Favorite Movie Composers

1. Hans Zimmer

German-born composer Hans Zimmer is recognized as one of Hollywood's most innovative musical talents. He featured in the music video for The Buggles' single "Video Killed the Radio Star", which became a worldwide hit and helped usher in a new era of global entertainment as the first music video to ...

2. Vangelis

Composer | Blade Runner

Vangelis was a composer and performer who worked almost exclusively with electronic instruments. With Jean-Michel Jarre and Mike Oldfield in the 1970s, Vangelis was a pioneer in the instrumental music and a main influence in the creation of the musical genre "new age," a style related to spiritual,...

3. Tom Holkenborg

Soundtrack | Mad Max: Fury Road

Tom Holkenborg, aka Junkie XL, is a Grammy-nominated multi-platinum producer, musician, composer and educator whose versatility puts him on the cutting edge of contemporary music, and whose thirst for innovation is helping to reimagine the world of composition.

A full-contact composer, Holkenborg is...

4. Ryuichi Sakamoto

Composer | The Last Emperor

Ryuichi Sakamoto was born on January 17, 1952 in Tokyo, Japan. He was a composer and actor, known for The Last Emperor (1987), The Revenant (2015) and Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (1983). He was married to Akiko Yano. He died on March 28, 2023 in Tokyo, Japan.

5. Trevor Rabin

Composer | Deep Blue Sea

Trevor Rabin was born in South Africa in 1954. He began playing guitar at the age of 12 after having had piano lessons since he was a toddler. In 1972 he formed the band Rabbit becoming the most successful rock act ever to emerge from South Africa. Rabin left Rabbit to pursue a solo career in ...

6. James Horner

Music_department | Titanic

James Horner began studying piano at the age of five, and trained at the Royal College of Music in London, England, before moving to California in the 1970s. After receiving a bachelor's degree in music at USC, he would go on to earn his master's degree at UCLA and teach music theory there. He ...

7. John Williams

Composer | Jurassic Park

As one of the best known, awarded, and financially successful composers in US history, John Williams is as easy to recall as John Philip Sousa, Aaron Copland or Leonard Bernstein, illustrating why he is "America's composer" time and again. With a massive list of awards that includes over 52 Oscar ...

8. Ennio Morricone

Composer | The Hateful Eight

A classmate of director Sergio Leone with whom he would form one of the great director/composer partnerships (right up there with Eisenstein & Prokofiev, Hitchcock & Herrmann, Fellini & Rota), Ennio Morricone studied at Rome's Santa Cecilia Conservatory, where he specialized in trumpet. His first ...

9. Marco Frisina

Composer | Joseph

Marco Frisina was born on December 16, 1954 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. He is a composer, known for Joseph (1995), Abraham (1993) and Dante's Inferno (2024).

10. Trent Reznor

Soundtrack | The Social Network

Trent Reznor is an American songwriter/musician/producer and sole member of multi-platinum act Nine Inch Nails, and now an Academy Award, Emmy and Grammy Award winning film composer. He began creating music as a child in Western Pennsylvania, first on piano and then taking up other instruments. He ...

11. Atticus Ross

Soundtrack | The Social Network

Atticus Ross was born on January 16, 1968 in England, UK. He is a composer and actor, known for The Social Network (2010), The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) and Mank (2020). He has been married to Claudia Sarne since 2001. They have three children.

12. Randy Edelman

Music_department | The Last of the Mohicans

Randy Edelman was born on June 10, 1947 in Paterson, New Jersey, USA. He is a composer and actor, known for The Last of the Mohicans (1992), xXx (2002) and Anaconda (1997). He has been married to Jackie DeShannon since June 3, 1976. They have one child.

13. Trevor Jones

Composer | Cliffhanger

As a child in Cape Town, Trevor Jones lived opposite the Gem Cinema. The theater was so old and worn out that there was often a loss of the soundtrack, which caused him to realize its power. The fact that everyone in his family worked in film or the theater made it easy to get support in his career...

