The Best Movie Scores of All Time

Whether it's comedy, horror, or sci-fi, a movie's score can not only enhance the overall experience, but in some cases, make or break it.

star wars original trilogy
20th Century Fox

star-wars-original-trilogy

star wars original trilogy

You can’t underestimate the impact a good score can have on a movie— whether it’s a comedy, love story, horror, action, western, or futuristic sci-fi, the musical signature can not only enhance the overall experience, but in some cases, make or break it.  Music on screen has a tricky balancing act, to be both as unobtrusive and present as possible, to be a background accompaniment at some points, and lead player in the next.  As musical tastes have changed since the advent of silent pictures, the score has evolved along with it.  

From 1933’s King Kong, the very first complete score written for a film, to the era of composer John Williams in the 1970s (and 80’s, 90’s, 2000’s and on), to the 90s' introduction of hip hop soundtracks into the world of cinema (Beat Street, Breakin’) through the millennium, and on to today, in our world of super HD and Real 3D –the purpose of the score remains the same, to create a kind of emotional pace and rhythm for what you’re about to see before the opening scene even appears and what you just watched after the last credit rolls.. Try watching your favorite moving picture without it, without that emotional underpinning beneath it provided by an orchestrated composition of sound that, if done right, both elevates the film and literally guides you on how to feel.  And if you’re really lucky, you’ll walk out of the movie theater– or your own living room– humming along. Here are our list of the best movie scores of all time.

John Williams

Why does Mr. Williams get his own category?  Other than the fact that he’s the greatest film composer in history, there are almost too many landmark scores on his resume to name. He’s not only a great film composer, he’s an equally popular film composer— nearly half of the top 20 highest box office films of all time (soon to go up with Jurassic World and Star Wars The Last Jedi) feature his compositions— both elevating the form and making it as accessible to audiences everywhere.  The guy has won 23 Grammy Awards, five Academy Awards (hell, he’s been nominated 50 times! Only Walt Disney got more).  And, at 85, he’s still going strong.  Williams composed the score for eight of the top twenty highest-grossing films at the U.S. box office (adjusted for inflation). Let’s take a brief journey through the cinematic musical world of John Williams.

Jaws (1975)

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

Let’s face it, this is a good, B-horror film (alright, very, very, very good), with some really solid acting and precociously strong directing from a very young Steven Spielberg.  With Williams’ score, this becomes a classic in tension and horror.  I used to be able to scare my kids to tears simply by humming this soundtrack.  Now, that’s a score.

Star Wars (1977)

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

AFI named Star Wars the greatest musical score in film history.  Again, emboldening and elevating a young filmmaker’s vision, here, unlike Jaws, Williams culled influences from many great masters of orchestral music, from Strauss to Prokofiev, and particularly Holst, whose Planets the score has been unfairly claimed to have been derivative of.  Star Wars is so iconic that Bill Murray could sing lyrics to it on Saturday Night Live, and pop group Meco could score a number one version of.  

Superman: The Movie (1978)

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

As any true fan of the original Superhero can attest to, there is only definitive Superman—Chris Reeve— and there is only one definitive theme.  And Williams’ is it.  Don’t believe me?  Ask Jerry Seinfeld, the definitive Man of Steel expert, whose show featured Superman in at least one shot, in every Seinfeld episode, along with the theme on one occasion.

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

Let’s be honest, when someone mentions the movie, Indiana Jones, what’s the first thing that goes through your mind?  Harrison Ford in the iconic hat?  Maybe.  Indy being chased by natives and a giant ball?  Perhaps.  The theme song – Da da DANH dah, danh da DAH, Da da DANH da, da da da da dah…. Yep.

E.T. (1982)

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

Winner of the Academy Award and Grammy Award for the highest grossing film up to that point, it is again impossible to separate the story of an alienated boy and a boyish alien from Williams’ music (you can literally hear it as you picture the kids on their bicycles flying in the air, right?)

Schindler's List (1993)

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

Anyone who derided Williams as a one-trick pony (how wrong you are, anyway) need only listen to Itzhak Perlman’s violin on the achingly beautiful score for Spielberg’s shattering Holocaust drama, which both elevated the filmmaker and the composer in the audience’s eyes, respect so long wrongfully denied.  

Jurassic Park (1993)

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

Yeah, he wrote that one, too.  For so many, this was the movie that made them fall in love with movies, and when Laura Dern looks up and sees that T-Rex for the first time, Williams’ monumental music cued us to feel the same wonder as she does.

