[Nicolai P. Zwar]

Okay, and now let’s bracket it with the 1940s and the 2000s… not sure I can go any further in either direction…

So for the 1940s:

1940  Rebecca (Franz Waxman)
1941  Citizen Kane (Bernard Herrmann)
1942  The Jungle Book (Miklós Rózsa)
1943  I Walked With a Zombie (Roy Webb)
1944  Double Indemnity (Miklós Rózsa)
1945  The Lost Weekend (Miklós Rózsa)
1946  The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (Miklós Rózsa)
1947  The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (Bernard Herrmann)
1948  The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (Max Steiner)
1949  The Red Pony (Aaron Copland)

And the 2000s:

Now this decade demonstrates the need to “group” some things, otherwise it becomes boring.

The best film score of 2001 is Howard Shore’s THE LORD OF THE RINGS, but it extends to 2003. It’s basically just one long film score released over three years, so I could just insert:

2001 The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
2002 The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
2003 The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

and be done with it. But I guess that’s not so interesting, so I pick an alternative title for each year. In any case, THE LORD OF THE RINGS is the winner of the decade.

So here we go with a “Lord of the Rings” free selection of the decade:

2000  Unbreakable (James Newton Howard)
2001  A.I. Artificial Intelligence (John Williams)
2002  Star Trek – Nemesis (Jerry Goldsmith)
2003  The Last Samurai (Hans Zimmer)
2004  The Village (James Newton Howard)
2005  Kingdom of Heaven (Harry Gregson‑Williams)
2006  Pan’s Labyrinth (Javier Navarrete)
2007  Zodiac (David Shire)
2008  The Dark Knight (Hans Zimmer)
2009  Avatar (James Horner)

[Thor Joachim Haga]

Impressive, Nick. I never expected anyone to do this.

I gave RETURN OF THE KING the spot for 2003, and as such a representative of the whole thing. But even if I hadn’t, the first film would NOT have edged out A.I., which I probably consider the best score of the 21st century. And the second would still lose to WHALE RIDER. In fact, RETURN OF THE KING had enough trouble as is, sneaking ahead of THE LAST SAMURAI, TEARS OF THE SUN, BIG FISH and HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG.

[Nicolai P. Zwar]

Yeah, as I said, I tend to group things and see sometimes the scope and body of work. I even hesitated to include THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, because while I see the individual scores for these films, I can also view STAR WARS as one single body of interrelated compositions. It’s even more extreme with THE LORD OF THE RINGS, which literally is just one long film and not even a “real” trilogy. (Just like the original novel eventually had a preface that began with “The Lord of the Rings is often erroneously called a trilogy, when it is in fact a single novel” just because even before the movie(s) came out, people sometimes thought of it as a trilogy, which it definitely isn’t.)
So THE LORD OF THE RINGS is one film and one film score, it’s just very long (it’s a long book too).
But I agree that A.I. – ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE is a great score too, as are the others… which is why I annotated my selections. 🙂

As I noted, my choices are of course subject to change at any time. I might just suddenly change something or think “gee, why didn’t I include X instead of Y?”. Obviously, some years were easier than others…. 1960? Dang, what do I put in there. THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN by Elmer Bernstein? SPARTACUS by Alex North? I put in PSYCHO by Bernard Herrmann, but these other two were just as good and at any other day….

[Gloin the Dark]

As a compulsive list-maker, this is the type of topic that could have me wasting half a day compiling an ever-increasing list of favourites and having to force myself to stop at about 500. With film scores, though, I tend to think of them almost exclusively as components of their respective films rather than separate entities (I own very few OSTs), and so I find myself essentially just going through my favourite films and picking out the ones that have notable scores.

So: Taxi Driver, Citizen Kane, There Will Be Blood, The Red Shoes…

[Thor Joachim Haga]

As a compulsive list-maker, this is the type of topic that could have me wasting half a day compiling an ever-increasing list of favourites and having to force myself to stop at about 500.

Oh yes, let’s do FILMS at some point! 😉

[Nicolai P. Zwar]

Films is different… I was looking primarily at scores I enjoy to listen to apart from the movie, though I enjoy a lot of the movies on my list (but not all). I’ve never even seen THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR or THE RED PONY, yet the scores made my list. 🙂

[Gloin the Dark]

Oh yes, let’s do FILMS at some point! 😉

Haha – that will be my week down the drain.

The last time I made a list of favourite films I went to about a thousand.

[Nicolai P. Zwar]

Okay, here’s now the final decade (apart from the current one)

Like with Lord of the Rings, you’ve got the Hobbit scores in that decade. Now they are not on the same level as THE LORD OF THE RINGS, and the movies are certainly not nearly as good, but Shore’s score lacks only in comparison but is still is quite a very good score and achievement. So it gets a full mention:

2012  The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Howard Shore)
2013  The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (Howard Shore)
2014  The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (Howard Shore)

But here are my takes “Hobbit-free”. I just did a cursory look through my collection, quite possible I would fine tune this (like any other list) or switch and change things, if I think a bit more about it.

2010  Tron: Legacy (Daft Punk)
2011  Drive (Cliff Martinez)
2012  Cloud Atlas (Tom Tykwer, Johnny Klimek, Reinhold Heil)
2013  Oblivion (M83)
2014  Interstellar (Hans Zimmer)
2015  Jupiter Ascending (Michael Giacchino)
2016  Arrival (Jóhann Jóhannsson)
2017  Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (Alexandre Désplat) (or BLADE RUNNER 2049 by Benjamin Wallfisch & Hans Zimmer… I couldn’t really make up my mind)
2018  First Man (Justin Hurwitz)
2019  A Hidden Life (James Newton Howard)

[Blaize]

You know what!? I find this quite interesting. When I get some time, I may even do something like this with my expertise: Japanese film music. Granted, I’m not well versed on a whole lot after the ’70s, but I’ll give it a shot.

[Thor Joachim Haga]

If anyone should start a thread on Japanese film music here, it’s you, Blaize! (I thought we had one, but it was Chinese, not Japanese). I’ve been reluctant to create one myself, as it’s such an overwhelming world. So we only have topics on composers like Naoki Sato and a few other things. But I say go for it, whether it’s just a general thread or a “favourite film scores of entire history” thread like this.

Nick, feel free to repost your list as one whole thing. Would love to get the whole overview.

[Cailin]

Amazing lists, Nick. This is a really fun idea to list favorites by year! I’ll have to work on that at some point, as it would be neat to see a snapshot of what I was listening to/really loving over the years. I’m also going to listen to a few of your favorites that I see and haven’t heard!

[Author]

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