John Williams

What can be said about John Williams that hasn't already been said? Williams is not only the best-known film composer, but his skill and mastery at his craft are matched only by long-gone masters such as Bernard Herrmann, Erich Korngold, Miklos Rozsa, Jerry Goldsmith, and the like. Williams is a musical titan, and even if he hadn't written any concert works, he would still be considered a great composer. He may have written some of the best known and catchy themes of all time, but a closer listen to any of his scores will reveal compositional depth and clever musical ideas that bolster his surprisingly complex melodies.

Williams was born in New York and studied composition at UCLA and Juilliard after which he became a jazz and film score pianist for great composers like Henry Mancini and Jerry Goldsmith. Williams's first full score was in 1958 for a film called Daddy-O. Throughout the '60s, he scored many light, romantic comedies of this type, using the casual, jazzy style he had employed as a pianist. He got to branch out with films like None But the Brave and The Reivers, but his foray into blockbuster fare came with his relationship with Irwin Allen. Williams scored the themes and several episodes of Allen's TV shows The Time Tunnel, Land of the Giants, and Lost in Space before Allen hired him for the feature The Poseidon Adventure. A year before, Williams had won an Oscar for adapting the score for Fiddler on the Roof, but soon his own music would become recognized by the public and the critical establishment. After scoring two more disaster films (Allen's The Towering Inferno and Earthquake), Williams formed a seminal relationship with Steven Spielberg by scoring The Sugarland Express. Their next film, Jaws, became a sensation with its famous, menacing two-note theme. Even more impressive, the score contained inventive orchestrations and additional themes to underscore the danger and adventure of the film. Williams would score all of Spielberg's feature films as director except for The Color Purple (scored by Quincy Jones) and Bridge of Spies (scored by Thomas Newman). Their collaborations would include Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 1941, the Indiana Jones films, ET, Empire of the Sun, Always, Hook, the first two Jurassic Park films, Schindler's List, Amistad, Saving Private Ryan, AI, Minority Report, Catch Me If You Can, The Terminal, War of the Worlds, Munich, Adventures of Tintin, War Horse, Lincoln, and The BFG. After scoring Alfred Hitchcock's final film in 1976 (Family Plot), Williams created an even bigger splash with his score to Star Wars. Throughout the series' six films, Williams provided immortal themes filled with excitement, beauty, tenderness, melancholy, and terror. The same year as the first Star Wars film, Williams created another musical touchstone with his experimental, dissonant music for Close Encounters of the Third Kind as well as a famous five-note theme. Superman was another smash, with Williams providing not only the title march, but a soaring love theme, heroic action music, tender strains for Smallville, a comic march for the villains, and more modern music for Krypton. Raiders of the Lost Ark and ET were next up on Williams's non-stop hit parade, the former one of the most exciting action scores ever, and the latter featuring exultant and emotional music for the bond between boy and alien. In the '90s, Williams wrote surprisingly touching music for two Home Alone films, swashbuckling adventure music for Hook, melodies of wonder and terror for Jurassic Park, and reached heights of poignancy with Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan. As the new millennium rolled around, Williams scored the first three films of the incredibly popular Harry Potter franchise, providing the boy wizard (or his pet owl, at least) with an enduring, magical theme. The end of 2011 signaled the end of a three-year Williams drought with two superb scores for War Horse and The Adventures of Tintin.

Although Williams is best known for the themes for his blockbusters, his filmography contains hordes of lesser known but still awesome scores, from the wildly unconventional Images and the pastoral The River to the triumphant SpaceCamp and the beautiful, thrilling Far and Away. He also composed the NBC News "Mission" theme, the theme for DreamWorks SKG, and four Olympic fanfares alongside numerous concerti and other concert pieces. With the exceptions of Memoirs of a Geisha and The Book Thief, Williams has only written film scores for Spielberg, Star Wars, and Harry Potter since 2000's The Patriot, but his music remains as exciting and inventive as ever. He deserves all the recognition and praise that he gets. Unfortunately, with the advent of sound-design drone scores, his work has become under-appreciated by certain film critics, mainly of the younger generation. Regardless of their opinions, Williams's music is among the most superb written for film.

