Well, now, here’s a nice hot talking point. After all, everyone will have their own very particular ideas of who should be in a Top 10 of film composers.
Let’s face it, film music (as we know it) has been around for almost 90 years and every filmmaking country on the planet has its own composers. To that end, compiling any sort of chart of the greatest composers for cinema is likely to be a risky, controversial, even an invidious task. Hasn’t stopped our brightest film and music minds having a go, though.
This list of the best film composers, though, takes in some of the legends, trailblazers and downright popular composers who have played their part in establishing and innovating the art form, or quite simply attracted global attention to it.
Best movie composers: numbers 11 to 6
11. Danny Elfman (b. 1953)
One film composer with a very unique soundworld is Danny Elfman. Composer, singer, and songwriter, Elfman has collaborated frequently with director Tim Burton, whose films are a perfect fit for Elfman’s quirky, gothic, and whimsical musical language.
Elfman first came to fame as the lead singer and songwriter for the 1980s surrealist New Wave band Oingo Boingo. By the middle of that decade, though, Elfman had made the move into film music. His unmistakable scores mix a dark, macabre sense of humour with playful and mischievous motifs.
Danny Elfman didn’t have formal musical training, but his lush orchestral arrangements bear echoes of the likes of Bernard Herrmann (see below) and Igor Stravinsky. He often likes to mix in choral elements, too, which add to the kind of dramatic, eerie, or angelic soundworlds we’ve come to expect from a Danny Elfman-scored movie.
His themes are often very memorable, thanks to use of leitmotifs – recurring melodies linked to certain characters or themes. For Tim Burton, Elfman has provided the music for 1989’s Batman, whose legendary theme helped to shape the soundworld of superhero films from then on.
Then came the hauntingly beautiful score for Edward Scissorhands (1990). Other notable Elfman/Burton collaborations include the gothic score for The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and 1988’s Beetlejuice, with its carnivalesque sounds and bouncy, off-kilter rhythms.
Elsewhere, Elfman has provided music for classic films across a wide range of genres, including Men in Black, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Alice in Wonderland. To many, meanwhile, he’ll be best known for providing one of the most instantly recognisable TV themes in history – the theme tune to The SImpsons, which he famously put together in just two days back in 1989.
10. Maurice Jarre (1924-2009)
Maurice Jarre comes in in tenth position in our rundown of the best film composers of all time. The first French composer to win an Oscar (for 1962’s Lawrence of Arabia), Maurice Jarre enjoyed a high profile career in his native France, the UK and Hollywood. His keen sense of melody was matched by an experimental streak, which often saw him integrate ethnic instrumentation and electronic sounds into his music.
Recommended recording: Lawrence of Arabia (World Premiere Recording of the Complete Score)
9. Rachel Portman (b. 1960)
In ninth place we have film composer Rachel Portman. While she was by no means the first woman to compose film music, Portman did make history in 1997 as the first woman to win a Best Original Score Oscar for Emma (1996). Her painterly scores have graced award-winning films in all genres and she remains one of the UK’s most respected and highly sought-after film composers.
Portman’s music is emotive and lyrical, with some enduringly memorable melodies, and a wonderful synergy with the emotional undertow of the films it soundtracks. As a composer, she’s notable for her often fairly sparse orchestration, typically featuring strings, piano and woodwinds to give a chamber music-like feel.
Recommended recording: Chocolat (Music from the Miramax Motion Picture)
8. John Barry (1933-2011)
Eighth is the British film composer John Barry. Perhaps Britain’s most famous film music export, John Barry enjoyed a high profile career throughout the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s. His music, and songs, for many of the original James Bond films are probably good enough reason alone to include him in this list, though he enjoyed a rich and varied career beyond 007 and won five Oscars to boot.
Recommended recording: John Barry: Dances With Wolves (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
7. Joe Hisaishi (b. 1950)
In seventh place is Joe Hisaishi. Dubbed ‘the Japanese John Williams’, Hisaishi is a household name in his home country, but also has legions of fans around the world thanks to his sweeping, characterful scores for the films of Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli. He has won eight Japanese Academy Awards.
Hisaishi’s music has great emotional resonance, with its grand, sweeping melodies and its beautiful mix of Western and Japanese classical traditions. It’s possible to hear the influence of composers including Philip Glass, Steve Reich, and Debussy in his warm, emotive and poetic musical world.
Recommended recording: Joe Hisaishi: Dream Songs – The Essential Joe Hisaishi
6. AR Rahman (b1967)
Sixth is AR Rahman. The most prolific and successful film composer in Indian cinema, AR Rahman’s scores and original songs have graced countless Tamil and Hindi productions. His music for UK and US productions has only increased his fan-base – the music he wrote for Slumdog Millionaire (2008) earned him two Academy Awards, a BAFTA and a Golden Globe.
