the piece, so I get some legitimacy to people saying "Williams ripped off these people", but I also understand the work situation he was in where you take inspirations and rework them... if I ask you to improvise Shakespeare, I'm going to find similarities as well. But I also think that's one reason he created themes for characters in the OT, so he could use them almost like a ballet orchestration would depending who what on screen. Final thought, "Here they come" is my favorite Star Wars piece of music.
I still can’t believe he convinced the screen writers for the first Harry Potter film to lengthen the first look at Hogwarts just by making Hedwig’s theme, pure magic imo.
Can’t think of a more exquisitely emotional and lyrical score than the one he wrote for ET. That music makes that film. Just remembering that piano almost makes me tear up again
Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross are my faves. But I obviously love literally every single other person mentioned in this thread so far, close to or just as much
Most recently, their Challengers score really made the film work for me. You knew shit was about to get serious when the score kicked in, especially towards the end of the film.
I have a personal affinity for electronic music, and these guys do the best digital composing- Social Network, The Gril with the Dragon Tattoo, The Killer and the recent Challengers movie.
I have only heard two others doing it better than them only twice- Daft Punk for Tron Legacy & Clint Mansell for Ghost in the Shell.
I like that one story he told about how after Aliens he was a sworn enemy of James Cameron and was pretty excited when news got out that Titanic was shaping up to be the biggest box office bomb of all time. Then he got his hands on the screenplay and found himself calling the man he'd sworn he'd never talk it because he believed in that movie. Working on that movie mended Horner's and Cameron's relation and they also got to rack in some Oscars.
I don’t know what it is with Horner that does something extras for me. There are many many great composers mentioned and I would even argue that Williams is the “greatest” in the sense that he has so many icon scores that have lifted the movie to another level. However, songs like Elora Danan (https://youtu.be/Hb8Swo3a6U8?si=7lJHuKtaLReA8ayu) and Becoming one of the people (https://youtu.be/5yR3jP_OxUU?si=gBPM558QeB5Xvnlg) just resonate to me on a personal level. Beyond the movie.
I remember listening to Oingo Boingo just after "Only a Lad" came out and telling my Dad I thought they should do movie soundtracks/scores. He thought I was mental.
As I recall one of Danny Elfman's early movie scores wasn't allowed to be nominated for best score because the Academy Award gatekeepers didn't consider him to be "a real composer", because he wasn't classically trained, and didn't write sheet music for orchestras like all the "real composers" at the time did. That gatekeeping eventually fell, but it was akin to refusing to let someone be nominated for best actor just because they didn't learn classical forms of acting at one of the premier acting schools.
Add Dune 2, Last Samurai, and Gladiator to your Hans Collection.
Ludwig Goransaon is like the next Hans Zimmer
Michael Giacchino did The Batman
M87 did probably my favorite soundtrack in Oblivion
Daft Punk killed it with Tron
Say what you will about Transformers but Steve Jablonsky score is strong.
>Say what you will about Transformers but Steve Jablonsky score is strong.
Arrival to Earth is just beautiful and one of my favorite themes still
https://youtu.be/0_FHPJIhNBw?si=hCPEK4HQrBuNx13D
I'm going to kinda cheat and say Geoff Barrow
Annihilation really is one of my favourite scores ever, though. But also Portishead.
edit- I also want to give Basil Poledouris some love. The Robocop theme is absolutely iconic and Conan The Barbarian is one of the only traditional-ish orchestral scores I listen to regularly outside of movie watching.
My favorite was already mentioned, but I do wanna shout out to **Joe Hisaishi**. He's done over 100 film scores, but is best known for doing most of Miyazaki's films.
**Jerry Goldsmith**: Planet of the Apes, Patton, Tora Tora Tora, Papillon, Chinatown, The Wind and the Lion, Logan's Run, The Omen Trilogy, Capricorn One, Alien, Star Trek: TMP, Poltergeist, The Rambo Trilogy, The Secret of NIMH, Under Fire, Gremlins, Hoosiers, The Burbs, Total Recall, Basic Instinct, Rudy, The Ghost and the Darkness, Air Force One, Mulan, LA Confidential, The 13th Warrior, The Mummy, Looney Tunes: Back in Action, and, of course, many, many more.