AI*
The Accidental Tourist
Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn*
Always

Amistad
Angela's Ashes
The BFG

Black Sunday
The Book Thief

Born on the Fourth of July

Catch Me If You Can

Close Encounters of the Third Kind*

ET**

Empire of the Sun*

Family Plot

Far and Away**
The Fury*

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone*

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban*
Heartbeeps
Heidi

Home Alone**

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York*

Hook**

Raiders of the Lost Ark**

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom**

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade**

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Jane Eyre*

Jaws*

Jaws 2*

JFK

Jurassic Park**

Jurassic Park 2: The Lost World
Lincoln

Lost in Space (TV Series)

Memoirs of a Geisha*
Midway

Minority Report*

Munich

Nixon

The Patriot
Pete 'n' Tillie

The Poseidon Adventure
The Post
Presumed Innocent
The Reivers

The River

Rosewood
Sabrina

Saving Private Ryan

Schindler’s List**

Seven Years in Tibet
Sleepers

SpaceCamp
The Spielberg/Williams Collaboration (3 Volume Compilation)
Stanley & Iris

Star Wars**

Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back**

Star Wars VI: Return of the Jedi**

Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace*

Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones

Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith*
Star Wars: The Force Awakens*
Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Stepmom

Superman: The Movie**

Superman IV: The Quest for Peace* (with Alexander Courage)

The Terminal*
Tom Sawyer (with Richard and Robert Sherman)

The Towering Inferno
War Horse**

War of the Worlds
The Witches of Eastwick
1941

Hans Zimmer

Hans Zimmer, the "big Z" of film music, has had perhaps the largest influence on film scoring methods in the modern age. Whether this is a positive influence or not is debatable. Zimmer was born in Germany and quickly developed an interest for synthesizers and electronic music, working with groups like The Buggles and The Damned. He became a protege of renowned film composer Stanley Meyers and the two started developing the signature synth-orchestra sound that would come to dominate big-budget Hollywood action pictures. His score for A World Apart got the attention of Barry Levinson, who offered the composer his first big hit: Rain Man. Today, Zimmer is best known for his popular scores to films in the 2000s like Sherlock Holmes, Christopher Nolan's Batman films, Inception, Interstellar, Man of Steel, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, the Pirates of the Caribbean films, The Ring, Gladiator, King Arthur, The Da Vinci Code, and Pearl Harbor. All employ Zimmer's "wall of sound" effect, combining orchestra and electronics into massive blasts of audio in simplistic chord sequences. But for me, his best work lies among the scores he did before 1999. Scores like Black Rain, Pacific Heights, Point of No Return, Backdraft, Drop Zone, Crimson Tide, Broken Arrow, and The Peacemaker contain the best examples of the "power anthems" that would make Zimmer famous, and indeed one unfamiliar with these scores will be surprised at how similar they sound to Pirates of the Caribbean. These earlier action scores all contain an energy and inventiveness that is hard to find in his modern day scores, with exceptions like Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, The Last Samurai, Rush, and the brilliant "160 BPM" cue from Angels and Demons. Zimmer also excelled at lower-key scores in the '90s, with Green Card, A League of Their Own, The House of the Spirits, Beyond Rangoon, and The Thin Red Line all containing appealing music. Two of Zimmer's absolute best scores are for animated films: The Prince of Egypt and The Lion King. The former features a brilliant theme for God and more glorious music rare for Zimmer, and the latter has some of the most effective and emotional themes in modern films. Zimmer has also forged relationships with prominent directors, including Ridley Scott, Ron Howard, and Christopher Nolan, and he is head of music for DreamWorks Animation. His collaboration with Ridley Scott has been especially fruitful, with Black Rain, Thelma and Louise, Gladiator, Hannibal, Black Hawk Down, and Matchstick Men. He also composed Days of Thunder, True Romance, Crimson Tide, and The Fan for Ridley's brother Tony before Harry Gregson-Williams took over.