Recommended recordings:
AR Rahman: Slumdog Millionaire (Music from the Motion Picture)
The Best of AR Rahman
Best film composers of all time: the top five
5. Ennio Morricone (1928-2020)
The first of our top five is Italian composer Ennio Morricone. The name is about as iconic as the music, and the late Italian film composer will go down in history thanks to the hugely original music he created for the ‘Spaghetti Westerns’ alone. Beyond the colourful thrills of those scores, Morricone was a true music artist and one of the hardest working composers in film.
Over the course of a near-60-year career, Morricone put together more than 400 scores for both cinema and television. He also, did you know, composed more than 100 classical works including
15 piano concertos, a trumpet concerto, 30 symphonic works, choral music, an opera and a mass. Memorable melodies, pungent instrumentation, and deep emotional impact are among the Morricone musical fingerprints.
Recommended recording: Ennio Morricone: Morricone 60
4. Bernard Herrmann (1911-75)
In fourth place is the great Bernard Herrmann. Less than ten years after Max Steiner wrote the film music rulebook, Bernard Herrmann tore it up. With a singular voice, the American film composer created scintillating film scores that relied less on melodic sweep and more on rhythm, tone and unusual instrumentation. His scores for Alfred Hitchcock remain some of the most striking ever written.
Herrmann wasn’t limited to the world of film, writing also for radio and television. He did, however, have a huge impact on cinema music. The psychological power of music was perhaps the key thing he brought to the table: Herrmann’s unmistakable style, with its dissonance, unusual orchestrations, and probing explorations of (the darker sides of) the human psyche, made for some of the defining and unforgettable 20th-century film music.
Herrmann is best known for his long collaboration with the great director Alfred Hitchcock, for whom he provided memorable scores for Vertigo (1958), North by Northwest (1959) and Psycho (1960). In each case, these intense, atmospheric scores played absolutely crucial roles in the thrilling, unsettling atmospheres of these unforgettable films. He also worked with Orson Welles (on Citizen Kane), Martin Scorsese (Taxi Driver) and others.
John Williams, Danny Elfman and Hans Zimmer are among the great film composers to have cited Herrmann’s profound impact on their own music.
Recommended recording: Bernard Herrmann – The Essential Film Music Collection
3. Hans Zimmer (b. 1957)
And now we come to our top three. And if ever there is a single artist who dominates 21st-century film music, it is Hans Zimmer. The German-born composer all but rules the Hollywood film music landscape thanks to his ahead-of the-curve production methods, collaborative spirit and innate sense of musical drama.
Over the course of a career that has spanned more than four decades, Zimmer has composed scores for over 150 films, including some of the most iconic blockbusters of all time. His signature style often involves the fusion of symphonic power with synthesized textures, creating a dramatic and immersive listening experience.
Zimmer has won multiple awards, including Academy Awards, Golden Globes, and Grammy Awards, for his innovative and emotionally resonant scores. His ability to adapt to different genres—from action films to dramas, comedies, and animated features, from The Lion King via Gladiator to Inception —has solidified his reputation as one of the most versatile composers in the industry.
Recommended recording: Hans Zimmer: The World of Hans Zimmer – A Symphonic Celebration
2. John Williams (b. 1932)
In second place is John Williams. The film music of John Williams represents some of the most familiar ever written, having been composed for some of the most popular films of all time. The American composer reignited an interest in symphonic film music (à la Max Steiner) in the late 1970s with his score for Star Wars (1977). He has won five Oscars.
Recommended recording: John Williams in Vienna
Best film composers of all time: and our winner is…
1. Max Steiner (1888-1971)
And… drum roll please… our top film composer of all time is Max Steiner. The Vienna-born composer Max Steiner almost single-handedly created the art of film music with groundbreaking Hollywood scores in the early 1930s. His music for films like King Kong (1933) helped shape industry and audience understanding of what original music could do for a movie in terms of dramatic nuance and great musicianship.
Recommended recording: Max Steiner: The Treasure of the Sierra Madre – The Classic 1948 Film Score
About Michael Beek
Michael Beek is the Reviews Editor of BBC Music Magazine. He joined the team in May 2018, following ten years as a freelance film music journalist and fifteen years at St George’s Bristol – where he was everything from Box Office Supervisor to the venue’s Content & Engagement Manager.
Michael specialises in film and television music and was the Editor of Music from the Movies.com. He has written for the BBC Proms, BBC Concert Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Albert Hall, Hollywood in Vienna and Silva Screen Records. Also a presenter, Michael has hosted concerts and live events for Bristol Film Festival and St George’s Bristol, plus Debbie Wiseman’s ‘Music and Words from Wolf Hall’ at venues across the UK.