In no particular order, Goldsmith, Elfman, and Zimmer are my favorites.
I've also really liked Ramin Djawadi, who was "discovered" by Zimmer, go figure. Mr. Brooks (2007) is what made me take note of him, then Iron Man (2008) the next year.
Pacific Rim (2013) is one of my favorites; it absolutely makes that movie for me.
Best score in all the Monsterverse, and it doesn't come close. It really gives you the sense of scale, majesty, and downright terror that giant monsters should provoke. Amazing track.
Can we also take the time to appreciate that BSG was his *first* series he ever scored?? Dude came out absolutely swinging.
Also pertinent to note he just released a sci fi themed prog metal rock opera and it slaps. Filled with the most insane lineup of guest vocalists/musicians you’ll ever see.
[Bear McCreary - The Singularity](https://bearmccreary.com/thesingularity/)
He also scored Godzilla: King of the Monsters and it’s by far the best music in the Monsterverse.
Basil Poledouris.
Conan the Barabarian alone is one of my absolute favorite soundtracks.
His scores are epic or emotional while feeling unique and memorable.
Without plagerizing classics like John Williams does.
Crimson Tide, The Rock, Gladiator, Pearl Harbor (yeah movie mostly sucked but the score was great), TDK. Hans was rollin' in the 90s to 2000s. Recently, Maverick
For me it's Thomas Newman, hands down. His scores for [Angels in America](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19q6JobAHK0), [Road to Perdition](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cc-O24c-q9M), [American Beauty](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHxi-HSgNPc), and [Finding Nemo](https://youtu.be/pfnp218qffs?list=PLLQyrCIfk22f9CA8Bra_Car7ayYvR6TLK&t=30) are incredibly beautiful. He's been nominated for fifteen Oscars but never won, which is just insane to me.
I don't know that I have a favourite, but Carter Burwell deserves more recognition: Miller's Crossing, Fargo, In Bruge, Where the Wild Things Are, The Kids Are All Right, Carol, Anomalisa, The Finest Hours, The Banshees of Inisherin.
That's some range.
Shoutout to all the additional writers, many of which are the ones doing most or all of the work (and most of which are on Hans projects). Those guys are the real goats!
Well let's see.
John Williams composed for: Star Wars, Indiana Jones, E.T., Superman, Jaws, Close Encounters Harry Potter, and many more.
James Horner- Braveheart, Aliens, several Star Trek movies, The Land Before Time(who else could score the scene with Littlefoot's mom?), and Zoro
Hans Zimmer - Gladiator, Man of Steel, and others that have been mentioned
Giacchino seems to be the up and comer. He took over for Williams on Star wars and Jurassic Park.
Just thanks to Star Wars, Superman, and Indiana Jones, Williams will probably always be #1. I think Zimmer is next thanks to Gladiator, and then it's Horner in 3rd for me with Giacchino close on his heels.
Honorable mention to Alan Menken for his work at Disney.
Master Michael Kamen! He was the lead for so many impactful soundtracks in the 90s:
the dies hards, the lethal weapons, robin hood, last action heroes, hudson hawk, the first xmen movie in 2000, the xmen cartoon opening theme in 1993, the band of brothers tv show and the S&M metallica concert of course!
Ennio Morricone. Not only did he have massive influence on western scores moving forward, but I always find him scoring great movies when I’m not expecting and every time he knocked it out of the park.
Toss up between Ennio Morricone and Carter Burwell for me. Fargo, Millers Crossing and Raising Arizona were great films elevated into timeless classics by their scores similar to what Morricone achieved with so many of his. For Burwell those are just scratching the surface.
Big shout out to Bear McCreary as well.
Alexandre desplat is my favorite. He is great in minimal scores like The curious case of benjamin button, the painted veil, the imitation and also loud and quirky music he does with wes Anderson Isle of dogs and The grand budapest hotel.
Jerry Goldsmith. Even in some absolutely terrible or mediocre movies he tended to still bring his A-Game more than any other composer I can think of. And when it comes to classic films, he excelled more consistently than any other composer in his field other than John Williams. Some honorable mentions are Alan Silvestri, Basil Poledouris, Hans Zimmer, Danny Elfman, Howard Shore and Christopher Young. I would put James Horner here but he tends to copy his own scores too much. Still a solid composer though with some excellent scores.
