Howard Shore

Howard Shore became a big name in 2001 with his music for The Lord of the Rings films, but he has written many scores of similar quality since 1979. Shore began his musical career playing saxophone for the band Lighthouse. Soon after, he became the musical director for Saturday Night Live from its debut, writing the show's theme and arranging and performing for sketches until 1980. Shore's first film score, The Brood, was for director David Cronenberg, and Shore would go on to score all of Cronenberg's subsequent films with the exception of Michael Kamen's The Dead Zone. These films include Scanners, Videodrome, The Fly, Dead Ringers, Naked Lunch, M. Butterfly, Crash, eXIstenZ, Spider, A History of Violence, Eastern Promises, A Dangerous Method, Cosmopolis, and Maps to the Stars. Befitting Cronenberg's vision, Shore wrote most of the scores in a dark, brooding, almost minimalistic style, filled with unsettling orchestrations and strange harmonies. Even Naked Lunch, which features the performance of Ornette Coleman, is a complex and unusual composition for those more familiar with more popular and upbeat jazz. He wrote similarly dark scores for David Fincher's films Se7en, The Game, and Panic Room as well as Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia, The Cell, Doubt, and Edge of Darkness (for which John Corigliano had written a superior rejected score). He scored After Hours with Martin Scorsese, and later formed a relationship with the director on Gangs of New York, The Aviator, The Departed, and the wonderfully magical Hugo. But as this last film attests to, Shore is not all about doom and gloom, and he has written scores for films like Big, Mrs. Doubtfire, Analyze This, The Last Mimzy, and (rather bizarrely) The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. He also scored Ed Wood, the one Tim Burton film with original music not by Danny Elfman (Sweeney Todd's music was based on Stephen Sondheim's already-existing musical). Shore wrote an alternately cheesy and emotionally affecting score to reflect Wood's horrible films and the plight of Bela Lugosi. His score for Peter Jackson's King Kong was rejected, though James Newton Howard's replacement was great. Of course, it is Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy for which Shore is best known. He was given a luxuriously long time to compose a score with a mind-numbing amount of themes that connect to each other in ingenious ways. And the themes themselves are, for the most part, glorious, though the score itself has its own share of uninteresting passages with thin orchestrations. But all in all, it is a marvelous composition, and musicologist Doug Adams wrote a fantastic and hefty tome about it that is a must-buy.

Dogma

Ed Wood
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
Hugo

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring**

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers*

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King**

Naked Lunch

Philadelphia

David Shire

David Shire has scored for both film and theater, though he has unfortunately not been getting many film assignments the last several years. He has written the music for the Broadway shows Baby and Big as well as the plays Closer than Ever and Starting Here, Starting Now. On the film front, he has written scores for All the President's Men, Short Circuit, 2010 (the sequel to 2001: A Space Odyssey) and Saturday Night Fever. For Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation, Shire used distorted piano to underline the film's sense of paranoia. For The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, he wrote an innovative, complex, yet still highly entertaining twelve-tone funk score. Return to Oz enjoys the benefit of Shire's full-bodied, soaring, emotional, and thematically complex music and is one of the most compositionally satisfying film scores ever. Shire had a recent triumph with his score to David Fincher's Zodiac, where he composed brooding melodies and angular themes reflecting the film's mystery and ambiguity. Shire used to be the wife of Talia Shire (Francis Coppola's sister) and is currently married to Didi Conn, who is best known for her roles as Frenchy in Grease and as the train station manager in the children's show Shining Time Station. It would be great if other directors followed Fincher's lead and used Shire's considerable talent on their films.

Return to Oz**
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three**
Zodiac

Yoko Shimomura

Yoko Shimomura is one of the most popular, well-known, and talented composers of video game music. She has written varied music for games such as Street Fighter II, Parasite Eve, Legend of Mana, and Final Fantasy Versus XIII. However, she is most well-known for her music for the Kingdom Hearts series produced by Square and Disney. Her music for the games in the series runs the gamut from lyrical and lighthearted to dark and apocalyptic. She even incorporates themes by Jimmie Dodd, Richard and Robert Sherman, Hans Zimmer, Alan Menken, and Danny Elfman. The music is unfortunately limited in terms of performance as it is played on synthesizers emulating the orchestra (apart from a few tracks) and the compositions would undoubtedly benefit greatly by being played by a real orchestra. Nevertheless, the music itself is well-written and effective, and its popularity is, for the most part, well deserved.