14. Blake Neely

Composer | Greyhound

Blake Neely was born on April 28, 1969 in Paris, Texas, USA. He is a composer and actor, known for Greyhound (2020), All American (2018) and You (2018).

15. Danny Elfman

Music_department | The Nightmare Before Christmas

As Danny Elfman was growing up in the Los Angeles area, he was largely unaware of his talent for composing. It wasn't until the early 1970s that Danny and his older brother Richard Elfman started a musical troupe while in Paris; the group "Mystic Knights of Oingo-Boingo" was created for Richard's ...

16. Howard Shore

Music_department | The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Howard Shore is a Canadian composer, born in Toronto. He was born in a Jewish family. He started studying music when 8-years-old, and played as a member of bands by the time he was 13-years-old. He was interested in a professional career in music as a teenager. He studied music at the Berklee ...

17. Jerry Goldsmith

Composer | L.A. Confidential

Born on February 10, 1929, Jerry Goldsmith studied piano with Jakob Gimpel and composition, theory, and counterpoint with Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. He also attended classes in film composition given by Miklós Rózsa at the Univeristy of Southern California. In 1950, he was employed as a clerk ...

18. Clint Mansell

Composer | Black Swan

Clinton Darryl Mansell is an English singer, musician and film composer known for his collaborations with Darren Aronofsky. He composed Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, Black Swan, The Wrestler, Noah, Ghost in the Shell, Peacemaker, Doom Patrol, Loving Vincent, Mass Effect 3, Titans, World ...

19. Jeff Danna

Composer | Onward

Jeff Danna is an award-winning Canadian film composer. Born in Burlington, Ontario, to a musical family active in local theatre and church choir, Danna was a reluctant young piano student but found solace in an electric guitar left behind at his home by a friend. Unknowingly following in the path ...

20. John Debney

Composer | The Jungle Book

Throughout his legendary career, composer John Debney has seen himself in equal demand for holiday classics such as Hocus Pocus and Elf, tentpoles like Iron Man 2, The Jungle Book, and The Greatest Showman, and the powerful epic The Passion of the Christ, for which he received an Academy Award ...

21. Justin Hurwitz

Soundtrack | La La Land

Justin Hurwitz was born on January 22, 1985 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He is a writer and producer, known for La La Land (2016), First Man (2018) and Whiplash (2014).

22. Lorne Balfe

Composer | The Lego Batman Movie

Lorne Balfe was born on February 23, 1976 in Inverness, Scotland, UK. He is a composer, known for The Lego Batman Movie (2017), Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011) and Black Widow (2021).

23. Ramin Djawadi

Composer | Game of Thrones

Ramin Djawadi is an Iranian-German film score composer known for composing the hit HBO series Game of Thrones and the Marvel films Blade: Trinity, Iron Man and Eternals. He also composed Clash of the Titans, A Wrinkle in Time, Pacific Rim, Westworld, Gears of War 4 and 5, Medal of Honor, Open ...

24. Benjamin Wallfisch

Composer | Blade Runner 2049

Golden Globe, BAFTA, 2x Grammy, Emmy and 5x World Soundtrack Award nominated composer Benjamin Wallfisch has worked on over 80 feature films, collaborating with directors including Ron Howard, Ted Melfi, Andy Muschietti, Christopher Nolan, David F. Sandberg, Leigh Whannell, Gore Verbinski, and ...

25. James Newton Howard

Composer | King Kong

James Newton Howard attended the University of Southern California's music school, but dropped out to tour with Elton John, and eventually compose music for film and television. He started with Head Office (1985) in 1985. He has been nominated for eight Academy Awards. He currently is a songwriter, ...

26. Elliot Goldenthal

Music_department | Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

Elliot Goldenthal is an Academy Award-winning composer best known for his original music scores for such films as Frida (2002) and Across the Universe (2007), among his other works.

He was born on May 2, 1954, in Brooklyn, New York. His father was a house-painter, and his mother was a seamstress. ...

