What are your top 10 favourite film composers?
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Also an age-old classic topic, and a nice companion to the “what are your top 10 favourite soundtracks?” thread.
I revised my list about two years ago, so now it looks like this:
1. JOHN WILLIAMS
2. Hans Zimmer
3. Vangelis
4. James Horner
5. Zbigniew Preisner
6. Giorgio Moroder
7. Tangerine Dream
8. Ennio Morricone
9. James Newton Howard
10. Thomas NewmanI 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. 🙂Here I have to admit, that John Williams is my absolute top favourite. From all other composers in my top 10 I like aproximately 30% of their work. And their ranking results from how much I like their great 30%.
And of course the list is just a momentary picture.
And main criterion for me is how much I like their music. How well it works in which movie is secondary for me.1. John Williams
2. Miklós Rózsa
3. Jerry Goldsmith
4. Elmer Bernstein
5. Philippe Rombi
6. Joe Hisaishi
7. Philippe Sarde
8. Bernhard Hermann
9. James Newton Howard
10. Dario MarianelliHonorable mentions:
Danny Elfman
Franz Waxman
James Horner
Alan Silvestri
Howard Shore
Christopher Young
Patrick Doyle
John Barry
Ennio MorriconeNice lists! I can understand the frustration in boiling it down to 10. I’ve made a “thought construct” for myself, that I think about every night before I go to sleep (I need something to divert my brain from the tinnitus), and it’s a construct that is able to encompass my relationship to all film composers who ever lived, and sorta rank them. I can talk about that later, if it sounds interesting at all.
I can say Rózsa, North, Herrmann, Goldsmith and Morricone would be “fixed” as my top five favorite film composers, but I like a lot of other composers as well, so the other five slots may be “rotating”.
To be honest, I had a look at my collection and from the pure number of albums per composer I took the first indication for my ranking.
And that was the reason for my high Goldsmith ranking. Yes, he wrote great scores. But I am not a huge fan of his 80s and 90s super reverb synth heavy sound. And often I think, he didn’t produce great albums. But each time I considered my Goldsmith collection complete something great that I didn’t know before comes along.Something like
Ennio Morricone
Piero Piccioni
Bruno Nicolai
Armando Trovajoli
Luis Bacalov
Stelvio Cipriani
Nino Rota
Philippe Sarde
François de Roubaix
Francis LaiJerry Goldsmith
John Williams
Ennio Morricone
Miklos Rozsa
Bernhard Herrmann
Elliot Goldenthal
Lalo Schifrin
John Barry
Christopher Young
Dimitri TiomkinIt’s just an attempt annd hard to limit it. The positions after 3rd are more or less random…
And that was the reason for my high Goldsmith ranking. Yes, he wrote great scores. But I am not a huge fan of his 80s and 90s super reverb synth heavy sound.
I generally like Goldsmith best until mid-80s. The 80s synths can really be hit and miss. TOTAL RECALL is to me the last really great score. There are some good ones in the 90s but they pale against the others for me, too.
TOTAL RECALL is to me the last really great score.
To me it’s probably The Mummy.
Even though, I found L.A. Confidential great, too.
To me it’s probably The Mummy. Even though, I found L.A. Confidential great, too.
Yes, those and other scores like City Hall, The Shadow or even the rather unusal Fierce Creatures are some of later scores I like, too. But they all miss the “edgyness” especially in action stuff of his earlier works.
I like all Jerry Goldsmith scores (well, okay, except for ANGIE), but of course I don’t like them all the same. Still, I would rank HOLLOW MAN with the best of them, it’s one of the most elegant and exciting scores of his later period. Likewise STAR TREK – NEMESIS, absolutely terrific score. And LOONEY TUNES – BACK IN ACTION is wonderful, very charming and full of energy.