Speaking of Gregson-Williams, Zimmer also founded what was then Media Ventures and is now Remote Control Productions, taking in young composers and having them write additional music for him before sending them off on their own. The most talented alumni so far have been Gregson-Williams, John Powell, Mark Mancina, and Henry Jackman, and others have included Steve Jablonsky, Ramin Djawadi, Geoff Zanelli, Marc Streitenfeld, Lorne Balfe, James Dooley, Klaus Badelt, and Heitor Pereira. (Trevor Rabin was never formally part of MV/RC, despite his music sounding more like Zimmer's than that of many "true" MV/RC graduates). On one hand, it is extremely generous of Zimmer to offer these budding composers a chance to get a foothold into the film industry. On the other hand, many of these composers write (or are asked to write) music highly derivative of Zimmer's style. There are exceptions, like Gregson-Williams, Mancina, Powell, and Jackman, but they are few. In addition, Zimmer's own scores, especially from 2000 on, are co-written with a host of additional composers, which has noticeably diluted the big Z's own voice. He may be talented, but he is not Our Savior and the Lord God as many Youtube people claim. I may be quickly losing interest in the musical direction Zimmer is going in, with his increasingly simplistic and staid music, but his earlier works will always pack a punch. Zimmer has an undoubtedly sound dramatic instinct, and in many cases, he has followed it well.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2
Angels and Demons

Backdraft

Beyond Rangoon

Black Rain

Broken Arrow

Crimson Tide

The Da Vinci Code

The Dark Knight (with James Newton Howard)
Days of Thunder

Drop Zone

Gladiator (with Lisa Gerrard)

Green Card
Hans Zimmer Live in Prague (Concert)
Interstellar

King Arthur

Kung Fu Panda (with John Powell)

Kung Fu Panda 2 (with John Powell)

The Last Samurai

The Lion King**
Man of Steel
Pacific Heights

The Peacemaker

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (with a bunch of other people)

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End* (with a bunch of other people)
Point of No Return

The Prince of Egypt*

The Rock (with Nick Glennie-Smith and Harry Gregson-Williams)
Rush

Sherlock Holmes
White Fang

Christopher Young

Christopher Young hasn't quite made it into the ranks of the most well-known film composers, but his talent and body of work prove that he definitely deserves to be there. Young is mostly known for his horror work, where his complex orchestrations, haunting themes, and exotic harmonies combine to create chilling scores. An early assignment was Nightmare on Elm Street 2, and Young soon found himself scoring projects like The Fly 2, The Vagrant, The Dark Half, Species, The Grudge, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, and The Uninvited. Two particular fan favorites are his enormous, epic scores to Hellraiser and Hellbound: Hellraiser II. His score for Bless the Child combines signature dark chorus and various doom-related material with more tender, sublime material. Young's skill at composing action music is evident in his bombastic scores for Ghost Rider, The Core, and Priest. Young has also done a handful of films for Sam Raimi, scoring The Gift, two scenes from Spider-Man 2, Spider-Man 3, and Drag Me to Hell. The majority of the films in Young's oeuvre may be unremarkable, but the scores for them are not.

Bless the Child*
The Core

Drag Me to Hell

Hellraiser

Hellraiser II: Hellbound

Jennifer 8
The Monkey King**
The Monkey King 2*

Priest

Spider-Man 3

Gabriel Yared

Gabriel Yared is a composer perhaps under-appreciated in his time, at least by the mainstream. He has had a few of his scores rejected, at least one of which is one of the most exciting and bold scores in decades. Yared was born in Lebanon and scored many French films before Hollywood noticed him. Among his early scores are Clean and Sober and Robert Altman's Beyond Therapy and Vincent & Theo. His score for director Anthony Minghella's The English Patient won him critical accolades and an Academy Award for Best Score. Yared would score Minghella's subsequent films, including The Talented Mr. Ripley, Cold Mountain, Breaking and Entering, and the TV show The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. Other films he has scored include City of Angels, Message in a Bottle, the remake of Shall We Dance, 1408, and Amelia. He had written music for the films The Tourist and Troy, but had them rejected. Troy in particular was an interesting case, as Yared had written an enormous score fit for an epic, only to have it cut after an audience test screening. James Horner quickly wrote an underwhelming replacement score, but the film couldn't be saved. Yared's rejected score stands as an amazing standalone piece regardless of whether or not it would have worked with the disastrous film. Yared's style of writing is perhaps out of date in an era where musically empty and unintelligent droning is favored, and that is indeed unfortunate.

