‘Tis the season for year-end lists, but sometimes lost in the shuffle is the work of the craftspeople who are vital to a film’s success yet go unnoticed. Actors and directors are the most visible personifications of any film, but the composer is often overlooked despite the fact that his or her work is many times the glue that holds the narrative together. As such, I’ve opted to highlight some of the year’s best film scores and the composers responsible for putting together the music that accompanied some of our favorite films. It was a good year for original scores, as this list ranges from the minimal to the orchestral to the downright experimental. Take a look (and listen) below, and sound off with your own favorite scores of the year in the comments.

10) Hell or High Water – Nick Cave & Warren Ellis

Recording artist Nick Cave is no stranger to film scores having worked previously on movies like The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and The Road, but Cave and Warren Ellis’ score for the indie thriller Hell or High Water is no less exciting. Their signature guitar flourishes abound, but this time holding an air of tension throughout as David Mackenzie’s terrific heist picture builds in intensity to its surprising climax.

9) Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them – James Newton Howard

I’ll be honest, I’ve never been a huge fan of James Newton Howard’s work. He’s an accomplished composer to be sure, but for whatever reason his themes don’t tend to hook me. However, I found Howard’s score for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them to be one of the very best “blockbuster” scores of the year, paying homage to the tremendous compositions of the Harry Potter franchise while carving out a new niche for the Fantastic Beasts world. The score sways from light and funny to disturbing and foreboding, and Howard does a swell job of navigating the various tones of the picture.

8) Lion – Dustin O’Halloran & Hauschka

Composer Dustin O’Halloran’s work on films like Equals, Like Crazy, and Breathe In proved his worth as a beautifully talented composer in his own right, but his collaboration with German pianist and composer Hauschka for the tearjerker drama Lion might be his best work yet. The piano-driven score is emotional without ever being predictable, as the two compose these lyrical, winding themes that mirror the inner turmoil and confusion of the film’s lead character Saroo. With so many film scores packed to the brim with horns and strings and electronics nowadays, O’Halloran and Hauschka prove that a simple piano can still do the trick.

7) Moonlight – Nicholas Britell

Much like the film itself, Nicholas Britell’s score for Moonlight is poetic. Writer/director Barry Jenkins’ coming-of-age story is a stunning piece of filmmaking, crafted as a narrative tryptic that overwhelms the audience with emotional information rather than exposition. And Britell’s score follows suit, crashing in and out almost like a tide, folding back in on itself by the film's end to immensely emotional results.

6) Arrival – Jóhann Jóhannsson

Composer Jóhann Jóhannsson managed to dowright terrify audiences with his score for last year’s Sicario, and his next collaboration with director Denis Villeneuve is likewise very weird and very good. Jóhannsson continues to blur the lines between composition and sound design with Arrival, as he uses alien-like sounds to mimic the daunting ships that arrive on Earth while blending the tones into something of a melody. That Jóhannsson is able to do this so well while also layering themes for the film’s emotional drive is a testament to his versatility, and he’s quickly become one of the most exciting composers working today.

5) Kubo and the Two Strings – Dario Marianelli

For a film like Kubo and the Two Strings, music is essential to the story. This tale of a young boy with a magical guitar doesn’t work without music the audience can buy, and composer Dario Marianelli does a tremendous job of selling the hell out of it. Marianelli is also able to craft themes that fit right into the film’s Asian aesthetic without coming off as stale or mimic-y. This is the composer’s second time working with the stop-motion animation studio Laika, but it may be his best score since Atonement. There’s a playfulness to the score that’s refreshing, and the stripped-down quality of some of his themes are a perfect fit with this intimate fairy tale.

4) 10 Cloverfield Lane – Bear McCreary

One of the year’s best scores actually came quite early with the top-notch Hitchcokian thriller 10 Cloverfield Lane. Composer Bear McCreary is prolific on the small screen, crafting the scores and themes for shows like Battlestar Galactica, The Walking Dead, and Da Vinci’s Demons, but his work on 10 Cloverfield Lane is his best yet, and proof positive that this guy should be scoring more films. He nails the Bernard Hermann homage without leaning too heavily on one composer, drawing from a variety of influences (you can definitely hear Jerry Goldsmith in there) to craft one hell of an original composition. It’s flighty, it’s terrifying, it’s dynamic—McCreary perfectly matches the roller coaster ride that is 10 Cloverfield Lane with a score that’s as rich as it is effective, and boy is it effective.

3) Jackie – Mica Levi

Musician Mica Levi made her film composing debut with a wholly unique score for 2013’s Under the Skin, and she does it again with Pablo Larrain’s striking, intimate Jackie. The film is more a portrait of Jackie Kennedy than a straight biopic, with Larrain more interested in meditating on grief and legacy than relaying the particulars of the former First Lady’s life, and Levi’s score is essential to this piece of art. Jackie is incomplete without this score, which begins before a single image appears on the screen. It’s almost hypnotic as Levi plays with various tones and volumes, waving in and out as if we’re in a dream. Indeed, Jackie itself is dreamlike, which makes it all the more effective. The film forces audiences to enter the headspace of Jackie Kennedy in the hours and days following her husband’s assassination, and Levi soundtracks this head-trip to spectacular, singular results.

2) Swiss Army Man – Andy Hull and Robert McDowell

I’ve never seen a movie like Swiss Army Man, so it’s only fitting that directors Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan’s unique buddy comedy/drama is accompanied by a wholly unique score. Andy Hull and Robert McDowell of Manchester Orchestra fame craft a tremendous soundtrack here, filled to the brim with a capella work that even includes the voices of Daniel Radcliffe and Paul Dano. The thinking here is that since Dano’s character is alone on an island with Radcliffe's "swiss army man" corpse, the soundtrack is made up of human sounds rather than something more traditional. It was a bold move on Scheinert and Kwan’s parts, but it paid off in spades with a score that is shockingly triumphant.

1) La La Land – Justin Hurwitz

Oftentimes with musicals, the actual score is overshadowed by the original songs. That’s not the case with filmmaker Damien Chazelle’s masterful La La Land, which is buoyed by a delightful original score from songwriter Justin Hurwitz. The score compliments the songs perfectly but doesn’t only work because viewers recognize familiar themes. Compositions like “Mia & Sebastian’s Theme” are lonely and sad and romantic all at once, while Hurwitz goes straight throwback with the golden age evocative “Planetarium” and “Summer Montage.” The La La Land score doesn’t just work because it bolsters the film’s original songs, or because it sounds like the old Hollywood scores we used to love. It works because it goes above and beyond, morphing into something wholly original and unique that straddles the line between classic Hollywood musical and contemporary composition. That’s the tightrope walk that Chazelle pulls off with the film as a whole, and Hurwitz’s compositions are just as spectacular.

Honorable Mentions: The HandmaidenPete's DragonMidnight SpecialThe Witch

For more of COLLIDER’s Best of 2016 coverage, click here or on the links below.

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Image via Lionsgate