Kingdom Hearts
Kingdom Hearts II

Edward Shearmur

Edward Shearmur is like David Newman, Christopher Lennertz and Cliff Eidelman. All are enormously talented composers who get a decent amount of work--but unfortunately, it is often for lightweight and silly comedies that do not allow them to show off their chops. Shearmur started as an assistant to Michael Kamen, and also arranged and played for artists such as Annie Lennox, Bryan Adams, Pink Floyd, and Eric Clapton. As mentioned, many of his scores are for films such as the Charlie's Angels films, Miss Congeniality, Win a Date with Tad Hamilton, Laws of Attraction, Wimbledon, Epic Movie, College Road Trip, Furry Vengeance, and Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Roderick Rules. But he has also written effective varied music for Wings of a Dove, Cruel Intentions, K-Pax, The Count of Monte Cristo, Reign of Fire, Skeleton Key, and Abduction. He also wrote a rejected score to The Other Boleyn Girl and wrote additional music for The Wolfman (director Joe Johnston decided to retain Danny Elfman's score after the producers rejected it, but Elfman was unavailable to write music for the new edits). Johnny English allowed Shearmur to write a stylish, ballsy, jazzy score to accompany the main character's ignoble feats. His score for Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow contains adventurous fanfares and action music that hearkens back to John Williams's classics. Hopefully he will get the chance to write more scores on this vein.

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

Naoki Sato

Naoki Sato is a composer who has written mainly for anime and other Japanese films. Notable works include Eureka Seven and Yoshiaki Kawajiri's adaptation of Clamp's X manga. His music for the live-action film version of Space Battleship Yamato is one of the richest, most exciting scores in recent years, combining Yoshinobu Nishizaki's original themes with expansive and epic orchestrations.

Always: Sunset on Third Street*
Always: Sunset on Third Street 2*
Ansatsu Kyoushitsu (Assassination Classroom) Anime
Ansatsu Kyoushitsu (Assassination Classroom) Live-Action
Ansatsu Kyoushitsu (Assassination Classroom): Graduation
Eureka Seven
Gaku (Peak)
Giniro no Season (Silver Season)*
Heroic Age
Hidden Fortress: The Last Princess
K-20*
Kano
Lorelei: The Witch of the Pacific Ocean*
Parasyte
Priceless*
Rudolf to Ippaiattena (Rudolf the Black Cat)
Sengoku Enbu -Kizna-
Seirei no Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit
Shizumanu Taiyo (The Unbroken)
Space Battleship Yamato**
Stand By Me Doraemon*
Sugihara Chiune
Sword of the Stranger
The Top Secret: Murder in Mind
Umizaru**
Umizaru: Limit of Love
Umizaru: The Last Message
Umizaru 4: Brave Hearts Umizaru
We Are Pretty Cure
We Are Pretty Cure Max Heart*
We Are Pretty Cure Max Heart Movie
We Are Pretty Cure Max Heart Movie 2
We Are Pretty Cure Splash Star
We Are Pretty Cure Splash Star Movie
Yes! Pretty Cure 5
Yes! Pretty Cure 5 Movie
Yes! Pretty Cure 5 GoGo
Yes! Pretty Cure 5 GoGo Movie

Laurence Rosenthal

Laurence Rosenthal is a highly talented composer in the classical vein, but many of the films he has scored are sadly unknown to the general public. I myself admit to not knowing his work too well, but what I have heard from him is top notch. Rosenthal's works include the scores for A Raisin in the Sun, The Miracle Worker, Requiem for a Heavyweight, Man of La Mancha, Hotel Paradiso, and Inherit the Wind. He also scored the TV shows Logan's Run with Bruce Broughton and The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles with Joel McNeely. A definite highlight is his rich, lush score to the original Clash of the Titans, for which Rosenthal provided a plethora of memorable themes and adventurous fantasy music.