Amelia

The English Patient

Troy (Rejected)**

Jack Wall

As far as video game composers go, Jack Wall is the cream of the crop. Although he studied civil engineering in college, Wall has proven to be a real talent at composing. His scores include Unreal II: The Awakening, Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, Jade Empire, Mass Effect, and Mass Effect II. He is also the co-founder and conductor of the Video Games Live concert series, bringing attention to the wealth of quality music being composed for video games. Two of his best scores are for Myst III: Exile and Myst IV: Revelation. Wall brought movie-quality music to the venerated series of games, even incorporating some of Robyn Miller's themes in his score for the latter game. Both games combine the exotic instrumentation familiar to the Myst franchise with orchestral themes and furiously chanting choir. Wall delicately balances more atmospheric (yet still interesting) music for exploration with rich drama, tension, and tenderness for the cutscenes. 

From 2006 to 2012, Wall had only scored the two Mass Effect games and Army of Two, and sadly did not contribute any music to Mass Effect 3. However, in 2012 Wall made a big comeback with his score for the popular Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. Trent Reznor wrote a slight main theme, but the exciting and surprisingly varied score (at least for a modern FPS) is really Wall's through and through. His score for Black Ops 3 was even better, mixing propulsive electronics, rousing orchestral anthems, and dramatic choral melodies. He also displayed his versatility by composing pastiche songs in a variety of styles, from swing and country to jazz and Calypso, for the game's zombie mode. I for one hope that this is only the start of a glorious return for this talented composer.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 (theme by Trent Reznor)
Call of Duty: Black Ops 3

Jade Empire

Myst III: Exile**

Myst IV: Revelation

Shirley Walker

One may notice that my list of composers is mostly men. All men, actually, except for Yoko Shimomura and Shirley Walker. Partly, this is my fault, as I have yet to explore the scores of women such as Rachel Portman, Debbie Wiseman, Deborah Lurie, and others. But women still for some reason make up a small percentage of film composers (and classical composers in general). This has more to do with the business than with talent, for Walker's musical skill is undeniable. She started her career playing synthesizer on Apocalypse Now, and served as a conductor and orchestrator for composers Carmine Coppola, Brad Fiedel, Hans Zimmer, and Danny Elfman, among others. Notable scores she worked on include Fiedel's True Lies; Trevor Jones's Arachnophobia; Elliot Goldenthal's Batman Forever; Zimmer's Black Rain, Bird on a Wire, Days of Thunder, Pacific Heights, Backdraft, Radio Flyer, A League of Their Own, Renaissance Man, and Toys; and Elfman's Scrooged, Batman, Edward Scissorhands, Dick Tracy, Nightbreed, Darkman, and Article 99. On her own, Walker composed the scores to John Carpenter's Memoirs of an Invisible Man and Escape from LA as well as the thrillers Turbulence, Willard, and Black Christmas. She created the alternately brutal and elegant music for the first three Final Destination films and composed for the TV shows Batman: The Animated Series, Superman: The Animated Series, The Flash, and Space: Above and Beyond. Her work on the Batman series led her to compose for the animated feature Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, a stunning score that represents the Dark Knight as well as Elfman's music, and is leagues above the scores for Christopher Nolan's otherwise masterfully-crafted entries. Walker passed away in 2006, and one can only guess at melodies from her that will remain unheard.

Batman: Mask of the Phantasm*

Brian Tyler

Brian Tyler is not only a composer and conductor, but also plays guitar, piano, drums, percussion, and programs the electronics for his scores. Although he has written many fine scores, he unfortunately didn't have a lot of luck in getting quality films to score until recently. Nevertheless, his high-energy style and versatility bring a sense of class to the projects he scores. He began composing and conducting his own pieces at a young age before he turned to film composition with Six-String Samurai. His score for Bill Paxton's Frailty garnered positive attention, and Tyler would go on to score Paxton's The Greatest Game Ever Played. But his most famous score would be for the miniseries Children of Dune, for which Tyler combined exotic percussion, world music, and grandiloquent themes into an enormously enticing package. The "Summon the Worms" cue would be used in many trailers, including Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Tyler provided a rousing replacement score to Richard Donner's ill-fated Timeline when original composer Jerry Goldsmith (one of Tyler's influences) became too ill to revise his music for the newly re-cut picture. Tyler has since become a specialist at writing high-octane action scores that combine compositional skill with up-to-date electronic riffs. These include Darkness Falls, Rambo, Bangkok Dangerous, War, Dragonball Evolution, The Expendables films, Battle: Los Angeles, Now You See Me, and the fourth and fifth installments in the Final Destination series. Eagle Eye, Alien vs. Predator: Requiem, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles feature particularly furious and unrelenting action cues. Speaking of furious, Tyler has also scored music for most of the recent installments in the Fast and Furious series: The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Fast and Furious, Fast Five, and Furious 7. The music in the Tokyo Drift starts out heavily electronic (including contributions from guitarist Slash) and becomes more orchestral in Fast Five. The first three were directed by Justin Lin, whom Tyler also worked with on Annapolis and Finishing the Game. Tyler also became one of the composers for the Marvel stables with his muscular, large-scale scores to Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World, and The Avengers: Age of Ultron. For TV, Tyler scored the pilot of the rebooted Hawaii Five-0, the series Terra Nova, and Transformers: Prime (the latter having a more interesting score than its big-screen brethren). He has also scored a handful of video games, including Need for Speed: The Run, LEGO Universe, and the popular Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. LEGO Universe is one of his best scores, with a delightful main theme, colorful orchestrations, and a variety of catchy tunes. Although Tyler certainly gets plenty of work, one can hope that his Marvel scores promise more prestigious assignments that will allow him to explore new musical territories.

