In film and television, music can work magnificently to add emotional depth, set a tone and compliment the atmosphere of a scene. Film score is music composed specifically for a certain movie. While some score is significant and obvious in its impact on a scene, music can also be used to subtly elicit a particular emotion from the audience or foreshadow events that are to come in the plot. Regardless of how it is used, music has always been considered a significantly important aspect of filmmaking
There are countless famous film scores which movie fans would be able to recognize in an instant, but the composers of that amazing music are often not given the credit or attention that they deserve. There are many iconic composers in the film industry who have worked on a number of the most popular movies to date. Fans would be surprised to hear that the same man who composed for the memorable Star Wars soundtrack also composed for Harry Potter. Here are 10 film composers whose work you would recognize immediately.
1 John Williams
John Williams is an American composer, pianist and conductor who has written some of the most recognizable film score in cinematic history. His work has been widely critically acclaimed, and he has the second most Academy Award nominations in history, following the infamous Walt Disney. Williams, by many, is acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most successful film composers of all time.
Williams has written over 100 film scores, including work for some of the most famous movies. His compositions include the renowned and ominous Jaws theme, the still-prominent Star Wars tunes, the magical score of the first three Harry Potter movies, as well as the soundtracks of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jurassic Park, Schindler's List and many more of the most infamous scores that movie viewers would instantly recognize.
2 Hans Zimmer
Hans Zimmer is a German film composer and music producer who's won multiple Oscars and Grammys. He owns his own film score company called Remote Control Productions and is head of DreamWorks Pictures and DreamWorks Animation's music division. Hans Zimmer currently has 9.6 million monthly listeners on Spotify.
Due to his work on many of the most renowned films of the last two decades, Zimmer's name has been brought to the attention of even casual movie watchers. Zimmer won the 2022 Academy Award for Best Music for Dune, but has also been praised for his memorable work on Pirates of the Caribbean, Interstellar, Inception, and The Dark Knight. His Inception soundtrack is the most streamed film score on Spotify and Zimmer is the most streamed composer of all time on the platform, proving that his legendary work has cemented him into the film composer wall of fame.
3 Max Steiner
Max Steiner was an Austrian film composer and conductor. Widely considered the "father of film music", Steiner was one of the first composers to write music for films. Steiner has received several Oscars nominations and awards. By the end of his career, his discography incorporated over 300 film scores.
Steiner's best known film score was for Gone With The Wind, but he's also become famous for his work for King Kong. Steiner's theme for A Summer Place has 30 million listens on Spotify and his main title for Gone With The Wind has over a million.
4 Monty Norman
Monty Norman was a British musician who started his career singing for bands, but he became much more successful after he made the switch from singing to composing. Norman composed for various performers, musicals and films for six decades.
Everyone is familiar with the signature theme of the James Bond franchise. Norman is responsible for writing the theme which was originally commissioned for the 1962 Dr No. The song has become a massive contributor to the success of the James Bond series.
5 James Horner
James Horner was an American composer who was responsible for some of the most critically acclaimed and beloved music of all time. He became well establish due to his composition for the 1982 film Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan. Throughout his career, Horner won two Academy Awards, six Grammys, and a variety of other prestigious wards.
Horner's emotional and famous score for James Cameron's Titanic is the best-selling orchestral film soundtrack in cinematic history. His discography contains songs that people of all ages can recognize within just seconds, including "My Heart Will Go On". A following collaboration with James Cameron was for equally famous film Avatar.
6 Bill Conti
Bill Conti is an American-Italian composer and conductor who rose to fame after being hired to compose for the 1976 sports drama film Rocky. The film's budget for music was considered very low, but the film's massive success grew alongside the hit theme song.
Many people don't know Conti's name but are very familiar with the lyrics of his song, "Gonna Fly Now", the theme from Rocky. The upbeat song is in countless people's workout playlists worldwide and has accumulated over 108 million streams on just Spotify. "Gonna Fly Now" earned Conti an Academy Award nomination and topped the Billboard singles chart in 1977.
7 Joe Hisaishi
Joe Hisaishi is a Japanese composer and musical director who's composed over 100 film scores. He's a long time collaborator with Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki and has written score for all but one of Miyazaki's films. Hisaishi has won seven Japanese Academy Awards for Best Music.
Hisaishi is known for his compositions on the massively famous Spirited Away, as well as Princess Mononoke, Howl's Moving Castle, My Neighbor Totoro and many more animated films. Hisaishi's work has been commended for making the Studio Ghibli films emotionally evocative and helping bring to life their fantastical world building.
8 Bernard Herrmann
Bernard Herrmann was an American composer and conductor who scored for over four decades. He was a recurring collaborator with director Alfred Hitchcock and an Academy Award winner. He is commonly considered to be one of the greatest film composers in cinematic history.
Herrmann has written for Citizen Kane, Vertigo, The Devil and Daniel Webster, and Taxi Driver. However, his most famous piece would arguably be the suspenseful and chilling score for Psycho. Herrmann's song "The Murder", which is played during the film's infamous shower scene, is likely the tune in everyone's head when they think "thriller."
9 Ennio Morricone
Ennio Morricone was an Italian composer and orchestrator who wrote for film and television as well as classical music. He's composed more than 400 scores for television and movies and wrote for more than 70 award-winning films. His most notable work belongs to films of the Western genre.
His most recognizable score is that of the 1966 The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly's main theme has since defined the genre and is often comically used in amateur showdown scenes and fan-made clips online.
10 John Barry
John Barry was a British five time Academy Award-winning and Grammy winning composer. As the son of a man who owned multiple movie theaters, Barry grew up in a cinematic environment and took inspiration from his daily film watching. Before finishing school, he'd already decided to pursue composing for film.
Barry composed for eleven of the James Bond films and arranged Monty Norman's compositions for the 007 theme song. He has also written the infamous scores for Out of Africa, Dancing with Wolves, and many more. His work across his film discography is easily recognizable to many film lovers worldwide.