Favorite Composers

1. Jerry Goldsmith

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 ...

2. 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 ...

3. 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 ...

4. Basil Poledouris

Composer | RoboCop

Basil Poledouris was born on August 21, 1945 in Kansas City. He started taking piano lessons when he was 7 years old. Eventually, he went on to become a student at USC, where he studied the arts of directing, cinematography, editing, sound and, of course, music. It was also at USC he met John Milius...

5. 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 ...

6. 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 ...

7. Maurice Jarre

Composer | Lawrence of Arabia

Unlike many musicians who started to learn music while still in their childhood, Maurice Jarre was already late in his teens when he discovered music and decided to make a career in that field. Against his father's will, he enrolled at Conservatoire de Paris where he studied percussions, ...

8. Victor Young

Composer | Around the World in Eighty Days

Violinist and conductor Victor Young was a prolific composer and arranger, who worked on more than 300 film scores over a period of twenty years. He came from an impoverished, but musical background and was trained on the violin at the Warsaw Imperial Conservatory, later studying piano in Paris ...

9. Miklós Rózsa

Composer | Ben-Hur

A child prodigy, Miklos Rózsa learned to play the violin at the age of five and read music before he was able to read words. In 1926, he began studying at the Leipzig Conservatory where he was considered a brilliant student. He obtained his doctorate in music in 1930. Moving to Paris the following ...

10. Alexandre Desplat

Composer | The King's Speech

Composer and conductor Alexandre Desplat, Oscar winner and seven-time Academy Award nominated, for his prolific filmography and his collaborations with Stephen Frears, Terrence Malick, Ang Lee, Kathryn Bigelow, Jacques Audiard, Wes Anderson, Roman Polanski, George Clooney or Matteo Garrone is one ...

11. Atticus Ross

Soundtrack | The Social Network

Atticus Ross was born on January 16, 1968 in England, UK. He is a composer and actor, known for The Social Network (2010), The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) and Mank (2020). He has been married to Claudia Sarne since 2001. They have three children.

12. François de Roubaix

Composer | Le Samouraï

François de Roubaix was born on April 3, 1939 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, France. He was a composer and actor, known for The Samurai (1967), Commentçavaj'menfous ou Les malentendus (1976) and La haine (1995). He was married to Lorraine De Roubaix. He died on November 21, 1975 in ...

13. Michael Nyman

Composer | The Piano

Michael Nyman studied piano, harpsichord and music history with Alan Bush at the Royal Academy of Music, and musicology with Thurston Dart at King's College, London. Between 1968 and 1978 he worked as a music critic and in 1977 he founded the Campiello Band, later renamed the Michael Nyman Band. ...

14. Joe Hisaishi

Composer | Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi

Joe Hisaishi was born on December 6, 1950 in Nakano, Japan. He is a composer and director, known for Spirited Away (2001), The Boy and the Heron (2023) and Fireworks (1997). He is married to Ayame Fujisawa . They have one child.

15. Tôru Takemitsu

Composer | Seppuku

Tôru Takemitsu was born on October 8, 1930 in Tokyo, Japan. He was a composer, known for Harakiri (1962), Ran (1985) and Rising Sun (1993). He died on February 20, 1996 in Tokyo, Japan.

16. Lalo Schifrin

Music_department | Rush Hour

Immensely talented, Argentinian born pianist, conductor and composer who has written over 100 scores for both television & the cinema including the memorable themes to Mission: Impossible (1966), Mannix (1967), Starsky and Hutch (1975), Cool Hand Luke (1967), and Bullitt (1968). Schifrin has ...

17. Philip Glass

Soundtrack | The Truman Show

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Glass worked in his father's radio store and discovered music listening to the offbeat Western classical records customers didn't seem to want. He studied the violin and flute, and obtained early admission to the University of Chicago. After graduating in mathematics ...

18. Danny Elfman

Music_department | The Nightmare Before Christmas

As Danny Elfman was growing up in the Los Angeles area, he was largely unaware of his talent for composing. It wasn't until the early 1970s that Danny and his older brother Richard Elfman started a musical troupe while in Paris; the group "Mystic Knights of Oingo-Boingo" was created for Richard's ...