I like all Jerry Goldsmith scores (well, okay, except for ANGIE), but of course I don’t like them all the same
Good summary fitting me as well generally. As the say gois “A bad Goldsmith is always better than some good by others” 😉 Hollow Man never really grabbed me as didn’t Nemesis. But since I am sort of Trekkie I tolerate it 😉
As the say gois “A bad Goldsmith is always better than some good by others”
Yeah, that’s true. Interestingly, as far as I’m concerned, HOLLOW MAN and NEMESIS is up there with the best with them.
Guess, I need to revisit Hollow Man… Another good later one is FIRST KNIGHT, although I only know the old album.
Hollow Man is like a mix of TOTAL RECALL and BASIC INSTINCT (incidentally all Paul Verhoeven films).
It’s one of the great “sci-fi concept” scores Goldsmith was so good at; Goldsmith was excellent at scoring science-fiction movies with musical ideas and motives representing concepts within the movie.
I recently had a look at my Goldsmith collection and tried to categorize them somehow like Western, Horror, Science Fiction, Action, Thriller, Historical Drama, Fantasy. But I found out quite quickly that this is easier said than done because he had so many hybrid projects.
Anyway, I would say, I have a special preference for his Western scores and Fantasy, if we count in Legend, The Mummy and Poltergeist, maybe The Omen.
The topic science fiction by Goldsmith is really a mixed bag.In a way to me it seemed often that a brillant musician spent a lot of technical effort to sound cheap (I only say “synth farts”).
Also often he seemed to give away his best themes for low profile projects.Anyway, somehow you don’t get around Goldsmith as a movie score fan, but when I look at him purely as a fan of orchestral music he is in the “weird” corner.
Also often he seemed to give away his best themes for low profile projects.
Well, Goldsmith is the king of good score for not so good moves, isn’t he?
Yes, on some of his 80s synth score it sounds a bit cheap. At least nowdays. I think I read somewhere that he basically always used factory sounds and perhaps that is a bit too “plain”. Although other 80s score often suffer from the same.
I don’t like to use the term “dated” because every music is a child of its time. I think it primarily affects his scores from the mid-80s on. UNDER FIRE, LEGEND or GREMLINS find less problematic. I find RUNAWAY exspecially weird. I like it but I always felt it is actually written for orchestra and not really for synths.
Hollow Man has, as I recall it, one of the better DVD audio commentary tracks from Goldsmith. I think he only did two or three of those, while that whole concept was trending in the early 2000s. I’ll have to revisit those tracks at some point, as it provides a unique window into his way of interpreting a picture.
On the subject of Goldsmith, I find the Star Trek Voyager Theme to be the best of the Trek-themes. To have a theme so simple, yet projected with such nobility, grandeur and sophistication, is astonishing to listen to. I could listen to it every day, and never tire. I believe there is an interview with Joel McNeely, who orchestrated for him, where he of Goldsmith says something to the effect of “so few notes, so much music”.
I don’t know any of his 80s scores that sound “cheap”…. Even the purely electronic ones, like CRIMINAL LAW, tend to be very well constructed.
Goldsmith used almost always “standard” samples, because he treated synthesizers like any other instrument, preferring to find out what he could do with the standard sounds rather than have custom sounds made.
I have always enjoyed Goldsmith’s blend of orchestral and electronic sounds, it gave many of his scores a very unique and individual sound palette.What sounds “cheap”? Sounds like an orchestra with additional synthesizers.
(Presumably more expensive than just the orchestra without synthesizers.)Yeah, sorry. I am a John Williams fan. Cheap are the synth farts, the repetitions, short melody lines…
Goldsmith used to be pretty regular in my top 10, but he’s now edged slightly off. Still like him a lot, with 70-80 titles in my collection, but his is not a sound I gravitate towards anymore. He’s now located in what I call “Waiting Room No. 1”.
Yeah, sorry. I am a John Williams fan. Cheap are the synth farts, the repetitions, short melody lines…
The synth effects sound a little dated like many mid 80s synths sound nowadays but that’s all to me… JW and JG fan so I guess we can agree that disagree 😉
I have a super long post ready to go about my “mental ranking system” of all film composers that could possibly be of interest in this thread, but it’s so bizarre, I’m hesitant to share it.
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