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