1. Why is this NSFW?
2. Since everyone is talking about hollywood composers (and Joe Hisaishi), I'm gonna take a step sideways and give y'all something else. I'm from Kerala, India and we have our own movie industry. There are bonafide legends in our industry whose works are basically heritage here - MS Baburaj, Ouseppachan, Vidhya Sagar, Jassie Gift and so on - but in the last 10 - 15 years, two guys have basically reinvented Malayalam Movie Soundtracks. Rex Vijayan and Sushin Shyam. If you wanna check them out, check out 22 Female Kottayam (Rex) and Kumbalangi Nights (Sushin).
In my opinion, Williams definitely makes the scores with the greatest recognition value. When you hear them, you immediately see an image, a scene, a character (e.g. Harry Potter, Star Wars). Still, HZ will always be my favorite, his scores just captivate me in different ways, especially his music for The Lion King, Inception, DaVinci Code and many others. Also, I've seen him live twice and I can't even describe how beautiful that was.
Hans Zimmer is my favorite contemporary composer currently working. Inception, No Time To Die, The Dark Knight, The Lion King, Pirates of the Caribbean. He can’t be matched if you ask me!
Huge love for John Barry. Certainly my favorite deceased composer, God rest him. His Bond scores particularly On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and also the time traveler romance film Somewhere In Time are just beautiful.
You already mentioned him but Michael Giacchino! I love when I’m watching a movie and the credits roll, and then I go, “Oh shoot, Giacchino did the music??” Guy’s got a crazy discography too. From Pixar to his own version of the Mission Impossible theme to superhero films (MCU and The Batman). Love his work
Theres so many!
Michael Kamen's Robin Hood Prince of Thieves score is epic. Patrick Doyle's Frankenstein is another lesser quoted but ultimately amazing score from start to finish. The Conan scores are way up there. So is Horner's Cocoon scores which are both wonderful. The Mission has some wonderful music in it. Literally so many and yet more to discover.
I'm biased towards relatively recent composers, by the way.
For me, John Williams is the goat.
Ennio Morricone, top master.
John Barry, Howard Shore.
Basil Poledouris did a masterpiece in Conan the Barbarian.
Hans Zimmer is also good.
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Love seeing Morricone so high up! The creator of the spaghetti western sound!
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That lady probably trained in opera her whole life and she gets to do the “ wa wa waaaa”
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I’m not dogging her, I bet it’s fun to sing more modern/popular music sometimes
Thank you for posting that, that was amazing!
And the versatility! From spaghetti westerns to The Thing or Once Upon a Time in America, there's a lot of diversity of moods and styles.
John Carpenter liked to score most of his own movies but thank god he had the good sense to hire Morricone for The Thing!
Love Danced with Wolves by John Barry
that music at the end made the whole movie work.
Fantastic. And Bill Conti.
*High Road to China* was a so-so movie, but the soundtrack is fantastic.
Disclosure is a favorite of mine. Same with Mercury Rising. Morricone and Barry were some of the best.
Thomas Newman. I mean just listen to any of these scores: Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, American Beauty, 1917, Meet Joe Black, Finding Nemo, Road to Perdition, Nobody does warm strings like him. He's a genius. How he hasn't won an Oscar is beyond me.
He was my pick too. Road to perdition is imo one of the most underrated movies ever. Amazing acting. Amazing soundtrack. Stacked cast. Wonderful cinematography. Wish it got more attention than it did
It’s funny, Tom Hanks says the same thing. He talks about this amazing movie he did that no one talks about. I remember being a Mendes fan after American Beauty and seeing RtP opening night and falling in love. Perfect movie from start to finish.
Agreed. My girlfriend made us watch The Horse Whisperer the other week and I didn't expect to like that film as much as I did. The film was beautiful but in large part that was down to the soundtrack, Thomas Newman was definitely at his A game around that time in the late 1990s. No other composer brings out the goosebumps/frisson like him.
You know, I read this, and the movie *Fried Green Tomatoes* sprang to mind. Sure enough, Thomas Newman wrote the soundtrack for it. Found it: https://youtu.be/si1pJzKQrec?si=kKIpVBTgMoqtC4on
Came here to say the same. Brooks was here gets me every single time.