Clash of the Titans*

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross

Trent Reznor is the leader of the renowned industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails and later created his own albums of textural music. Atticus Ross composed the score for The Book of Eli, and worked with Reznor on several albums, most notably on the textural Ghosts I-IV. This type of music formed the basis for the score to David Fincher's The Social Network. Unfortunately, despite the strength of the film and the talent of the two musicians, the score is, in my opinion, compositionally and intellectually shallow and does not add anything to the film. Truly innovative and interesting electronic music can be found elsewhere. The two also collaborated on the equally dull scores for Fincher's The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and Gone Girl. Reznor did provide a rather nondescript theme for the popular video game Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, but the actual score (which is much more interesting, effective, and accomplished than the theme) was written by video game composer veteran Jack Wall.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 (theme only, score by Jack Wall)
The Social Network

John Powell

If high energy has a name, then it must be John Powell. Powell is a former Zimmer apprentice, and indeed his scores often share the same harmonic language and progressions as the Big Z's at times. But like fellow Media Ventures/Remote Control alumnus Harry Gregson-Williams, Powell has established his own style, one of busy orchestrations, heroic themes, and bursts of snazzy color. Although Powell's approach to electronics is not revolutionary, he combines them with the orchestra better than almost any other living composer. Combine this with the rapid-fire energy that he often infuses into his scores, and one gets a pleasing product.

Powell started out by forming his own company that provided music for commercials, and provided technical assistance to composer Patrick Doyle. Zimmer soon picked Powell up, and his first major solo score was for John Woo's Face/Off. Although he worked with Zimmer on projects like The Road to El Dorado and Chill Factor, his biggest splashes came with his collaborations with Harry Gregson-Williams on Antz, Chicken Run, and the first Shrek. After working on these stylish and highly entertaining scores, Powell became a regular composer for animation, scoring Happy Feet; The Lorax; Blue Sky's Robots, Ice Age: The Meltdown, Horton Hears A Who, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, Rio Ice Age: Continental Divide, and Rio 2 ; and Disney's Bolt and Mars Needs Moms. He worked with Zimmer again on Kung Fu Panda and Kung Fu Panda 2, combining catchy riffs with boisterous action music.

In the world of live action, Powell established a highly influential style for action thrillers with Doug Liman's The Bourne Identity. Powell would develop this propulsive, driving style to pleasing effect in the sequels, Paul Greengrass's The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum. Powell became the composer of choice for both Liman and Greengrass, scoring the former's Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Jumper, and Fair Game, and the latter's United 93 and Green Zone. These scores, along with The Italian Job, John Woo's Paycheck, and James Mangold's Knight and Day allowed Powell to develop his highly distinctive and addictive action style. Powell also got to dabble in the superhero genre, giving X-Men: The Last Stand the series' best score, featuring busy orchestral action, bold fanfares, and a raging female choir. His score for Hancock was for the most part more laid back, with the stunning exception of the explosive and triumphant final two cues. 

One of Powell's best scores is for Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois's animated feature How to Train Your Dragon. In this score, Powell combines the energy of his previous animated scores with powerful themes and a thematic and musical cohesiveness not found in many of his other animated projects (except Mars Needs Moms and the fantastic, theme-heavy Bolt). If any score that year deserved an Oscar for Best Original Score, then How to Train Your Dragon was it. His score for the sequel (helmed by DeBlois alone) is equally impressive.
 

Agent Cody Banks
Antz* (with Harry Gregson-Williams)

Bolt*

The Bourne Identity

The Bourne Supremacy

The Bourne Ultimatum

Chicken Run** (with Harry Gregson-Williams)
Endurance
Ferdinand

Hancock

How to Train Your Dragon**
How to Train Your Dragon 2**

The Italian Job

Knight and Day

Kung Fu Panda (with Hans Zimmer)

Kung Fu Panda 2 (with Hans Zimmer)

Mars Needs Moms

Mr. and Mrs. Smith
Pan

Paycheck

Shrek (with Harry Gregson-Williams)