Alien vs. Predator: Requiem

Annapolis
The Avengers: Age of Ultron (with Danny Elfman)

Bangkok Dangerous

Battle: Los Angeles

Bubba Ho-Tep
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

Children of Dune

Darkness Falls

Dragonball Evolution

Eagle Eye

The Expendables
The Expendables 2
The Expendables 3

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift

Fast and Furious

Fast Five
Furious 7
The Fate of the Furious

The Final Cut

The Final Destination

Final Destination 5

Frailty

The Greatest Game Ever Played

The Hunted
Iron Man 3

LEGO Universe**
The Mummy (2017)
Need for Speed: The Run
Now You See Me
Now You See Me 2

Paparazzi
Partition
Power Rangers
Rambo (2008)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles*
Terra Nova
Thor: The Dark World

Timeline

Transformers: Prime

War

Henry Mancini

Henry Mancini is one of those rare film composers whose music became well-known in the mainstream. He is best known for his jazz and pop-inflected tunes, including the immortal themes for Peter Gunn and The Pink Panther. Mancini spent a year at Juilliard before he got drafted into Word War II. Following the war, Mancini scored a slew of low-budget films, including the horror/sci-fi cult classics Creature From the Black Lagoon and This Island Earth. Another early assignment was for Orson Welles's Touch of Evil. Mancini soon became typecast as a composer of light romances, including Breakfast at Tiffany's. The song "Moon River" from that film is only one of many of his popular songs. But Mancini also wrote full-bodied orchestral scores, from the grand, majestic themes of Lifeforce to the rollicking adventure of Disney's The Great Mouse Detective. He was slated to score Tim Burton's Ed Wood, but sadly passed away in 1994 before he could score it. If nothing else, his music lives on in marching bands across the country, but his talent clearly went far beyond such jazzy staples.

Condorman
Days of Wine and Roses
The Great Mouse Detective*
Hatari!
Lifeforce*
Once Is Not Enough
Santa Claus: The Movie**
Silver Streak
The White Dawn

Ken Thorne

Ken Thorne is a British composer whose most high-profile assignments were for director Richard Lester. Thorne scored most of Lester's films since Help! (the "musketeer" films and Robin and Marian being notable exceptions). Most of his work for Lester has involved adapting other music, whether it is The Beatles, Richard Wagner, or Stephen Sondheim. Thorne himself has noted that this is one of his particular strengths. He used John Williams's music for Lester's Superman II and Superman III. While the former is mainly a rehash of Williams's material (with thinner orchestration and slightly diminished performance), the latter contains lots of new material to fit the more comedic aspects of that film. Thorne remained very active in scoring for television until his death in 2014.

Superman II

Superman III

Stephen Sondheim

Stephen Sondheim in primarily a stage composer and lyricist, although he has worked in film, providing the scores for Stavisky, The Last of Sheila, Warren Beatty's Reds and original songs for Dick Tracy (scored by Danny Elfman). He was trained by Oscar Hammerstein II and provided the lyrics to the classic musical West Side Story, music by Leonard Bernstein. Sondheim subsequently wrote the music and lyrics for many other highly-respected productions, including A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Anyone Can Whistle, Company, Follies, Into the Woods, Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park with George, and Passion. Sweeney Todd remains a favorite, and its profile heightened in 2007 when it was made into a film by Tim Burton with lush, full orchestrations of his classic music.