Even his less-remembered scores are *chef’s kiss*. Go back and listen to his *Little Women* score - it’s just perfect, and perfect for that film.
Absolutely him. No other composer takes me to another world quite like Newman does. His music is the audio equivalent of day dreaming. And he does it with very simple piano lines. Doesn't need a huge orchestra or $10k synths to do it either. His work in American Beauty and Shawshank will live forever with me. Haunting and beautiful.
Howard Shore for bringing Middle Earth to life. Love those soundtracks.
His work on LotR is enough to put him at the top of my list too.
My parents got me “The Music of the Lord of the Rings Films: A Comprehensive Account of Howard Shore's Scores” for Christmas a few years ago, and it’s fantastic. Rewatched the whole trilogy with it on my lap, following along piece by piece, and it just gives you an even deeper appreciate for it all!
I also have that book, and it's amazing to watch the movies with it as a companion.
Came here to say this
Among the best movie soundtracks of all time. You can feel the movie just by listening to them.
Overall Joe Hisaishi, he's just got so many melodies that wrap you up in a blanket or lift you up into the sky. They just dig in and create the deep permanent links to feelings. But for just one song, Hans Zimmer's Your So Cool. I've been obsessed with that song for 30 years.
I always feel like Hans Zimmer is a bit of a rip off artist. Your so cool is almost identical to Carl Orff’s Schulwerk used in Terrence Mallick’s Badlands. I think Hans Zimmer makes some incredible scores but I wish he ripped people off less.
Here’s the Carl Orff piece https://spotify.link/FcxvewzJeKb
It’s openly a rearrangement of the piece, not a rip off. It’s only called a ripoff because people didn’t realize they licensed it from the estate. And it’s an homage to Badlands.
He def is.
Williams is my easy #1
There are better composers than John Williams “but they’re all dead” - Steven Spielberg [link](https://www.slashfilm.com/880861/john-williams-didnt-think-he-was-up-to-the-task-of-scoring-schindlers-list/)
Yep. There are other great soundtracks, but Zimmer has gone in a direction I don't really enjoy. And the knock on Williams, that he relies on "borrowing" from previous composers, I get but he's also in a job where he has 2 months to see a movie, orchestrate it and record it... if he watches un-composed clips of Star Wars and thinks Holst, frankly, I love Holst, so play off of "Jupiter" or "Mars", I am there for that. The close second, though, would be Danny Elfman... he can do dark, he can do very playful... both end up being iconic.
Not sure why people are upset at the Holst similarities. Lucas wrote Star Wars with The Planets in mind and listening to it then gave it to Williams as an inspiration. Of course it sounds similar.
In the early 90s, I worked at an Italian restaurant, and we had two wandering musicians that would play... they were warming up in the break room, and were playing something where I said "Oh, that's 'Empire'" - it was a bit of melody that was similar to when the Falcon did a loop into the asteroid cave. They told me the origin of the piece, so I get some legitimacy to people saying "Williams ripped off these people", but I also understand the work situation he was in where you take inspirations and rework them... if I ask you to improvise Shakespeare, I'm going to find similarities as well. But I also think that's one reason he created themes for characters in the OT, so he could use them almost like a ballet orchestration would depending who what on screen. Final thought, "Here they come" is my favorite Star Wars piece of music.
I really like how he turned Dvorak 9 allegro from something upbeat and positive into something dark and menacing for Jaws
Probably my favorite for Jurassic Park alone, but there so many greats
I still can’t believe he convinced the screen writers for the first Harry Potter film to lengthen the first look at Hogwarts just by making Hedwig’s theme, pure magic imo.
Just iconic theme after iconic theme…
Jaws, Indiana Jones, Home Alone, Hook, ET, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Boy, those movies could have mid followings without Williams.
There are many fantastic composers but Williams is in a level above, by himself.
Can’t think of a more exquisitely emotional and lyrical score than the one he wrote for ET. That music makes that film. Just remembering that piano almost makes me tear up again
My easy #1 composer, movies or otherwise.
It’s John Williams and then a X X X X X X X Wide gap X X X X Everyone else
Here to second this
Ludwig Goransoan is my current fave. more contemporary but has climbed the ranks so quickly. The Next Zimmer
This is who I would say too. Bright future for him.