19. Alan Silvestri

Composer | The Polar Express

In his ongoing, decades-long career as a composer, Alan Silvestri has blazed an innovative trail with his exciting and melodic scores, winning the applause of Hollywood and movie audiences the world over. With a credit list of over 100 films Silvestri has composed some of the most recognizable and ...

20. Wojciech Kilar

Composer | Bram Stoker's Dracula

Wojciech Kilar was born on July 17, 1932 in Lwów, Lwowskie, Poland [now Lviv, Ukraine]. He was a composer, known for Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), The Ninth Gate (1999) and The Pianist (2002). He was married to Barbara Pomianowska. He died on December 29, 2013 in Katowice, Slaskie, Poland.

21. Jerry Fielding

Composer | The Wild Bunch

A three-time Oscar nominee, Jerry Fielding was among the boldest and most experimental of all Hollywood film composers. His music typically utilized advanced compositional procedures, producing dense, often richly dissonant orchestral textures, sometimes flavored with jazz. Fielding's film music ...

22. Philippe Sarde

Composer | Le locataire

Philippe Sarde was born on June 21, 1948 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, France. He is a composer and actor, known for The Tenant (1976), Barocco (1976) and Lord of the Flies (1990). He has been married to Clotilde Burrer since 1994. They have two children. He was previously married to Nave ...

23. James Newton Howard

Music_department | King Kong

James Newton Howard attended the University of Southern California's music school, but dropped out to tour with Elton John, and eventually compose music for film and television. He started with Head Office (1985) in 1985. He has been nominated for eight Academy Awards. He currently is a songwriter, ...

24. Michel Legrand

Composer | The Thomas Crown Affair

Michel Legrand is a three-time Academy Award-winning French composer, conductor and pianist who composed over 200 film and television scores as well as recorded over a hundred albums of jazz, popular and classical music.

He was born on February 24, 1932, in Becon-les-Bruyeres, in the Paris suburbs, ...

25. Michel Polnareff

Soundtrack | The Dreamers

Michel Polnareff was born on July 3, 1944 in Nérac, Lot-et-Garonne, France. He is a composer and actor, known for The Dreamers (2003), Lipstick (1976) and La vengeance du serpent à plumes (1984). He has been married to Danyellah Polnareff since 2001. They have one child.

26. Vladimir Cosma

Composer | Diva

Vladimir Cosma was born on April 13, 1940 in Bucharest, Romania. He is a composer and actor, known for Diva (1981), Octav (2017) and Le Bal (1983).

27. Angelo Badalamenti

Composer | Mulholland Dr.

Angelo Badalamenti was born on March 22, 1937 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. He was a composer and actor, known for Mulholland Drive (2001), Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992) and Lost Highway (1997). He was married to Lonny Irgens. He died on December 11, 2022 in Lincoln Park, New ...

28. Nino Rota

Composer | The Godfather

Born in Milan in 1911 into a family of musicians, Nino Rota was first a student of Orefice and Pizzetti. Then, still a child, he moved to Rome where he completed his studies at the Conservatory of Santa Cecilia in 1929 with Alfredo Casella. In the meantime, he had become an 'enfant prodige', famous...

29. 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 ...

30. Robin Coudert

Composer | Gretel & Hansel

Robin Coudert, also known by his stage name ROB, is a French pop/rock musician, singer-songwriter, producer and film score composer. He creates the original music for "Belle Épine" by Rebecca Zlotowski (2010), "Populaire" by Régis Roinsard (2012) nominated for the Césars for best original music, "...

31. Christopher Young

Composer | Sinister

Composer Christopher Young was born in Red Bank, New Jersey. After graduating from Hampshire College in Massachusetts with a Bachelor of Arts degree in music, Young went on to pursue his post-graduate studies at North Texas State University. After college Christopher moved to Los Angeles, ...

32. Clint Mansell

Composer | Black Swan

Clinton Darryl Mansell is an English singer, musician and film composer known for his collaborations with Darren Aronofsky. He composed Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, Black Swan, The Wrestler, Noah, Ghost in the Shell, Peacemaker, Doom Patrol, Loving Vincent, Mass Effect 3, Titans, World ...

33. Carter Burwell

Composer | Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Carter Burwell was born on November 18, 1954 in New York City, New York, USA. He is a composer and actor, known for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017), Carol (2015) and The Banshees of Inisherin (2022). He has been married to Christine Sciulli since 1999.