X-Men: The Last Stand*

Basil Poledouris

Basil Poledouris was a mighty force in film music, composing some of the most powerful and lyrical scores of his time. He had a strongly melodic style with an emphasis on bold themes. Poledouris studied film at USC along with George Lucas and John Milius. Poledouris found himself scoring numerous student and instructional films, and Milius gave him his first major assignment with the surfing film Big Wednesday. Poledouris eschewed stereotypical surf guitar music and wrote grand, symphonic tunes worthy of an epic. His next film with Milius proved to be one of the greatest film scores of all time--Conan the Barbarian. The film had minimal dialogue, and much of the drama was carried by Poledouris's massive score, punctuating the film with brutality, beauty, and lyricism. Poledouris scored three more films with Milius; writing noble, militaristic strains for Red Dawn; lush, flowing music for Farewell to the King; and adventurous tunes for Flight of the Intruder. Along with Jerry Goldsmith, Poledouris also became the composer of choice for Paul Verhoeven, composing swashbuckling heroics for Flesh and Blood, creating an orchestral-electronic soundscape with a rousing main theme for Robocop, and playing noble military action for the satirical Starship Troopers. These scores proved Poledouris a master of action scoring, along with Hot Shots! Part Deux, On Deadly Ground, No Man's Land, The Jungle Book, and Under Siege 2. His robust score for The Hunt for Red October features a powerful Russian chant for the titles, while Cherry 2000 mixes Poledouris's futuristic writing with Morricone Westernisms. Yet Poledouris also wrote wonderful scores for more romantic films, assignments that he enjoyed. Blue Lagoon, Wind, Free Willy, Lassie, It's My Party, Les Miserables, and Kimberly showcase the gentler side of Poledouris, and it is no less spectacular than his action side. He also had an affinity for Westerns, with Quigley Down Under, The Legend of Butch and Sundance, and the TV miniseries Lonesome Dove containing stunningly emotional themes. One of his last major Hollywood assignments was for Sam Raimi's baseball drama For Love of the Game; Poledouris wrote an epic finale for the main character's final pitch conveying more drama and emotion than there is to be found in the film itself. Unfortunately, he did not get as many prestigious assignments towards the end of his career, scoring masterpieces like Serial Mom, Mickey Blue Eyes, Cecil B Demented, and Crocodile Dundee in LA. His approach to scoring fell by the wayside in favor of more atmospheric, droning approaches. His original score for Breakdown was rejected, and his replacement score is highly textural and far removed from many of his other scores. One of his very last films, for the Chinese film The Touch, offered one last hurrah, combining the best of his action and romantic styles. He was one of the composers considered for The Lord of the Rings trilogy, which would have been fascinating, but it was not to be. Poledouris passed away in 2006, with an incredible musical legacy behind him.

Big Wednesday**

The Blue Lagoon

Breakdown

Cherry 2000
Conan the Barbarian**
Conan the Destroyer

Farewell to the King*

Flesh and Blood*
Flight of the Navigator

For Love of the Game

Free Willy*

Hot Shots! Part Deux

House of God

The Hunt for Red October*

The Jungle Book

Kimberly

Les Miserables*

Lonesome Dove*

No Man’s Land

Quigley Down Under

Red Dawn
Return to the Blue Lagoon

Robocop*

Robocop 3
Spellbinder

Starship Troopers*
Switchback

The Touch
Under Siege 2: Dark Territory
A Whale for the Killing
White Fang
Wind

James Peterson

James Peterson is simply one of the most promising and exciting film composers to emerge in a long time. Although he has not scored any prominent films, his one released score for The Red Canvas shows that Peterson has what it takes to write complex yet highly affecting music, merging the best techniques of Hollywood's Golden Age composers with modern compositional styles. This score and the Moving Images Suite also included on the CD display Peterson has technical and dramatic chops to spare. If I were so lucky to be involved with the making of a film, I would be thrilled to be able to have his services. More realistically, I hope that prestigious directors as well as talented newcomers will discover him.

