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| Ennio Morricone |
I am not much of a crier in my everyday life, but a well-placed, moving score can really bring on the waterworks (Clint Eastwood's heartbreaking Million Dollar Baby music always gets me). I truly believe a great soundtrack can elevate a movie, and sometimes a bad one can mar one.
There are classic one-offs, like Nina Rota's memorable work on The Godfather, but this blog is not about those. This is about artists who had a sustained -- and in some cases -- still ongoing body of work that is formidable by almost any standard.
10) Elmer Bernstein and Jerry Goldsmith (tie) - I hate to do ties, and this is a bit of a cheat for me but these two legends are kind of interchangeable to me. I don't mean that as a knock, but they both are responsible for lush, romantic scores that speak to Hollywood's golden age, and both seamlessly could modernize their sound -- Bernstein with his playfully serious themes for comedies like (Ghostbusters) and Goldsmith's evocative work on big budget fare (Alien). To me, they both personify composer class at its finest.
Best scores: Goldsmith - Chinatown, Bernstein - The Grifters
9) John Carpenter - A bit of an outside the box pick for sure, but hear me out. Although Carpenter only did a handful of minimalist keyboard driven scores for his own films (including his iconic Halloween), his signature sound is not only phenomenal but highly influential. He changed the way scary movies sounded for a generation and his recent releases -- Lost Themes and Lost Themes II -- finally see him getting the credit he's long deserved for being a musical genius.
Best score: Escape From New York
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| John Williams |
Best score: Enter the Dragon
7) Cliff Martinez - The frequent collaborator of Steven Soderbergh's and Nicolas Winding Refn has slowly been building up quite a reputation, boasting three modern classics with his work on Drive, Only God Forgives and The Neon Demon. Also worth checking out is his underrated work on the equally undervalued 2002 remake of Solaris. He's doing amazing stuff with synths and moody propulsive beats (see Spring Breakers), that have had me noticing his name more and more when I go to the movies.
Best score: Drive
6) John Barry - The man behind the James Bond theme. That's kind of all you need to know. He went on to do many respectable scores, but for my money, he never surpassed the incredible work he did on the 007 series. Remarkably, he tailored each score to the specific tone of each movie -- from the spacey Moonraker to the grittier Goldfinger and From Russia With Love. The music of the Bond films is just as important as the stunts and the actor in the lead role.
Best score: On Her Majesty's Secret Service
5) Hans Zimmer - Today, Zimmer is best known for his bombastic, muscular scores for thinking man's action films like Inception, but his resume is actually much more diverse. For instance, he also penned the music for against type films like Rain Man and 12 Years a Slave. Still, it's pulse pounding, brassy work for Christopher Nolan which has single-handedly redefined the sound of the summer blockbuster. His work on The Dark Knight trilogy in particular is unparalleled.
Best score: The Dark Knight (with James Newton Howard)
4) Danny Elfman - The former Oingo Bingo front-man has worked with other director's but his partnership with Tim Burton is one of the most successful in all of movies. His playful, mischievous sound is almost instantly recognizable in movies like Beetlejuice and Pee Wee's Big Adventure. But he also does macabre mayhem better than just about anyone. In recent years he's moved further away from his earlier work to embrace a more mainstream style, but I will always associate him with nursery rhyme gone to seed style of his Simpsons theme.
Best score; Batman
3) Bernard Herrmann - This late composer is most famous for his many collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock. Apparently quite belligerent and difficult behind the scenes, that didn't stop him from producing some brilliant scores for the master filmmaker, from Psycho, to North By Northwest and the beautifully haunting Vertigo. He also scored what is widely considered to be the best movie ever made -- Citizen Kane. But my personal favorite score is his last, Taxi Driver, which he completed just says before his death in 1976.
Best score: Taxi Driver
2) John Williams - Most music snobs (and even many movie lovers) roll their eyes at the mention of Williams, who is best associated with accessible, almost pop scores for some of the most beloved hit movies of all time. His work for Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and others may not always be sophisticated but it has an emotional power that is unmistakable. His work on Star Wars, ET, Indiana Jones, Close Encounters, Jaws and Superman isn't just popular because its easy on the ears -- it's also a perfect compliment to the visuals. And his remarkable body of work should not be reduced to those legendary scores either. For instance, his music for Catch Me If You Can, Nixon and many more is just as accomplished.
Best score; The Empire Strikes Back
1) Ennio Morricone - The man. The legend. The Italian composer first captured the attention of American audiences with his epic, rock-influenced scores for Ennio Morricone's early spaghetti westerns and he spun that success into dozens of other terrific soundtracks in the genre. Morricone distinguished himself with achingly beautiful music that often even upstaged the action in many of the films in which it appeared. In his later years, he calibrated his style to suit sprawling gangster films like The Untouchables and Bugsy, and took some risks with his ominous work on The Thing, some of which was re-purposed with the Oscar-winning score for The Hateful Eight. This guy, and his countless hours of music, is a treasure.
Best score: Once Upon a Time in the West
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