MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

9 Corpse Bride (Composed by Danny Elfman)

     Warner Bros. Pictures

Composer Danny Elfman is as well-known for his film scoring career (Mission: Impossible, The Men in Black films, Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man films, just to name a few) as he is for the decades he spent in the new wave band Oingo Boingo and the theme he composed for The Simpsons. He frequently collaborates with director Tim Burton (working on 16 of his films) as he did in this case. Elfman’s score for Corpse Bride conveys the creepy mood of the film with surprising tenderness and depth.

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

8 The Queen (Composed by Alexandre Desplat)

     Pathe Distribution

In 2007, French composer Alexandre Desplat landed his first job composing the score of a film. That film was The Queen, and he went on to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Score for his efforts. That experience put him on the map, and he went on to compose the scores for the last few Harry Potter films as well as Argo, Little Women, The King’s Speech, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and was nominated for the Oscar for all of those films. He won the Academy Award for Best Original Score for The Grand Budapest Hotel and The Shape of Water. But it was his regal score for The Queen which beautifully skyrocketed his career in America.

7 The Perfect Storm (Composed by James Horner)

     Warner Bros.

Composer James Horner is best known for his Academy Award-winning score for Titanic; incidentally, he also co-wrote “My Heart Will Go On” for Celine Dion, and won the Oscar for that too. However, it’s his pitch-perfect score for The Perfect Storm that lands him a spot on the best film scores of the ’00s. Arguably, the storm in the movie played a major role in the film, and Horner’s score gives voice to the storm, conveying how powerful, and deadly, it ultimately is.

6 The Da Vinci Code (Composed by Hans Zimmer)

     Columbia Pictures

Hans Zimmer is one of the most prolific composers in history. The German-born composer got his start in the early 1980s and has written the score for more than 150 films. His music is unmistakable; his signature sound is often synthesizers with a steel drum accompaniment. Zimmer is known for scoring Rain Man, Driving Miss Daisy, and The Lion King. But it is his work on the The Da Vinci Code that earned him a spot on this list. The film, based on the novel by Dan Brown, could have been trite and mocked (and still is by some) if not for Zimmer’s soaring score. It conveyed a feeling of church music, which gave life to the scenes of Tom Hanks hunting down the evidence to clear him of the murder he was accused of.

5 Pride and Prejudice (Composed by Dario Marianelli)

     Universal Pictures / Focus Features

Italian composer Dario Marianelli used Beethoven as an inspiration for his score for Pride and Prejudice. The 2005 movie was his first major film score and since that time, the film’s director, Joe Wright, has hired Marianelli several times. Pride and Prejudice stands out on Marianelli’s resume because, as a period piece, the score provides the perfect balance between modern audiences and the 19th-century story. Marianelli was nominated for an Academy Award for his Pride and Prejudice score, which perfectly complimented the bourgeois romance on screen.

4 Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (Composed by Tan Dun)

     Sony Pictures Classics

The score for Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon was composed by Tan Dun and features several solo movements for the cello which were performed by the venerable Yo-Yo Ma. The score was performed by the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, Shanghai National Orchestra, and the Shanghai Percussion Ensemble. Dun also took his score and arranged it into a cello concerto called the Crouching Tiger Concerto. The entire score was assembled in just two weeks, and the urgency makes a great parallel to the stunning action in the film.

3 Gladiator (Composed by Hans Zimmer and Lisa Gerrard)

     DreamWorks / Universal Pictures

Gladiator was released in 2000, and in the more than two decades since then, the film’s score has become one of the prolific Hans Zimmer’s best known works. Throughout the movie, Zimmer took care to convey the mood of the scene in his score with simple yet memorable and emotional melodies. Gladiator (and the stirring, visceral music it ends with) owes a chunk of its success to Zimmer’s score.

2 Pirates of the Caribbean (Composed by supervisor Hans Zimmer, Klaus Badelt, and seven other composers)

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl owes as much to its score as it does to its set design and Johnny Depp’s pitch-perfect acting. But the story of how this epic score came into existence is one of pure chaos. Hans Zimmer was approached to compose the score, but he was working on another film (as he always seems to be). Zimmer came on to the film to supervise the score with Klaus Badelt leading a team of eight composers (including himself) to put together the entire score in just three weeks, and the desperation behind it is palpable in the film.

1 Lord of the Rings trilogy (Composed by Howard Shore)

     New Line Cinema/Warner Brothers Pictures

Canadian-born composer Howard Shore’s scores for the Lord of the Rings trilogy can only be described as epic. For his efforts, Shore has brought home three Oscars, two Golden Globes, and four Grammy Awards, among other accolades. The first Lord of the Rings film opens with a monochord – which sets the tone for Shore’s soaring score. The monochord is an ancient sound that has been around for thousands of years, making it the perfect music to offset Galadriel’s speech in the opening scene of the trilogy. Throughout all films, Shore’s score is filled with epic grace, whimsical moments of fantasy, and stirring emotional tones, and is one of the best and most memorable of the decade.​​