[Nick Zwar]

I just name these off the top of my head (in chronological order of birthyear)
Miklós Rózsa (1907–1995)
Alex North (1910–1991)
Bernard Herrmann (1911–1975)
Ennio Morricone (1928–2020)
Jerry Goldsmith (1929–2004)
John Williams (1932–)
Howard Shore (1946-)
Elliot Goldenthal (1954–)
James Horner (1953-)
Thomas Newman (1955-)

I’m flipping around a few names… I mean, there are so many more that are favorites… There’s John Barry, Leonard Rosenman… Don Davis (because I LOVE his Matrix scores), James Newton Howard (really cools stuff)…, Bruce Broughton… Vangelis (I like his film scores, but don’t consider him primarily a film composer, Hans Zimmer, Maurice Jarre, Danny Elfman… and more… cannot decide really, so I could flip a few names now and then, and probably will. 🙂 Wojciech Kilar is a favorite too…
Not to mention composers such as Shostakovich, Copland, Glass, Nyman, Vangelis… I like them all, but I don’t consider than primarily film composers, even though they obviously were film composers… Ah, well, I did my “off the top of my head top ten” list. 🙂