But then I started thinking about some of the categories and came upon the "Best Original Score" which is awarded to the individual who composed the best score for a movie.
That got to me thinking about the best scores in movie history and the men who composed them, which lead them to this list: The 10 Best Film Composers in History(in my opinion)
10. Vangelis
Though his film composing history is limited, the Greek composer did live his mark on cinematic movie scores.
First, there was his iconic theme to the 1981 Best Picture winner Chariots of Fire, which helped won the Oscar for best original score and was the #1 song on the Billboard charts in May of 1982.
Then, there was his score to the 1982 movie Blade Runner, where his synthesizers combined with pianos and saxophones helped make set the dark tone of the movie and help make it one of the great sci-fi films of all time.
9. John Barry
Barry won Oscars for his scores in 1966's Born Free and 1968's The Lion in Winter, then earned nominations for his musical compositions in Out of Africa and Dances With Wolves, plus wrote the score for the 1981 erotic thriller Body Heat.
But Barry is best known for his work with the James Bond franchise as he composed the score for the first seven films of the series and 12 overall with his last being 1987's The Living Daylights, plus collaborating with Monty Norman on the iconic "James Bond Theme".
8. James Horner
Horner might be best known for his work with James Cameron as he composed the score for three Cameron movies: Aliens, Avatar, and Titanic, which he won the Oscar for.
But Horner also wrote memorable scores to the movies Apollo 13, Braveheart, Field of Dreams, and Glory, which's end theme was used in the trailer for Backdraft, leading me to believe that it was going to be in Backdraft, not knowing it had actually be used before in Glory.
7. Hans Zimmer
Zimmer's career began to take off in the late 80s when he composed the scores for back-to-back Best Picture winners Rain Man and Driving Miss Daisy.
Following his Oscar win for The Lion King, Zimmer's work crossed over into summer blockbusters such as Crimson Tide, The Rock, Gladiator, and the Pirates of the Caribbean films(he did not receive credit for the Curse of the Black Pearl, which had the best score out of all the Pirates films).
But his collaboration with fellow composer James Newton Howard on the score for The Dark Knight Trilogy and Man of Steel is what landed him a spot on this list.
6. Henry Mancini
Still, Mancini did all right for himself without Williams as his "Love Theme" from the 1968 version of Romeo & Juliet hit #1 on the Billboard charts and wrote the iconic the "Pink Panther" theme from the 1963 movie.
5. Elmer Bernstein
Bernstein made a name for himself in the 1960s by composing the classic themes to The Magnificent Seven and The Great Escape as well as composing the music for To Kill A Mockingbird.
That would have been enough for a career until Bernstein experienced a renaissance when he wrote the score for the comedy National Lampoon's Animal House, which began a string of comedies in which Bernstein would provide the score for(Airplane!, The Blues Brothers, Trading Places, and Ghostbusters).
Bernstein was nominated 10 times for Best Original Score, winning once for 1967's Thoroughly Modern Millie.
4. Bernard Herrmann
When your first movie score is Citizen Kane which many film critics consider the greatest movie of all time, and your last movie score is the 1976 classic Taxi Driver, I guess that would constitute as a pretty good career for a film composer.
But it was Herrmann's collaboration with film director Alfred Hitchcock, that made him one of the all-time great composers as he composed the score for seven of Hitchcock's films including Vertigo, Psycho, and North By Northwest(my personal favorite).
Although he was nominated only five times for an Oscar and won only once, The Devil and Miss Daniel Webster in 1941(the same year he was nominated for Citizen Kane), Herrmann made his mark on cinematic movie score history.
3. Max Steiner
To tell you the truth, I had never had of Max Steiner until I started do research for this article.
But when he saw the films he wrote the music for, I had to include him on the list.
Steiner was the John Williams of his day, which was the 1930s and 40s. as he wrote the score for some of the most famous of that era: King Kong(the 1933 version), Gone With the Wind and Casablanca.
Out of 24 nominations for Best Original Score, Steiner won three times(The Informer, Now, Voyager, and Since You Went Away).
While Steiner peaked in the 30s and 40s, he did come up with the memorable theme to A Summer Place, which was the number #1 song for nine consecutive weeks in 1960.
2. Jerry Goldsmith
Goldsmith also wrote the scores for classics such as the original Planet of the Apes, Chinatown, Poltergeist, and Alien to go along with other great scores such as the first three movies of the Rambo franchise and Air Force One.
But Goldsmith's most iconic piece of music is the theme to Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which would be later used as the theme to the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation.
1. John Williams
Who else do you think would be #1? I mean, you're talking about the man who has come up with some of the most iconic music in movie history: the Jaws theme, composing the soundtrack to the Star Wars Saga, the Raiders march in Raiders of the Lost Ark which become Indiana Jones' theme, as well as the theme to the original Superman movie.
Plus, Williams was responsible for the score on ET: The Extra-Terrestrial, Jurassic Park, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Schindler's List, and the Harry Potter series.
With a record 45 nominations for Best Original Score(five wins) and three of the American Film Institute(AFI)'s top 25 film scores of all time, including number #1 for Star Wars, it is easy to see why Williams is the greatest film composer of all time.
Plus, I can't imagine a world with the Imperial March(Darth Vader's theme);
No comments:
Post a Comment