Outstanding Original Movie Soundtracks
Ever since movies exist, soundtracks exist. Plenty of outstanding score has been composed so far, we’ll never forget. Think of Ennio Morricone and his unforgettable music written for films like Once upon a Time in the West or The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. But if you are not a fan of westerns, the scores of such classics as Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Jaws, or Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone are sure to be familiar to you. These latter ones are composed by the magnificent John Williams. Although the movie of the first adventure of Harry is not an old one, Williams is working actively as a composer for quite some time now. (He turned 88 this year.)
We may think that so many films have been made over the years that none of them can show us anything new anymore. But the creators can always renew and make long-lasting movies even today. This is also true to the soundtracks.
In this article you can find some composers who can renew and give us pieces of music we’ll remember for, at least, a couple of years. We also gathered some (relatively) new movies with the best of soundtracks.
Hans Zimmer
Though Zimmer won his only Oscar for The Lion King, in my opinion, his best score was written for Interstellar. He was involved to the filmmaking process in the beginning. He was given one page of dialogue from the screenplay and started writing themes without even knowing the genre or the plot. For this reason, his inspiration for the main theme came from his relationship with his son. (He figured out later that the film is about a father’s relationship with his daughter.) Director Christopher Nolan chose this method to force Zimmer to write the score concentrating to the emotional power instead of the sci-fi genre. Zimmer chose the organ as the main instrument which is quite unusual for a large-scale space opera like Interstellar. Here you can listen to the tracks.
Honorable mentions: Sherlock Holmes, Rush, Inception, Dunkirk, Blade Runner 2049, Dark Phoenix.
In this article you can find some composers who can renew and give us pieces of music we’ll remember for, at least, a couple of years. We also gathered some (relatively) new movies with the best of soundtracks.
Hans Zimmer
Though Zimmer won his only Oscar for The Lion King, in my opinion, his best score was written for Interstellar. He was involved to the filmmaking process in the beginning. He was given one page of dialogue from the screenplay and started writing themes without even knowing the genre or the plot. For this reason, his inspiration for the main theme came from his relationship with his son. (He figured out later that the film is about a father’s relationship with his daughter.) Director Christopher Nolan chose this method to force Zimmer to write the score concentrating to the emotional power instead of the sci-fi genre. Zimmer chose the organ as the main instrument which is quite unusual for a large-scale space opera like Interstellar. Here you can listen to the tracks.
Honorable mentions: Sherlock Holmes, Rush, Inception, Dunkirk, Blade Runner 2049, Dark Phoenix.
Thomas Newman
Poor Thomas Newman is the all-time loser of Academy Awards among musicians. He’s already been nominated for 15 times, but never won. I hope that it will change soon because he’s very talented. He often uses the piano as the main instrument to write themes making most of the viewers burst into tears. (I mean because it makes the scenes so sad and emotional.) Here are some albums from him: The Shawshank Redemption, Road to Perdition, American Beauty, Skyfall, Passengers, 1917.
John Williams
There are no rankings of soundtracks without mentioning John Williams. He’s composed so many scores so far that it’s impossible to name his best. That’s why we recommend everyone to listen to them one after another.
Ludwig Göransson
He’s a new talent. He composed his first score to a feature film only in 2013. Yet, he’s already won an Oscar for the music of Black Panther. He often works with director Ryan Coogler and recently with Christopher Nolan on Tenet. Maybe, this decision seemed strange at first because Nolan’s frequent collaborator had been Hans Zimmer. But Zimmer didn’t have time for Tenet due to another production, so recommended Göransson to Nolan. The soundtrack of Tenet is amazing. It has parts that are reversed when there is a scene reversed in time. After the editing processes of the movie had finished, Göransson wanted to show it to Travis Scott. Scott was amazed and had some ideas for a song for the credits at the end of Tenet. The composer showed him a beat he had made for the convoy scene which later became the basis of Travis Scott’s song The Plan. You can listen to the music here. And don’t miss these either: Black Panther, Creed, The Mandalorian.
Ramin Djawadi
Even if the last season of Game of Thrones wasn’t that good (actually it wasn’t good at all), the music was on the same high quality throughout. It was composed by Ramin Djawadi, just like the one of another well-known HBO series Westworld.
James Newton Howard
He’s another very talented composer with 8 Academy Award nominations and no wins. I hope it’ll change soon, just like in the case of Thomas Newman. James Newton Howard composed masterpieces like the music of The Village, The Dark Knight (with Zimmer), Unbreakable, The Hunger Games, and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.
Bands or singers composing original scores
It’s getting more and more popular that an individual singer, rapper or a band composes a complete score for a film, not just a song written directly for the production.
Daft Punk is a music duo that made a powerful soundtrack for Tron: Legacy in 2010. (Let’s be honest the score was more powerful than the film.)
M83 was asked to compose the music for Oblivion in 2013. They also did a pretty good job. (Both films were directed by Joseph Kosinski.)
Thom Yorke, the main vocalist and songwriter of the band Radiohead, has also written a movie soundtrack. In 2018 for Suspiria.
The composer of the successful HBO series Euphoria was Labrinth. He’s also more likely to be known for his songs.
Of course, it’s impossible to list every brilliant composer, so I stop here. If you like to listen to soundtracks, you can also do that on Sotify where you can find many of them. If you are not really into scores yet, start listening to them with the ones mentioned above or listed below and I hope you’ll find some movie soundtracks in your Spotify wrapped list next year.
Here are some of the best pieces of music written for motion pictures picked randomly that weren’t mention above.
A Quiet Place by Marco Beltrami
Avatar by James Horner
Avengers: Endgame by Alan Silvestri
First Man by Justin Hurwitz
Gravity by Steven Price
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by Nicholas Hooper
Inception by Hans Zimmer
Joker by Hildur Guðnadóttir
Nocturnal Animals by Abel Korzeniowski
Parasite (Gisaengchung) by Jaeil Jung
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest by Hans Zimmer
Raiders of the Lost Ark by John Williams
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse by Daniel Pemberton
Stranger Things by Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein
The Crown by Rupert Gregson-Williams and Lorne Balfe
The Imitation Game by Alexandre Desplat
The Lord of the Rings trilogy by Howard Shore
The Revenant by Alva Noto and Ryûichi Sakamoto
The Social Network by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri by Carter Burwell
Us by Michael Abels
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