Mark Mancina

Before Harry Gregson-Williams and John Powell composed their way out of Hans Zimmer's shadow, there was Mark Mancina. In the mid to late '90s, Mancina's style was as popular and influential as Zimmer's, but his music still retains its appeal today due to his strong sense of melody and his fondness for real orchestral sounds among all the synthetic beats. Although Mancina helped Zimmer on Millennium and True Romance, he played a vital role in producing the songs and arranging the music for The Lion King. Mancina went on to become the music supervisor for the stage show directed by Julie Taymor. Mancina soon established a powerful, exciting, tune-driven style for action, propelling films such as Speed, Bad Boys, Assassins, Money Train, and Twister. All of them have themes written in the Zimmer style, but tend to be more developed with more of an emphasis on the orchestra than on synthesizers. Mancina works often with director Antoine Fuqua, scoring Bait, Training Day, and Shooter. But Mancina isn't just a one-note composer, as he has written full, romantic scores for Moll Flanders, Return to Paradise, and August Rush (including a magnificent rhapsody "composed" by the film's main character). He has also established a relationship with Disney, composing Brother Bear, The Haunted Mansion, the percussive and wondrous Tarzan, the high-energy, anthemic Planes films, and the Walt Disney Pictures logo that debuted with Pirates of the Caribbean: Dean Man's Chest (incorporating Leigh Harline's tune "When You Wish Upon A Star"). A definite highlight is Mancina's score for the anime series Blood+, which features Mancina's trademark thunderous action, tender lyricism, grandeur, and an awe-inspiring aria.

Bad Boys

BLOOD+**

Brother Bear

The Haunted Mansion
Moana

Moll Flanders

Money Train
Planes
Planes: Fire & Rescue
Sorcery

Speed

Speed 2: Cruise Control

Tarzan*

Twister*

Andrew Lockington

Andrew Lockington has done about a dozen obscure scores and music for the TV shows Sanctuary and Missing, but he has gained popularity in the film scoring community for three major scores: Journey to the Center of the Earth with Brendan Fraser, Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, and City of Ember. All feature expertly orchestrated music and deftly composed themes.

Journey to the Center of the Earth
Journey 2: The Mysterious Island
San Andreas

Christopher Lennertz

Christopher Lennertz is a promising new composer who unfortunately has not scored many films of high quality. Lennertz worked for Basil Poledouris, and some of his works show that great composer's influence. One of his first assignments was for Clive Barker's Saint Sinner, but Lennertz really made an impact with his scores for the Medal of Honor games (Rising Sun, Pacific Assault, and European Assault), providing worthy counterparts to Michael Giacchino's brilliant originals. On the film side, Lennertz has mainly scored silly lightweight comedies such as Alvin and the Chipmunks, Disaster Movie, Marmaduke, the Cats and Dogs sequel, Camp Rock 2, Hop, and Horrible Bosses. Meet the Spartans and Vampires Suck are abysmal movies that Lennertz nevertheless scored with class and panache, featuring dramatic melodies and dead-serious themes in the best Elmer Bernstein tradition. His scores for these spoofs are better than many of those accompanying the movies they parody (300, Twilight, etc.) Given a serious film of quality, there is no doubt that Lennertz would deliver.

Medal of Honor: Rising Sun

Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault

Medal of Honor: European Assault

Meet the Spartans
Sausage Party* (with Alan Menken)

Vampires Suck

Tim Larkin

Tim Larkin has been the official composer for game company Cyan Worlds since the departure of Robyn Miller. He created atmospheric and ethnic music for the games Uru, Myst V: End of Ages, additional music for realMyst, and sound design for Riven (scored by Miller). He has done sound design and music for other video games and has played trumpet for artists such as James Brown, Ella Fitzgerald, and Huey Lewis.

Myst V: End of Ages

Abel Korzeniowski

Abel Korzeniowski is a new and dynamic force in film scoring, with a short but already impressive CV. Korzenioski was born in Poland and studied under experimental composer Krzysztof Penderecki. After scoring several Polish films, Korzenioski got his big break in Hollywood with his emotional and tender score for A Single Man. Madonna's W.E. features a similarly expressive score. He also wrote a thunderous, adventurous score for the animated film Battle for Terra and a glittering, Renaissance-flavored soundtrack for Copernicus' Star. His score for Romeo and Juliet was one of the best of the year, a sumptuous, romantic masterpiece written in his inimitable style. Korzeniowski's career is only getting started, and he deserves continued success.