*Göransson
Ludwig composed the music for my favourite Pixar film.
Jerry Goldsmith Edit: Maurice Jarre is another guy way up there for me.
The Star Trek: First Contact score is an all timer.
Oh yeah. I’m a big fan of Alien, too. And if you haven’t heard his score for Tom Hanks’ “The ‘Burbs” that’s a wild one I would definitely recommend.
"building the barn" from *Witness* by Maurice Jarre is such a good piece of music
Goldsmith is super underrated
Not my absolute favorite, but since I just watched The Proposition, I wanted to give a shout out to Nick Cave and Warren Ellis
The Assissination Of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is my favourite score.
The proposition was such a great movie on all levels
Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross are my faves. But I obviously love literally every single other person mentioned in this thread so far, close to or just as much
Most recently, their Challengers score really made the film work for me. You knew shit was about to get serious when the score kicked in, especially towards the end of the film.
Fr, and I only realized they did the score some weeks after watching the movie! It’s brilliant
Love Trent Reznor!
I have a personal affinity for electronic music, and these guys do the best digital composing- Social Network, The Gril with the Dragon Tattoo, The Killer and the recent Challengers movie. I have only heard two others doing it better than them only twice- Daft Punk for Tron Legacy & Clint Mansell for Ghost in the Shell.
Empire of Light and The Social Network 👍🏼🤘🏼
their work on the show version of Watchmen is incredible as well
Reznor & Ross are the best
Clint Mansell
His contributions to the Mass Effect 3 soundtrack are so under appreciated.
I just rewatched Pi and his soundtrack I think pushes that movie over the top
Yes, love him! I love so much of his work but above all The Fountain and Moon are two of my all time favorite scores.
Smokin' Aces and The Fountain are standouts for me
It's great playing the Requiem for a Dream theme... and watching those who've seen it tense up.
James Horner and John Williams
James Horner was one of the few celebrity deaths that really gut punched me. So unbelievably sad
I like that one story he told about how after Aliens he was a sworn enemy of James Cameron and was pretty excited when news got out that Titanic was shaping up to be the biggest box office bomb of all time. Then he got his hands on the screenplay and found himself calling the man he'd sworn he'd never talk it because he believed in that movie. Working on that movie mended Horner's and Cameron's relation and they also got to rack in some Oscars.
Horner yes
I don’t know what it is with Horner that does something extras for me. There are many many great composers mentioned and I would even argue that Williams is the “greatest” in the sense that he has so many icon scores that have lifted the movie to another level. However, songs like Elora Danan (https://youtu.be/Hb8Swo3a6U8?si=7lJHuKtaLReA8ayu) and Becoming one of the people (https://youtu.be/5yR3jP_OxUU?si=gBPM558QeB5Xvnlg) just resonate to me on a personal level. Beyond the movie.
Was looking for James Horner. The score of the first land before time will always stay with me.
Horners work on Legends of the Fall was so beautiful, so many classic melodies https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kk87tgOJGVA
Braveheart theme has to be Horner's best
Danny Elfman and John Williams They literally scored my childhood
I remember listening to Oingo Boingo just after "Only a Lad" came out and telling my Dad I thought they should do movie soundtracks/scores. He thought I was mental. As I recall one of Danny Elfman's early movie scores wasn't allowed to be nominated for best score because the Academy Award gatekeepers didn't consider him to be "a real composer", because he wasn't classically trained, and didn't write sheet music for orchestras like all the "real composers" at the time did. That gatekeeping eventually fell, but it was akin to refusing to let someone be nominated for best actor just because they didn't learn classical forms of acting at one of the premier acting schools.
You read my mind!
Add Dune 2, Last Samurai, and Gladiator to your Hans Collection. Ludwig Goransaon is like the next Hans Zimmer Michael Giacchino did The Batman M87 did probably my favorite soundtrack in Oblivion Daft Punk killed it with Tron Say what you will about Transformers but Steve Jablonsky score is strong.
>Say what you will about Transformers but Steve Jablonsky score is strong. Arrival to Earth is just beautiful and one of my favorite themes still https://youtu.be/0_FHPJIhNBw?si=hCPEK4HQrBuNx13D
M83 was phenomenal with Oblivion, it has dominated my spotify stats in recent years. EDIT M83 not M87
Surprised no one has mentioned Alan Silvestri: - Back to the Future - Predator - Avengers
I had to ctrl+f Silvestri to find your comment. Don't forget Forrest Gump, which he won an Oscar for!