27. Alan Silvestri

Composer | The Polar Express

In his ongoing, decades-long career as a composer, Alan Silvestri has blazed an innovative trail with his exciting and melodic scores, winning the applause of Hollywood and movie audiences the world over. With a credit list of over 100 films Silvestri has composed some of the most recognizable and ...

28. Elmer Bernstein

Composer | Far from Heaven

Elmer Bernstein was educated at the Walden School and New York University. He served in the US Army Air Corps in World War II, writing scores for the service radio unit. He also wrote and arranged musical numbers for Glenn Miller's Army Air Force Band. A prolific and respected film music composer, ...

29. Shirley Walker

Music_department | True Lies

Shirley Walker was born in Napa, California in 1945. She was educated at Pleasant Hill High School; attended San Francisco State College on piano scholarship; studied composition with Dr. Roger Nixon; and piano with Harald Logan of Berkeley, California. She was soloist with San Francisco Symphony ...

30. Trevor Morris

Composer | Hunter Killer

Trevor Morris is writer, composer and director for Film & Television. Canadian born and dual citizen of Great Britain, Trevor splits his time between his home and studios in Los Angeles and Toronto Canada. Trevor has contributed to 30 Feature Films and over 700 hours of 1-Hour dramatic Television. ...

31. Jóhann Friðgeir Jóhannson

Composer | Requiem

Jóhann Friðgeir Jóhannson is known for Requiem (2013).

32. John Paesano

Composer | Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

John Paesano is an Emmy Award®-nominated and BAFTA-winning composer, producer, conductor, and arranger for film, television, and video games. He studied classical music with Professor Sally Dow Miller of Conservatoire de Paris, and continued his studies at Berklee College of Music, focusing on ...

33. Klaus Badelt

Composer | Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

Composer Klaus Badelt started his musical career writing and producing music for dozens of highly successful movies and commercials in his native Germany. In 1998, Oscar-winning composer Hans Zimmer invited him to move his musical home to Media Ventures in Santa Monica, CA. Since then, Klaus has ...

34. Burkhard von Dallwitz

Composer | The Truman Show

Burkhard von Dallwitz was born on January 28, 1959 in Bad Homburg vor der Höhe, Hesse, Germany. He is a composer and actor, known for The Truman Show (1998), The Way Back (2010) and Underbelly (2008).

35. Henry Jackman

Composer | Captain Phillips

Henry Jackman has established himself as one of today's top composers by fusing his classical training with his experience as a successful record producer and creator of electronic music.

Jackman grew up in the southeast of England, where he began composing his first symphony at the age of six. He ...

36. Jeff van Dyck

Music_department | Alien: Isolation

Jeff van Dyck is known for Alien: Isolation (2014), Rome: Total War (2004) and Unpacking (2021).

37. Joel Goldsmith

Music_department | Star Trek: First Contact

One of six children of the legendary composer Jerry Goldsmith, and the oldest son, Joel Goldsmith's own career in film scoring began in 1978, when he collaborated with Richard Band on the score for Laserblast (1978). Joel Goldsmith next worked as sound mixer for another Band project, The Day Time ...

38. Bear McCreary

Composer | The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

Bear McCreary is a degreed graduate of the prestigious USC Thornton School of Music (in 'Composition and Recording Arts'). Bear McCreary was one of a small and select group of proteges of the late, many-honored film composer Elmer Bernstein. Although he is now firmly in the mainstream of film ...

39. Miklós Rózsa

Composer | Ben-Hur

A child prodigy, Miklos Rózsa learned to play the violin at the age of five and read music before he was able to read words. In 1926, he began studying at the Leipzig Conservatory where he was considered a brilliant student. He obtained his doctorate in music in 1930. Moving to Paris the following ...

40. Alfred Newman

Music_department | The King and I

Alfred Newman is an American composer, arranger, and conductor of film music.

From his start as a music prodigy, he came to be regarded as a respected figure in the history of film music. He won nine Academy Awards and was nominated 45 times, contributing to the Newmans being the most nominated ...