Battle for Terra*
Copernicus' Star
Escape from Tomorrow
Nocturnal Animals
Penny Dreadful
Romeo and Juliet**
W.E.

Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Erich Wolfgang Korngold was unappreciated in his time, but he is now rightfully seen as one of the first composers to bring musical legitimacy to film scores. Born in 1897 in what was then Austria-Hungary, Korngold was a musical prodigy who garnered praise from none other than the great Gustav Mahler. Korngold started as a concert composer before coming to Hollywood to write some of the most influential film scores of all time. His brassy, lush, style features exciting fanfares and distinct use of thematic material. He was a great influence on John Williams, whose scores for Star Wars and Superman exhibit Korngoldian stylings. Korngold only wrote about 20 scores, but many of them are classics, from The Adventures of Robin Hood and The Sea Hawk to Kings Row and Anthony Adverse. Following his incomparable career in Hollywood, Korngold went back to scoring concert works, leaving behind a batch of brilliant and groundbreaking film scores.

The Adventures of Robin Hood**
Kings Row**
The Sea Hawk**
The Sea Wolf

Michael Kamen

Michael Kamen was one of those rare composers who could both compose in the classical vein and collaborate with pop musicians without sounding cheesy. Early in his career, he provided arrangements for Pink Floyd, Metallica, and Queen, which led to later collaborations with musicians such as Bryan Adams, Eric Clapton, and David Sanborn in his film scores. Kamen had a wonderfully whimsical style suffused with clever musical gestures and bold melodies. His music for the New Line Cinema logo depicts his lilting style perfectly. For a while, Kamen's style for action writing became de rigueur for the genre. This is typified by his scores for the original Die Hard trilogy, the cues of suspense balancing the furious orchestral pyrotechnics. Similar music can be found in Tony Scott's Last Boy Scout, the James Bond film License to Kill, the first X-Men, and Richard Donner's Lethal Weapon films. The latter series also features electric guitar work by Eric Clapton and saxophone performed by David Sanborn. Despite his acumen in this genre, Kamen had a particular strength for more romantic films. He collaborated with Terry Gilliam, providing colorful melodies for Brazil and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves features a masterful fanfare and a sweeping love theme used as the melody for Bryan Adams's hit "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You." Adams also sang in Kamen's scores for Disney's Three Musketeers and Don Juan De Marco. Kamen, like the best composers, scored films of many genres, from the melodrama of What Dreams May Come and the unsettling strains of The Dead Zone to the flighty adventure of 101 Dalmatians and the beautiful elegies of the TV miniseries Band of Brothers. One of Kamen's best scores is for Brad Bird's debut feature The Iron Giant. Although the score features plenty of enchantment and wonder, it also features unexpectedly dark and dramatic action material as well as one of the most emotionally cathartic musical finales in modern film scoring. Especially close to Kamen's heart was his score to Mr. Holland's Opus, for which Kamen composed a transcendent symphony for the title character. Following this, Kamen founded the Mr. Holland's Opus Foundation, providing funds for musical education and instruments to underprivileged schools. Sadly, Kamen passed away in 2003 at the much too young age of 55.

Adventures in Babysitting
Adventures of Baron Munchausen
Back to Gaya

Band of Brothers*

Brazil
Concerto for Saxophone

The Dead Zone

Die Hard
Die Hard 2: Die Harder
Die Hard with a Vengeance

Don Juan De Marco

Frequency
Guitar Concerto*

The Iron Giant**
The Last Boy Scout

Lethal Weapon*

Lethal Weapon 2

Lethal Weapon 3
Lethal Weapon 4
Lifeforce (Additional Score)

Mr. Holland’s Opus**
Renegades
Road House

Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves

The Three Musketeers

What Dreams May Come

X-Men (synths by Klaus Badelt)

101 Dalmatians

Trevor Jones

Trevor Jones was born in South Africa and obtained a Masters degree in film scoring in England. One of his first and finest scores was for Jim Henson's fantasy epic The Dark Crystal. While certainly a lush and rich score, The Dark Crystal is elevated by Jones's complex writing and assured use of thematic counterpoint. His next project for Henson was Labyrinth, where he provided a more pop-flavored score to accompany David Bowie's songs. Jones has scored other popular films, including Mississippi Burning, Arachnophobia, Cliffhanger, Ridley Scott's GI Jane, Notting Hill, Thirteen Days, and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Many of his scores feature soaring, expansive themes and busy action motifs. His score for Michael Mann's The Last of the Mohicans is the most well-known to the public, although Jones ran out of time on the project, and minor cues were written by Randy Edelman. The bulk of the thematic and dramatic material, however, was adeptly scored by Jones. Dark City features an unrelentingly brutal action climax followed by a massive finale. Jones has also scored for TV movies and miniseries, including Merlin, Cleopatra, and Dinotopia, each featuring music fit for a feature film. Jones has not scored a major feature since Disney's remake of Around the World in 80 Days in 2004, and he definitely deserves a higher profile.