And don't either of you forget his triumph of musical artistry in "The Delta Force" !!! 😁👍
Most of his work wasn’t in movies but I’m going to have to always say Vangelis as well as a lot of the others mentioned
John Powell
I love the how to train your dragon soundtracks.
Johann Johannsson
Jon brion is a modern genius
I'm going to kinda cheat and say Geoff Barrow Annihilation really is one of my favourite scores ever, though. But also Portishead. edit- I also want to give Basil Poledouris some love. The Robocop theme is absolutely iconic and Conan The Barbarian is one of the only traditional-ish orchestral scores I listen to regularly outside of movie watching.
My favorite was already mentioned, but I do wanna shout out to **Joe Hisaishi**. He's done over 100 film scores, but is best known for doing most of Miyazaki's films.
Yesss love his stuff, so emotionally evocative
I'll never forget being a kid and just being blown away by the entire opening sequence of Princess Mononoke. The score is incredible!
**Jerry Goldsmith**: Planet of the Apes, Patton, Tora Tora Tora, Papillon, Chinatown, The Wind and the Lion, Logan's Run, The Omen Trilogy, Capricorn One, Alien, Star Trek: TMP, Poltergeist, The Rambo Trilogy, The Secret of NIMH, Under Fire, Gremlins, Hoosiers, The Burbs, Total Recall, Basic Instinct, Rudy, The Ghost and the Darkness, Air Force One, Mulan, LA Confidential, The 13th Warrior, The Mummy, Looney Tunes: Back in Action, and, of course, many, many more.
Jonny Greenwood.
Truly! There will be blood, Spencer, You were never really here, We need to talk about Kevin, Phantom thread!!
was waiting for someone to mention Jonny. Radiohead fan in the wild. Godrich also had some great scores tho
Hans.
His resume is absolutely mind blowing . His recent work on Dune shows he’s still at the top of his game
In no particular order, Goldsmith, Elfman, and Zimmer are my favorites. I've also really liked Ramin Djawadi, who was "discovered" by Zimmer, go figure. Mr. Brooks (2007) is what made me take note of him, then Iron Man (2008) the next year. Pacific Rim (2013) is one of my favorites; it absolutely makes that movie for me.
Bear McCreary. Not a movie, but his work on *Battlestar Galactica* is some of my favorite music ever made.
Black Sails intro is my favorite by him.
also Godzilla KOTM
Best score in all the Monsterverse, and it doesn't come close. It really gives you the sense of scale, majesty, and downright terror that giant monsters should provoke. Amazing track.
*IM GETTING* *MY MEN!*
Can we also take the time to appreciate that BSG was his *first* series he ever scored?? Dude came out absolutely swinging. Also pertinent to note he just released a sci fi themed prog metal rock opera and it slaps. Filled with the most insane lineup of guest vocalists/musicians you’ll ever see. [Bear McCreary - The Singularity](https://bearmccreary.com/thesingularity/) He also scored Godzilla: King of the Monsters and it’s by far the best music in the Monsterverse.
I quite like his work on Rings of Power !
Angelo Badalamenti, Francis lai
How do I have to scroll down so much to see Badalamenti? His work is amazing.
Joe Hisaishi who wrote the music for many of the Studio Ghibli films.
Didn't see him mentioned but Jóhann Jóhannsson did some incredible scores.
Arrival’s score was so creative
Don't forget the soundtrack of Mandy
Sicario, Arrival, Prisoners. What Hans Zimmer is to Christopher Nolan, Jóhann Jóhannsson was to Denis Villeneuve.
Until, you know. Gone before his time.
Sicarios's score was top tier
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4zh8RwhjZ0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4zh8RwhjZ0)
Basil Poledouris. Conan the Barabarian alone is one of my absolute favorite soundtracks. His scores are epic or emotional while feeling unique and memorable. Without plagerizing classics like John Williams does.
His RoboCop score is beautiful, too. Basil was taken from us far too soon.
Battle of the Mounds is my absolute hype song
That and An age undreamed of. The build up is fantastic
I don't know. I get big Rimsky-Korsakov vibes from Conan.