Into the Woods: Broadway Production*
Into the Woods: Film*

Sweeney Todd: Broadway Production**

Sweeney Todd: Film**

Johan Soderqvist

Johan Soderqvist is a Swedish composer who played the keyboard before moving on to composing for films. Most of his scores are for non-Hollywood projects, although he has written music for Susanne Bier's Brothers, After the Wedding, and Things We Lost in the Fire. His most well known score is for the drama/horror classic Let the Right One In, based on the novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist and an inspiration for the American version, Let Me In. The score accentuates the tragedy, loneliness, and restrained drama of the story over its horror elements.

Let the Right One In

Alan Silvestri

Alan Silvestri is a master at creating memorable and powerful themes, and his specialties include both hard-hitting action and tender romance. Silvestri first entered the world of music as a percussionist and subsequently played with Wayne Cochran and the C.C. Riders. Silvestri was lured to Los Angeles with a contract, but it turned out to be fraudulent and the musician soon found himself with nothing to do. A producer offered Silvestri the job of scoring The Doberman Gang. Silvestri knew nothing about film scoring, but picked up a book on film scoring technique and took the job.

After scoring a few obscure films, Silvestri scored the TV show CHiPs for its six season run from 1978 to 1983. Once the series came to an end, Silvestri received a call from Robert Zemeckis with an offer to score the director's third feature, Romancing the Stone. In an oft-repeated story, Silvestri walked into the meeting with Zemeckis to find that they were both wearing the same Calvin Klein sweater. It was the beginning of a great partnership, and Silvestri scored all of Zemeckis's subsequent features. After the electronic rhythms and jazzy riffs of Romancing the Stone, Silvestri composed his first major orchestral score for Back to the Future, composing a timeless fanfare and establishing his signature style of action scoring. He wrote a similar score for the sequel and composed rollicking Western music for the series' third installment. Who Framed Roger Rabbit combines blues with manic cartoon music and, Death Becomes Her features a witty string scherzo. He wrote a multitude of inspiring and tender themes for the Academy Award-nominated Forrest Gump and similarly tender but celestial-tinged music for Contact. While What Lies Beneath features Herrmann-esque suspense, Cast Away is a restrained score with no music appearing until the last third of the film. Flight is even more restrained and subtle, the score playing a lesser role than in Cast Away despite there being slightly more music. But both Polar Express and A Christmas Carol have scores brimming with holiday magic and boundless energy, while Beowulf combines dark chorus, orchestra, and electronics is a brutal frenzy of action.

As expected, some of Silvestri's best scores make use of the composer's percussionist background, featuring exciting action cues. Films such as Predator, Young Guns II, Ricochet, Blown Away, Judge Dredd, Eraser, Volcano, Van Helsing, and GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra showcase Silvestri's natural talent for the genre. The Mummy Returns is an especially exciting score, with one of the most swashbuckling themes in modern music. Yet he also can write heart-tugging music for films like Father of the Bride, The Parent Trap, Stuart Little, and Maid in Manhattan. His scores for James Cameron's The Abyss, Disney's Lilo and Stitch, and DreamWorks's The Croods show Silvestri deftly combining both tenderness and action. With his scores for the Marvel blockbusters Captain America and The Avengers, Silvestri has made a welcome return to the high-profile films that his exuberant music deserves.

The A-Team

The Abyss*
The Avengers

Back to the Future**

Back to the Future Part II

Back to the Future Part III*

Beowulf
Blown Away
The Bodyguard

Captain America: The First Avenger*

Cast Away
Cat's Eye

A Christmas Carol

Contact
Cosmos (Volumes 1-4)
The Croods

The Delta Force

Eraser
Fandango

Father of the Bride
Flight

Flight of the Navigator

Forrest Gump**

GI Joe: Rise of Cobra

Judge Dredd*

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life

Lilo and Stitch

The Mummy Returns**

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian

The Parent Trap

The Polar Express*

Predator*

Predator 2
Red 2

Romancing the Stone

Stuart Little

Van Helsing**
Volcano
The Walk
Who Framed Roger Rabbit*

Young Guns II