Cleopatra

Cliffhanger

Dark City

The Dark Crystal*

Last of the Mohicans (with Randy Edelman)
Nate and Hayes

Ron Jones

Ron Jones has primarily composed for television, bringing creativity to a medium that often features banal scoring. He scored half of the episodes for the first few seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation as well as for Disney's DuckTales and The Smurfs. Most recently, he has been the composer for Seth McFarlane's Family Guy and American Dad.

Superman Animated Series

Henry Jackman

There are many composers who have gone through Hans Zimmer's Media Ventures/Remote Control facility, but only Mark Mancina, Harry Gregson-Williams, and John Powell have surpassed their former master to create interesting scores. Henry Jackman is well on his way to becoming the next member of this exclusive group. Jackman was classically trained in England and dabbled in Drum and Bass as a youth before becoming a programmer and producer for pop artists. Eventually, he created three of his own eclectic albums: Utopia, Transfiguration, and Acoustica. On the MySpace page for the Transfiguration album, Jackman writes, "I was subconsciously synthesizing 500 years of musical influence from Renaissance church music to modern electronica... I love Mahler as much as Aphex Twin, and Brian Eno as much as Thomas Tallis." Many of his interviews reveal his wide range of musical knowledge and enthusiastic approach to film scoring. Zimmer took notice of Jackman and gave him his first film scoring assignments. Jackman was soon writing additional music for The Da Vinci Code, The Holiday, Vantage Point, The Simpsons Movie, and Hancock. He wrote the music for the tense ferry scene in The Dark Knight, the majestic "Oogway Ascends" cue in Kung Fu Panda, and composed the riotous, rollicking "Up is Down" cue from Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End based on Zimmer's theme. Unsurprisingly, Jackman was soon given his first solo assignment, for Monsters vs. Aliens. He was one of the four composers for Matthew Vaughn's Kick-Ass, composing the main theme; he and John Murphy wrote the best cues of the score, including "Flying Home." Vaughn hired him for X-Men: First Class, where Jackman's initial orchestrally dense approach was toned down to a more streamlined, electronics-heavy, but still highly accomplished final score. Jackman  enjoys relationships with both DreamWorks Animation and Disney, having scored Monsters vs. Aliens, Puss in Boots, and Turbo for the former and Winnie the Pooh, Wreck-It Ralph, Big Hero 6, and the Toy Story short Small Fry for the latter.

Electronics feature heavily in his groove-based scores for Man on a Ledge, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, GI Joe: Retaliation, Paul Greengrass's Captain Phillips, and Marvel Studios's Captain America: The Winter Soldier, with his scores for Turbo, Big Hero 6, and Captain America: Civil War fusing the composer's talents for orchestra and electronica admirably.  Jackman's scores for Gulliver's Travels, Winnie the Pooh, and Puss in Boots, on the other hand, are pure orchestral delight, showcasing the composer's technical and dramatic chops. His score for the self-aware comedy This Is the End features full-blooded, Gothic horror music complete with gargantuan choral forces. With Kick-Ass 2, Jackman revisited his work on the first score, expanding upon his fantastic main theme alongside new themes written by the score's co-composer (and frequent orchestrator) Matthew Margeson. He also brought Margeson along for Vaughn's Kingsman: The Secret Service, providing exhilarating music and catchy themes for the outrageously entertaining film. Wreck-It Ralph is one of his best scores, combining orchestra, 8-bit tunes, and more modern synthesizers into a cohesive and stunningly emotional package.  I hope Jackman will continue to score artistically rewarding assignments and we will get to hear more of his music.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
Big Hero 6*
Birth of a Nation
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Captain America: Civil War
Captain Phillips
GI Joe: Retaliation
Gulliver’s Travels
The Interview
Jack Reacher: Never Go Back
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle

Kick-Ass** (with John Murphy, Marius De Vries, Ilan Eshkeri, Danny Elfman)
Kick-Ass 2 (with Matthew Margeson)
Kingsman: The Secret Service (with Matthew Margeson)
Kingsman: The Golden Circle (with Matthew Margeson)
Kong: Skull Island
Man on a Ledge