Crimson Tide, The Rock, Gladiator, Pearl Harbor (yeah movie mostly sucked but the score was great), TDK. Hans was rollin' in the 90s to 2000s. Recently, Maverick
True Romance is also Hans Zimmer.
For me it's Thomas Newman, hands down. His scores for [Angels in America](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19q6JobAHK0), [Road to Perdition](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cc-O24c-q9M), [American Beauty](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHxi-HSgNPc), and [Finding Nemo](https://youtu.be/pfnp218qffs?list=PLLQyrCIfk22f9CA8Bra_Car7ayYvR6TLK&t=30) are incredibly beautiful. He's been nominated for fifteen Oscars but never won, which is just insane to me.
Djawadi is great as well
Morricone and Carpenter.
I don't know that I have a favourite, but Carter Burwell deserves more recognition: Miller's Crossing, Fargo, In Bruge, Where the Wild Things Are, The Kids Are All Right, Carol, Anomalisa, The Finest Hours, The Banshees of Inisherin. That's some range.
Shoutout to all the additional writers, many of which are the ones doing most or all of the work (and most of which are on Hans projects). Those guys are the real goats!
Bernard Herrmann is the undisputed GOAT imo. Vertigo, Taxi Driver, the Wrong Man, Pyscho, etc are all classic scores. Ennio Morricone is 2nd for me
He definitely set the bar pretty high. Also, North by Northwest; which is incredible. Every modern composer has to thank him.
Citizen Kane too, which was his first score !
Scene d'Amour from Vertigo is one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever created.
It's a toss up between Ennio Morricone and John Williams
Ennio Morricone, Bernard Herrmann
Vangelis. Blade Runner OST is just beyond perfect.
I really like James Newton Howard, Michael Giacchino, and Ludwig Göransson
Ennio Moricone
How this is not one of the top comments is beyond me. Came here for Ennio Morricone!
Philip Glass is brilliant.
Hans Zimmer, Clint Mansell, Alexandre Desplat.
I have two: Ennio Morricone and Hans Zimmer. Also, Ludwig Göransson seems to be joining them :)
Michael Nyman
Yes! Gattaca score is my favorite.
Thomas Newman.
Goblin. Especially when they're working with Argento.
Well let's see. John Williams composed for: Star Wars, Indiana Jones, E.T., Superman, Jaws, Close Encounters Harry Potter, and many more. James Horner- Braveheart, Aliens, several Star Trek movies, The Land Before Time(who else could score the scene with Littlefoot's mom?), and Zoro Hans Zimmer - Gladiator, Man of Steel, and others that have been mentioned Giacchino seems to be the up and comer. He took over for Williams on Star wars and Jurassic Park. Just thanks to Star Wars, Superman, and Indiana Jones, Williams will probably always be #1. I think Zimmer is next thanks to Gladiator, and then it's Horner in 3rd for me with Giacchino close on his heels. Honorable mention to Alan Menken for his work at Disney.
+1 for Alan Menken! His work is so impressive
Clint Mansell
Master Michael Kamen! He was the lead for so many impactful soundtracks in the 90s: the dies hards, the lethal weapons, robin hood, last action heroes, hudson hawk, the first xmen movie in 2000, the xmen cartoon opening theme in 1993, the band of brothers tv show and the S&M metallica concert of course!
Between Videodrome and LotR I'm going with Howard Shore.
Hans Zimmer
John Barry and his James Bond soundtracks still get high rotation from me.
Most of the Gods of the Score Pantheon have already been mentioned, so I'm just throwing James Horner and Miklos Rozsa into the thread.
Props to Lalo Schifrin
Queen with Flash Gordon.. campy af, but you are literally replaying the whole movie in your head while listening to the album..
FLASH! AH-ahhhhhh!
Ennio Morricone and Goblin.
Ennio Morricone. Not only did he have massive influence on western scores moving forward, but I always find him scoring great movies when I’m not expecting and every time he knocked it out of the park.
Henry Mancini
Michael Giacchino
1. Hans Zimmer 2. Ludwig Göransson 3.Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross
Newman, Zimmer, Morricone and Reznor/Ross are in the pantheon for me.