Harry Potter and the: Sorceror's Stone, Chamber of Secrets, & Prisoner of Azkaban (2001-2004)

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

How do you take the most popular series of books in the history of modern publishing and bring it to life on screen?  With meticulous care and attention to every detail, from the actors to the production design. And you bring in John Williams who helped transform the two-dimensional world into vivid three dimensional fantasy, and whose “Hedwig’s Theme” is now as much associated with the Harry Potter universe as the hero’s scar and spectacles.

If that’s not enough for you, there’s also Saving Private Ryan, Catch Me If You Can, the Olympic Theme, the CNN (“THIS is CNN”, yeah that’s him, too) theme, Bridge of Spies, Lincoln, the upcoming The Post, and on and on.  And if you need further reminder, go check him out at the Hollywood Bowl every summer where he conducts the LA Philharmonic a few of his many landmark scores.

The Other Greats

James Bond (1962-present)

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

Featuring The James Bond Theme by Monty Norman (erroneously credited to John Barry) which has been featured in every Bond film since the original, Dr. No, in 1962, which is a helluva lot more than you can say for the actors who played the title character, Connery, Lazenby, Moore, Brosnan and Craig (and, one can only hope, fingers crossed, Idris Elba). While the individual pop themes for the individual films have been hit (“Live and Let Die”, “Nobody Does It Better”) or miss (“View to a Kill”, “Skyfall”), the main Bond theme has always had a license to kill.

Rocky (1976-present)

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

The greatest sports soundtrack for the greatest sports film, whose inspirational music became a veritable cliché of inspirational music it was used so often, look past just the main title by Bill Conti to “Going the Distance,” with each bell signifying another beating, another round, another triumph by the tough as iron, lovable lug whose life, like its creator, was a million to one shot.

Psycho (1960)

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

As masterful a filmmaker Hitchcock was, Psycho would not be Psycho without the music.  It just wouldn’t.  The memorable shower scene would be a well-shot and constructed cinematic slasher scene, but it would hardly be the greatest, most disturbing and iconic scene that it remains today, and for that, you can thank the composer, Bernard Hermann.  Lest you think he was a one trick pony, among his other work is Scorcese’s Taxi Driver and The Twilight Zone theme.

The Godfather (1972)

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

Composed primarily by Nino Rota and orchestrated by the director’s father, Carmine Coppola, the unforgettable music from the greatest gangster film of all time was nominated for an Oscar in 1972 (but lost), but nominated AGAIN in 1974 for the film’s equally impressive sequel (and this time won!).  Its main “Love Theme (for a family of a mafia don?)” went to number one and has been embraced by audiences of the film as much as Brando, Pacino, DeNiro, Duvall and Caan – and the cannoli.

Chariots of Fire (1981)

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

In 1981, composer Evángelos Odysséas Papathanassíou, known as Vangelis, helped changed the course of film composition, utilizing the synthesizer to such effect that for years after, the electronic instrument became the standard for films to come.  Chariots, featuring the title theme, a film about the friendship between two British Olympians in 1924, one Jewish, one a deeply religious Christian, won the Academy Award, soared to number one on the charts, and, like Rocky, became the go-to training montage music for every conceivable sketch, ad, and home regimen.

Amadeus (1984)

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

Okay, this one’s not really fair.  Featuring the music of the title character, Mozart, arguably the greatest composer who ever lived (at least in the discussion), it’s hard to go wrong, especially when it only emboldens and invigorates an already brilliant script by Peter Shaffer, acting performances from F. Murray Abraham, direction by Milos Forman and the film deservedly winning 8 Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Like I said, really not fair, is it?

The Natural (1984)

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

There’s a scene, near the end, where the main character, Roy Hobbs, played by Robert Redford, is barely able to stand up, facing the best pitcher in the game, in the World Series. It's two outs, two strikes, man on base, down by 1 run, and everything in the game— and his life— is on the line.  He hits the ball, and it crashes into the lights, sending sparks shooting into the sky like fireworks, not only winning the game, and giving him his life back.  The moment is something nearly every American boy dreams of, and it is made unforgettable by the soaring music of the film’s composer, Randy Newman, who, at the time, was a truly American pop composer. He elevated his game and talents on the screen, and would continue to do so as one of our foremost film composers for decades after, virtually putting Pixar and its music on the map.  And this was indeed a preview of great things to come.  You’re feeling down? Watch that movie, in particular that scene, and it will give you hope in mankind and baseball again.  