Monsters vs. Aliens
Pixels
Puss in Boots
This Is the End
Toy Story Toons: Small Fry
Transfiguration (Album)
Turbo
Uncharted 4: A Thief's End
Utopia (Album)

Winnie the Pooh (Songs by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez)
Wreck-It Ralph**

X-Men: First Class
The 5th Wave

Steve Jablonsky

Steve Jablonsky is yet another of the countless Hans Zimmer apprentices. He has been the composer of choice for Michael "Shaky Camera" Bay ever since The Island. Jablonsky scored all three of Bay's Transformers films, the score for the first film being a highly popular blend of derivative musical elements from various Zimmer scores, though still entertaining on the surface level. He also wrote scores for the Bay-produced horror remakes of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Amityville Horror, The Hitcher, Friday the 13th, and A Nightmare on Elm Street. Other films he has scored are the Korean dragon film D-War and the spoof Your Highness. In the realm of video games, Jablonsky has contributed music to Command and Conquer 3, Gears of War 2 and 3, and The Sims 3. But his best score is for the animated film Steamboy, directed by Katsuhiro Otomo of Akira fame. Although the action material is still based on short, simplistic ostinatos, the score has adventurous whimsy, acoustic variety, and a pleasant main theme. Otherwise, he has yet to distinguish himself from the numerous Zimmer clones.

Steamboy

Transformers

James Newton Howard

James Newton Howard is a remarkably versatile composer whose style has evolved from romantic pop and piano-based scores to intense action and full orchestral beauty. I have a particular fondness for his music, as two of his scores helped turn me into a soundtrack fan (see the About tab). Some of his best scores are for director M. Night Shyamalan. Although Shyamalan's films have steadily decreased in quality, Howard always provides superb music for his films that is among the best written today. Howard wrote an understated score for the Sixth Sense, added hip electronic beats to underline the low-key heroics of Unbreakable, wrote a three note motif that turns into a stunning finale in Signs, composed exquisite solos for violinist Hilary Hahn in The Village, lent power and otherworldly choral beauty to Lady in the Water, created tension and emotional release for The Happening, provided majesty and grand scale to The Last Airbender, and propelled the action with pulse-pounding cues alongside alien textures in After Earth. Howard has (oddly enough) written a superb run of scores for films featuring water: Atlantis, Lady in the Water, Water for Elephants, The Water Horse, and Waterworld (you could also stretch this to include The Prince of Tides and Snow Falling on Cedars, not to mention the "Flow Like Water" cue from The Last Airbender.) As mentioned, Howard's early scores featured lightweight melodies and easygoing tunes, as heard in Pretty Woman, Dying Young, Dave, and The Prince of Tides. Yet he soon showed an adeptness at action in The Package, The Fugitive, Falling Down, and Flatliners. He also has used dark choral textures for The Devil's Advocate and the massive "Tarawa" cue from Snow Falling on Cedars (used in the Matrix Revolutions trailer shown at the end of Matrix Reloaded). He created the more tender (and more interesting) material for Batman Begins and Harvey Dent's music for The Dark Knight. Howard isn't afraid to use electronics in scores such as Peter Pan, Collateral, Blood Diamond, I Am Legend, Salt, and Duplicity. His music for The Hunger Games and its sequels blends harrowing emotion with ferocious action. But perhaps his most striking music is for epic adventure, especially in the Disney animated films Dinosaur, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, and Treasure Planet, where majestic, catchy fanfares and soaring anthems abound. Similar adventurous music can also be found in Hidalgo, Alive, Vertical Limit, Wyatt Earp, The Postman, Waterworld, Peter Jackson's King Kong remake, and Maleficent. While he started his career in pop, arranging music for Elton John, Howard has turned into one of film's most stylish, reliable, and knowledgeable composers.

After Earth
Alive

Atlantis: The Lost Empire**
Blood Diamond
The Bourne Legacy

Collateral

The Dark Knight (with Hans Zimmer)

Dave

Defiance

The Devil’s Advocate

Dinosaur**

Duplicity

Dying Young
Eye for an Eye

Falling Down
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Flatliners

The Fugitive
Grand Canyon

Green Lantern

The Happening

Hidalgo
The Hunger Games
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2
The Huntsman: Winter's War

I Am Legend
Intersection

King Kong*

Lady in the Water**

The Last Airbender*
Maleficent*
Outbreak

The Package

Peter Pan

The Postman
Primal Fear

The Prince of Tides
Restoration*
Roman J. Israel, Esq.