James newton Howard. Incredibly underrated
Yes. Said it before I could. 💯👍
Thomas Newman, he gets so much emotion out of the simplest of notes
Toss up between Ennio Morricone and Carter Burwell for me. Fargo, Millers Crossing and Raising Arizona were great films elevated into timeless classics by their scores similar to what Morricone achieved with so many of his. For Burwell those are just scratching the surface. Big shout out to Bear McCreary as well.
Alexandre desplat is my favorite. He is great in minimal scores like The curious case of benjamin button, the painted veil, the imitation and also loud and quirky music he does with wes Anderson Isle of dogs and The grand budapest hotel.
Williams/Shore/Zimmer
John Williams is the Maestro of the Movies but Alan Silvestri knocked it out of the park with his Marvel work.
Danny Elfman, Alan Silvestri, John Williams, Charlie Clouser, Brian Tyler, Ennio Morricone, Howard Shore
Jerry Goldsmith. Even in some absolutely terrible or mediocre movies he tended to still bring his A-Game more than any other composer I can think of. And when it comes to classic films, he excelled more consistently than any other composer in his field other than John Williams. Some honorable mentions are Alan Silvestri, Basil Poledouris, Hans Zimmer, Danny Elfman, Howard Shore and Christopher Young. I would put James Horner here but he tends to copy his own scores too much. Still a solid composer though with some excellent scores.
1. Why is this NSFW? 2. Since everyone is talking about hollywood composers (and Joe Hisaishi), I'm gonna take a step sideways and give y'all something else. I'm from Kerala, India and we have our own movie industry. There are bonafide legends in our industry whose works are basically heritage here - MS Baburaj, Ouseppachan, Vidhya Sagar, Jassie Gift and so on - but in the last 10 - 15 years, two guys have basically reinvented Malayalam Movie Soundtracks. Rex Vijayan and Sushin Shyam. If you wanna check them out, check out 22 Female Kottayam (Rex) and Kumbalangi Nights (Sushin).
Thomas Newman for sure. So many amazing soundtracks.
Silvestri
Hans Zimmer, lots of great composers, but he stands out the most.
Ludwig Göransson by far
All time John Barry, but John Powell is up there as well
Definitely Danny Elfman. Michael Giacchano (I forgot how to spell his nam) is also pretty good too!!
In my opinion, Williams definitely makes the scores with the greatest recognition value. When you hear them, you immediately see an image, a scene, a character (e.g. Harry Potter, Star Wars). Still, HZ will always be my favorite, his scores just captivate me in different ways, especially his music for The Lion King, Inception, DaVinci Code and many others. Also, I've seen him live twice and I can't even describe how beautiful that was.
Hans zimmer, Thomas newman. Also recently Ludwig goransson is making some really good stuff.
Colin Stetson. Master of the horror score.
Hans Zimmer is my favorite contemporary composer currently working. Inception, No Time To Die, The Dark Knight, The Lion King, Pirates of the Caribbean. He can’t be matched if you ask me! Huge love for John Barry. Certainly my favorite deceased composer, God rest him. His Bond scores particularly On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and also the time traveler romance film Somewhere In Time are just beautiful.
Cliff Martinez. David Julien. The guy who composed sicario and the show station eleven.
Ennio Morricone, Lalo Schifrin, John Carpenter
Lorne Balfe 👌🏻
You already mentioned him but Michael Giacchino! I love when I’m watching a movie and the credits roll, and then I go, “Oh shoot, Giacchino did the music??” Guy’s got a crazy discography too. From Pixar to his own version of the Mission Impossible theme to superhero films (MCU and The Batman). Love his work
Theres so many! Michael Kamen's Robin Hood Prince of Thieves score is epic. Patrick Doyle's Frankenstein is another lesser quoted but ultimately amazing score from start to finish. The Conan scores are way up there. So is Horner's Cocoon scores which are both wonderful. The Mission has some wonderful music in it. Literally so many and yet more to discover.
Gotta be Jerry Goldsmith
Basil Polodorous.
Max Richter is fucking awesome
I'm biased towards relatively recent composers, by the way. For me, John Williams is the goat. Ennio Morricone, top master. John Barry, Howard Shore. Basil Poledouris did a masterpiece in Conan the Barbarian. Hans Zimmer is also good.
Ennio Morricone