34. Michael Giacchino

Composer | Star Trek

Michael Giacchino is an American composer of music for films, television and video games.

Giacchino composed the scores to the television series Lost, Alias and Fringe, the video game series Medal of Honor and Call of Duty and many films such as The Incredibles (2004), Star Trek (2009), Up (2009), ...

35. Marco Beltrami

Composer | I, Robot

Marco Beltrami was born on October 7, 1966 in New York City, New York, USA. He is a composer and producer, known for I, Robot (2004), World War Z (2013) and Knowing (2009).

36. James Horner

Music_department | Titanic

James Horner began studying piano at the age of five, and trained at the Royal College of Music in London, England, before moving to California in the 1970s. After receiving a bachelor's degree in music at USC, he would go on to earn his master's degree at UCLA and teach music theory there. He ...

37. Howard Shore

Music_department | The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Howard Shore is a Canadian composer, born in Toronto. He was born in a Jewish family. He started studying music when 8-years-old, and played as a member of bands by the time he was 13-years-old. He was interested in a professional career in music as a teenager. He studied music at the Berklee ...

38. Terence Blanchard

Composer | BlacKkKlansman

A world renowned trumpeter/composer/band leader and Blue Note recording artist, Terence Blanchard is the most prolific jazz musician to ever compose for motion pictures. Blanchard was born and raised in New Orleans where he studied with the Marsalis brothers at the famed New Orleans Center for the ...

39. Kenji Kawai

Composer | Ip Man

Kenji Kawai was born on April 23, 1957 in Shinagawa, Tokyo, Japan. He is a composer, known for Ip Man (2008), Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (2004) and Ip Man 4: The Finale (2019).

40. 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 ...

41. Henry Mancini

Soundtrack | Breakfast at Tiffany's

Born in Cleveland, Ohio, but brought up in Pennsylvania, where he played the flute in a local band, as a youth, before sending some arrangements to Benny Goodman. Goodman offered him a job and, after serving in WWII, he joined the rearranged Glenn Miller band. In 1952, he was given a two-week ...

42. Zbigniew Preisner

Composer | Trois couleurs: Bleu

Born in Poland in 1955, Zbigniew Preisner studied philosophy and history in the university of Cracow. In his twenties he started to study music in a autodidactical way: buying records and learning to write by taking the music in parts. He started to write his own compositions. His style has always ...

43. Riz Ortolani

Composer | I giorni dell'ira

Riz Ortolani was born on March 25, 1926 in Pesaro, Marche, Italy. He was a composer and actor, known for Day of Anger (1967), Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003) and Festa di laurea (1985). He was married to Katina Ranieri. He died on January 23, 2014 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.

44. Quincy Jones

Producer | The Color Purple

Considered to be one of the greatest minds in music and television history, Quincy Delight Jones, Jr. was born on March 14, 1933 in Chicago, Illinois. He is the son of Sarah Frances (Wells), a bank executive, and Quincy Delight Jones, Sr., a carpenter.

Jones found his love for music while he was ...

45. John Carpenter

Writer | The Fog

John Howard Carpenter was born in Carthage, New York, to mother Milton Jean (Carter) and father Howard Ralph Carpenter. His family moved to Bowling Green, Kentucky, where his father, a professor, was head of the music department at Western Kentucky University. He attended Western Kentucky ...

46. Goblin

Soundtrack | Shaun of the Dead

For 25 years, Goblin has been scoring soundtracks for Italian films, mainly Giallo-style films directed by Dario Argento. The group consisted of keyboardist Claudio Simonetti, percussionist Walter Martino, bassist Fabio Pignatelli, guitarist Massimo Morante, percussionist Agostino Marangolo, and ...

47. Georges Delerue

Composer | Platoon

Georges Delerue was born on March 12, 1925 in Roubaix, Nord, France. He was a composer and actor, known for Platoon (1986), Twins (1988) and The Day of the Dolphin (1973). He was married to Micheline Gautron. He died on March 20, 1992 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

48. 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, ...

49. Popol Vuh

Composer | Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes

Popol Vuh is known for Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972), Sightseers (2012) and A Bigger Splash (2015).

50. Shôji Yamashiro

Composer | Akira

Shôji Yamashiro was born in 1933 in Tochigi, Japan. He is a composer, known for Akira (1988), I Am God (2017) and Akira: Production Report (1988).