Salt

Signs**

The Sixth Sense

Snow Falling on Cedars
Snow White and the Huntsman

Treasure Planet**

Unbreakable

Vertical Limit

The Village**

Water for Elephants

The Water Horse

Waterworld*

Wyatt Earp

James Horner

James Horner was a bit of a puzzle, and a controversial figure in the weird world of film music. On the one hand, he was responsible for writing the best-selling soundtrack album of all time, for James Cameron's Titanic. On the other hand, he was notorious for repeating himself and taking material from other composers. To be sure, all composers swipe material from each other to some extent. However, Horner did little to hide his "borrowings," especially compared to other composers. Especially noteworthy was his infamous four-note "danger motif," which he used in scores from Willow and Enemy at the Gates to Troy and Avatar. Anyway, that's a whole different topic. As for my own views on Horner, I find his earlier work to be his best, full of busy orchestral figures, joyous themes, and the sound of a budding composer's excitement at exploring the musical ideas bursting from his cranium. As his career went on, however, Horner became more complacent, content to recycle material and write music that tried to be subtle, but ends up conveying little to nothing at all. The exuberant, creative music of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Krull, The Rocketeer, and Willow was nowhere to be heard in most of his later scores. Unlike the evolving sounds of John Williams and Danny Elfman, Horner's change of style was not, in my opinion, for the better. My personal feelings aside, I can't deny that Horner scored a plethora of high-profile and successful films, from Braveheart and Apollo 13 to Glory and A Beautiful Mind. But it was his collaborations for James Cameron that gave him the biggest success and most exposure. Horner first worked with Cameron on the relentless Aliens. Although the two had creative differences, they later reconciled to produce the massive blockbusters Titanic and Avatar. Though Horner's most prevalent styles were for lilting fantasy and straightforward drama (sometimes with incongruous Celtic stylings), two of his best scores were for The Mask of Zorro and The Legend of Zorro. Here, Horner used Spanish-flavored rhythms and instrumentation to create vibrant scores that proved that he could indeed still write fresh music. There were hints in early 2015 that Horner was making a comeback, but he tragically died in a plane crash in June of that year.

Aliens
The Amazing Spider-Man

Apollo 13**

Avatar

A Beautiful Mind

Braveheart
Cocoon*

Glory*

Krull**

The Land Before Time*

The Mask of Zorro

The Legend of Zorro

Legends of the Fall
The Perfect Storm

The Rocketeer*

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan**

Titanic/Back to Titanic

Willow

Joe Hisaishi

Joe Hisaishi (born Mamoru Fujisawa; his professional name translates to "Quincy Jones") is probably the highest-profile Japanese film composer working today, due in no small part to his music for the films of Hayao Miyazaki. He has done numerous other scores, but they are less familiar to people like me with limited knowledge of Japanese cinema. Hisaishi started his career by producing his own albums of electronic and minimalist music, but his scores for Miyazaki are lush and classically melodic. His first score for Miyazaki was for Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, an eclectic composition combining traditional orchestra, '80s electronics for the Ohmu, and an unsettlingly off-key chant for Nausicaa's memories. For Castle in the Sky, Hisaishi wrote an original score for the theatrical release as well an updated score for the American dub, underlining the adventurous beats and majesty of the floating island. He provides gentle charm for Kiki's Delivery Service, melancholy nostalgia for Porco Rosso, and romanticism for Howl's Moving Castle. The bubbling, youthful energy of Ponyo contrasts with the brooding action and bittersweet themes for Princess Mononoke. Hisaishi has a particular gift for writing for piano, often playing the solos himself, as in Princess Mononoke. It his scores for My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away that arguably contain the most emotionally charged material, achieving this not through melodrama but through honest simplicity. I know that sounds pretentious, but the music itself is anything but.