The Red Canvas**

John Ottman

John Ottman is not only a film composer, but also a film editor for director Bryan Singer. He also directed, edited, and scored the film Urban Legends: Final Cut. As a film composer, Ottman got started with scoring Singer's Public Access and next scored The Usual Suspects, deftly scoring the superb film with expressive melodies, full orchestrations, and dramatic accents. Ottman subsequently scored the Singer films Apt Pupil, X2, Superman Returns, Valkyrie, Jack the Giant Slayer, and X-Men: Days of Future Past. Many Ottman scores are dark and brooding, as in Incognito, Lake Placid, Gothika, Cellular, Hide and Seek, House of Wax, Orphan, The Resident, and Unknown. His score for Shane Black's Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is a stylish departure from Ottman's usual darker fare. Ottman has also scored a handful of superhero films, including X2, X-Men: Days of Future Past, Superman Returns, and two Fantastic Four movies. Unfortunately, the scores for these films tend toward the bland side, especially given the high standards of music in many superhero films. A happy exception is his score for the animated film Astro Boy, a wonderfully whimsical confection with driving adventure music, soaring melodies, and a spectacular main theme. Hopefully, his future assignments will allow his to use his gifts for brooding suspense and high-flying enterprises.

Astro Boy
Jack the Giant Slayer
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Superman Returns

The Usual Suspects

X2: X-Men United
X-Men: Days of Future Past
X-Men: Apocalypse

Julian Nott

Julian Nott is the composer for all the Wallace and Gromit short films (A Grand Day Out, The Wrong Trousers, A Close Shave, Cracking Contraptions, A Matter of Loaf and Death) as well as the feature, The Curse of The Were-Rabbit. His music for these masterful films perfectly captures their distinct English flavor with a healthy dose of freewheeling parody and straightforward adventure music.

Wallace and Gromit*

Thomas Newman

Thomas Newman has established a new and unique voice in music that unfortunately has been ripped off in numerous TV shows and commercials. Newman is the son of the great Alfred Newman, the nephew of conductor Lionel Newman, the cousin of Randy Newman, and the brother of violist Maria Newman (who performs on many film scores) and composer David Newman. Considering his rich classical musical heritage, it is somewhat surprising that Thomas Newman's preferred style uses experimental instruments, evocative and strange colors, and often minimalist structures. What is not surprising is that he excels at the classical style of writing with full orchestra that his relatives prefer. Newman's sparse, experimental music is often balanced by rich passages of unrestrained emotion. Newman's early films included the cult classic Revenge of the Nerds, Desperately Seeking Susan, Ron Howard's Gung Ho, and The Lost Boys. His score for Robert Altman's The Player shows an early inkling of his signature style, which really burst forth in Scent of a Woman (for which Danny Elfman recommended Newman). From then on, Newman's career really exploded, and he wrote wonderful scores to prestigious films such as Frank Darabont's The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, The People vs. Larry Flynt, Erin Brockovich, In the Bedroom, Ron Howard's Cinderella Man, and Little Children. Newman's most recognizable and imitated music is from Sam Mendes's American Beauty, which perhaps best represents the height of his style and penchant for odd instruments. Newman subsequently forged a relationship with Mendes, scoring Road to Perdition, Jarhead, Revolutionary Road, and the James Bond film Skyfall. He has also scored two Pixar films directed by Andrew Stanton, Finding Nemo and WALL-E. Newman has written plenty of scores featuring his emphasis on musical colors, including Unstrung Heroes, Oscar and Lucinda, The Debt, and The Adjustment Bureau. But his more emotional, classical side can be found in scores like Little Women, The Horse Whisperer, Meet Joe Black, The Good German, and The Help. His best scores often combine these two traits, such as in the aforementioned Pixar films, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, and the superb Angels in America. Despite his obvious talent, impressive body of work, and nine Oscar nominations, he has yet to win a Best Score award. Hopefully he will win one eventually, but if not, he will still be in the prestigious company of Alex North, Ennio Morricone, Danny Elfman, Alan Silvestri, James Newton Howard, and other talented composers who never received or have yet to receive the Best Score Oscar. As mentioned before, his influence is widespread, and ripoffs of his sound can be found in films like National Treasure and Transformers. But there's nothing like the real thing.

The Adjustment Bureau

American Beauty**

Angels in America**
Bridge of Spies

Cinderella Man
The Debt

Finding Nemo
Finding Dory

The Good German

The Green Mile
He Named Me Malala
The Help

In the Bedroom

Jarhead

Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events*
Less Than Zero

Little Women*

Meet Joe Black

Oscar and Lucinda
Passengers

Phenomenon

The Player

Road to Perdition
Saving Mr. Banks

Scent of a Woman

The Shawshank Redemption**
Skyfall
SPECTRE

Unstrung Heroes

Wall-E
Whispers in the Dark