My Top 10 Film Composers
by markgunston-197-661169 | created - 07 Jun 2012 | updated - 29 Jul 2018 | PublicThese are some of the very best composers and have all produced a substantial body of work of the highest quality. Of course the list could be expanded to include notable ommissions like Miklos Rocza, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Howard Shore and James Horner.
1. Jerry Goldsmith
Composer | L.A. Confidential
Born on February 10, 1929, Jerry Goldsmith studied piano with Jakob Gimpel and composition, theory, and counterpoint with Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. He also attended classes in film composition given by Miklós Rózsa at the Univeristy of Southern California. In 1950, he was employed as a clerk ...
Jerry Golsmith had a prolific career as an innovative composer who could tackle every genre. He was nominated for an Oscar 17 times but only won one for The Omen. As technically skilled as John Williams but more varied in his approach. His collaboration with Franklin J Schaffner produced a string of musically groundbreaking scores in particular Planet of the Apes. His work includes The Blue Max, Our Man Flint, Papillon, Star Trek, Chinatown, L.A. Confidential and Basic Instinct.
2. Elmer Bernstein
Composer | Far from Heaven
Elmer Bernstein was educated at the Walden School and New York University. He served in the US Army Air Corps in World War II, writing scores for the service radio unit. He also wrote and arranged musical numbers for Glenn Miller's Army Air Force Band. A prolific and respected film music composer, ...
Most widely known for his scores for The Magnificent Seven and The Great Escape. Nominated 14 times but only won once for Thoroughly Modern Millie.
3. Max Steiner
Composer | Casablanca
Austrian composer Max Steiner achieved legendary status as the creator of hundreds of classic American film scores. He was born Maximilian Raoul Walter Steiner in Vienna, Austria, the son of Marie Mizzi (Hasiba) and Gabor Steiner, an impresario, and the grandson of actor and theater director and ...
Incredibly prolific composer who was nominated for 24 Oscars. He did not win, however, for his most famous score Gone With the Wind.
4. John Williams
Composer | Jurassic Park
As one of the best known, awarded, and financially successful composers in US history, John Williams is as easy to recall as John Philip Sousa, Aaron Copland or Leonard Bernstein, illustrating why he is "America's composer" time and again. With a massive list of awards that includes over 52 Oscar ...
A massive 45 Oscar nominations and 5 wins. John Williams is probably the most well known and finacially succesful film composer of all time. He won his first oscar for Fiddler on the Roof and others for Jaws, Star Wars, E.T. and Schindlers List
5. Hans Zimmer
Composer | Gladiator
German-born composer Hans Zimmer is recognized as one of Hollywood's most innovative musical talents. He featured in the music video for The Buggles' single "Video Killed the Radio Star", which became a worldwide hit and helped usher in a new era of global entertainment as the first music video to ...
The King of the blockbuster, Hans Zimmer is the number one choice as composer for large scale movies today. Gladiator, Pirates of the Caribbean and Batman Begins all bear his distinctive signature. Often immitated, no one writes better Hero music.
6. Ennio Morricone
Composer | The Hateful Eight
A classmate of director Sergio Leone with whom he would form one of the great director/composer partnerships (right up there with Eisenstein & Prokofiev, Hitchcock & Herrmann, Fellini & Rota), Ennio Morricone studied at Rome's Santa Cecilia Conservatory, where he specialized in trumpet. His first ...
This incredibly innovative composer scored over 500 movies but never won an Oscar in competition. More a writer of themes than a traditional film composer Sergio Leone often choregraphed and edited his scenes after the music had been written by Morricone
7. Bernard Herrmann
Composer | North by Northwest
The man behind the low woodwinds that open Citizen Kane (1941), the shrieking violins of Psycho (1960), and the plaintive saxophone of Taxi Driver (1976) was one of the most original and distinctive composers ever to work in film. He started early, winning a composition prize at the age of 13 and ...
Although not as prolific as the other composers on this list he is highly regarded for his classic scores composed during his collaboration with Alfred Hitchcock, in particular Vertigo, North by Northwest and Psycho. He only worked with directors who he felt were particularly sensitive to the use of music in film, including Orson Welles, which may explain his limited output.
8. Alfred Newman
Music_department | The King and I
Alfred Newman is an American composer, arranger, and conductor of film music.
From his start as a music prodigy, he came to be regarded as a respected figure in the history of film music. He won nine Academy Awards and was nominated 45 times, contributing to the Newmans being the most nominated ...
Alfred Newman, along with Max Steiner and Dimitri Tiomkin, is considered one of the 3 Godfathers of film music. He won 9 Oscars, more than any individual except Walt Disney, and was nominated 45 times. Oscar winning scores include How the West Was Won, The Greatest Story Ever Told and Love Is A many Splendoured Thing. He was the head of a family of major Hollywood composers
9. John Barry
Soundtrack | Out of Africa
John Barry was born in York, England in 1933, and was the youngest of three children. His father, Jack, owned several local cinemas and by the age of fourteen, Barry was capable of running the projection box on his own - in particular, The Rialto in York. As he was brought up in a cinematic ...
The most famous film composer of the 1960s, John Barry wrote the scores for 12 of the Bond films and several TV themes including The Persuaders. He was one of the first composers to use a synthesizer, for On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Won 5 Oscars including Out of Africa, Born Free and The Lion In WInter.
10. Dimitri Tiomkin
Soundtrack | High Noon
Dimitri Tiomkin was a Russian Jewish composer who emigrated to America and became one of the most distinguished and best-loved music writers of Hollywood. He won a hallowed place in the pantheon of the most successful and productive composers in American film history, earning himself four Oscars ...
Nominated 22 times for an Oscar, Dimitri Tiomkin's scores had a very distinctive and muscular style. He is most well known for his westerns including High Noon, Rio Bravo and The Alamo. His Oscar winning score for the original airplane disaster movie 'The High and the Mighty' has one of the most memorable main themes of the 1950s.
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