Concert in Budokan (Compilation)**
Howl’s Moving Castle
Kiki's Delivery Service
Laputa: Castle in the Sky*

My Neighbor Totoro**
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
Ni no Kuni Shikkoku no Madoushi*

Ponyo*
Porco Rosso

Princess Mononoke*

Spirited Away**
The Tale of the Princess Kaguya*
The Wind Rises

Bernard Herrmann

Whole books have been written about Bernard Herrmann and his influence on film music. Considered by many to be one of the best composers of his time, Herrmann is highly regarded by contemporary film composers such as Danny Elfman and John Williams. My exposure to Herrmann on CD is sadly limited, but his first score alone, for Orson Welles's Citizen Kane, contains superb music that, like with many aspects of that film, has had a large impact on filmmaking up to today. Perhaps his most well known scores are for Alfred Hitchcock, from the dance-like pyrotechnics of North by Northwest to the dizzying strains of Vertigo and the slashing, cutting strings for Psycho. His last score was for Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver, using brooding saxophone to portray Travis Bickle's dark journey of redemption. But Herrmann didn't just do "serious" films; he also specialized in musically bringing the fantasy creatures of Ray Harryhuasen to life, with Jason and the Argonauts, Mysterious Island, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, and The 3 Worlds of Gulliver. He also established the sounds of science fiction films, using powerful brass for Journey to the Center of the Earth and wailing theremin (when describing the theremin, it is required to use the word "wailing") for The Day the Earth Stood Still. Disneyland fans can hear the strident tones of Mysterious Island while viewing the Primeval World (dinosaur) display in the Disneyland Railroad (between Tomorrowland and Main Street and directly following the Grand Canyon diorama). Herrmann was always fond of using unique instrumental ensembles for each film he did, and he remained an uncompromising craftsman and artist who was intolerant of mediocrity. His strong sense of artistic integrity could make him difficult to work with, and he and Hitchcock ended up parting ways on a less than amicable note. Yet his contribution to the musical world remains unquestioned.

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
Jason and the Argonauts*
North by Northwest**
Psycho*
Torn Curtain (Rejected)
Vertigo*

Harry Gregson-Williams

Harry Gregson-Williams is one of the few of Hans Zimmer's apprentices who has stepped out from his former master's shadow to create compelling music of his own. As a youth, he attended the Guildhall School of Music & Drama and later taught music there as well as in Egypt. He attracted the attention of Zimmer, who introduced the composer to film scoring as well as the use of electronics and synthesizers (before joining Zimmer's company, he claimed to never have touched a computer in his life.) He began composing additional music for Zimmer's Broken Arrow and The Prince of Egypt (including the hieroglyph scene) and The Rock (including the car chase through San Francisco).

After scoring the electronics-heavy The Replacement Killers, Gregson-Williams teamed up with composer John Powell to pen three deliriously exciting and energetic scores for the animated films Antz, Chicken Run, and Shrek. The first two scores in particular are among the most rousing and thematically rich scores of the modern era. HGW went on to score the next three films in the Shrek series solo, and established a relationship with Shrek/Shrek 2 director Andrew Adamson, scoring the first two films of The Chronicles of Narnia series. Gregson-Williams writes both electronics-heavy scores as well as orchestrally rich music. The former style can be heard in his scores for Tony Scott: Enemy of the State (with Trevor Rabin), Spy Game, Man on Fire, Domino, Deja Vu, The Taking of Pelham 123, and Unstoppable. Phone Booth, The Number 23, The Town, and The Equalizer also showcase Gregson-Williams's groove-based electronic style, but even in some of these scores Gregson-Williams evinces his talent for composing gentle, emotional melodies. Gregson-Williams also used this approach for the second, third, and fourth entries in Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear Solid video games.

Gregson-Willams's swashbuckling score for Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas is a true gem; his scores for The Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and Arthur Christmas further manifest his orchestral expertise. As he was in a choir as a child, Gregson-Williams's choral work is especially strong, highlighting scores such as Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven, the Narnia scores, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and Veronica Guerin. Considering his start as a Zimmer apprentice, it is ironic that his magnificent, bombastic score for Team America: World Police takes the most cliched Zimmerisms and inflates them to gloriously over the top proportions. The end result is a more satisfying and entertaining score than what Zimmer and some of his other apprentices come up with for serious films.

Antz* (with John Powell)
Arthur Christmas

Chicken Run** (with John Powell)

Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

Cowboys and Aliens
Disneynature: Monkey Kingdom
Early Man (with Tom Howe)
The Equalizer

Kingdom of Heaven*
The Magic of Marciano

Man on Fire
The Martian

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

The Number 23

Prince of Persia: Sands of Time
Prometheus (Additional Score)

The Rock (with Nick Glennie-Smith and Hans Zimmer)

The Rundown

Shrek (with John Powell)
Shrek 2

Shrek Forever After

Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas**

Spy Game

Spy Kids (with Danny Elfman, John Debney)

Team America: World Police**
Total Recall (Remake)

Veronica Guerin

X-Men Origins: Wolverine