The Magnificent Seven (1960)

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

It’s hard to call the 1960 Magnificent Seven “original”, though Antoine Fuqua made his own remake in 2016 with Denzel Washington in the lead based on the earlier film.  The real original is the Japanese classic, Seven Samurai, with the ultimate badass, Toshiro Mifune.  But the 1960 version with Yul Brynner and Charles Bronson, among others, transported the samurai drama to the old west, and featured one of the most familiar themes in movie history.  When you heard Elmer Bernstein’s music rise, you knew seven very dangerous men were coming.  In the half century since, the score has been used all over the place, most prominently for over a decade in commercials in the U.S. for Marlboro cigarettes. From Celtic Football club to Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band in his most recent tour, the Mag Seven theme continues to conjure up a group of very bad men.

Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001-2003)

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

How does one go on after Lord of the Rings trilogy?  Peter Jackson’s masterful work, encompassing over a decade of his life, bringing to fruition every detail and nuance of J.R.R. Tolkien’s legendary tome, and the music, tasked to Howard Shore (who, amazingly, in a previous life, was the original conductor of the Saturday Night Live orchestra) who created, in scope and detail and breadth, maybe the most amazing – in scale – soundtrack in modern film history, a modern day Ring Cycle that rivals that old anti-semite Wagner. In over twelve hours of music (with another nine for The Hobbit), Shore created dozens upon dozens of individual themes, including those for the Ring, Sauron, Mordor, The Shire, Frodo, Gollum, Rivendel, Aragorn,  Gandalf, Treebeard, Orks, et al. With six hundred minutes of film, and a budget of a third of a billion, that’s a lot of Middle Earth to fill.  

Gone With The Wind (1939)

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

The one that set the standard and broke the mold.  At 2:36, the longest score in the world up to that time, it was Max Steiner’s – the greatest film composer of the first half of the century (uh, yeah, the guy also wrote the music for Casablanca, King Kong, A Summer Place, and on and on) -magnum opus.  While the film is sort of caught in the dated mores of a long-gone world, the music – Steiner was the first composer to insist that each character have their own theme, a standard used even today -  and Clark Gable stand above it, separately, both timeless. 

Batman (1989/2005-2008)

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

Okay, take your pick.  In 1989, Tim Burton picked his go-to music impresario, Danny Elfman (formerly of Oingo Boingo) to create the grand palette that blanketed his colorful, kitschy update of Batman, to which he recorded no less than 30 themes and which producer Jon Peters thought enough to release as its own album.  Prince was brought in as kind of an interpretive musical dancer to give his take on the whole Bat world universe and within six weeks – four weeks after the release of Elfman’s work - came up with the eleven million album selling Batman soundtrack, featuring the number one charted “Batdance.”  Then again, you may be partial to the Dark Knight, quite literally a darker and edgier orchestral work (where else will you find razor blades on stringed instruments to simulate a tortured soul?).  Whatever your fancy, it’s rare that you’ll find so much awesome musical expression all for one character.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (1968)

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

Clint Eastwood. The Man With No Name.  The cigarillo.  The poncho.  The theme.  All iconic images that define the spaghetti western.  Sergio Leone’s Italian oater is heavy on the violence, and light on the dialogue or story but with one of the great Mexican standoffs of all time.  No Composer Ennio Morricone, fills his sound with whistling and yodeling, and songs that echo the American Civil War. The theme went to number 2 on the charts, and remains as popular today as 1968.  

Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

If you have never seen David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia, without a doubt, get up and go see it, and make sure you do it only on the big screen.  This is a film that does not work nearly as well on a 40” in your living room (or worse, on your tablet or phone).  Maurice Jarre – the director’s default choice after any and all the composers he wanted proved unavailable, cranked out one of the most lush, epic and dramatic scores of all time, brought to life by the London Symphony, in a little over a month (and this, in an era pre electronic music, pre-multi track recording).  There is nothing small-scale about this film, from the production to the 70MM shooting, the music included.  Jarre would go on to create dozens of incredible scores in the latter part of the century and early millennium, including Dr. Zhivago, Witness, Fatal Attraction and Mad Max, evolving into a more electronic style, and nothing quite as grand as this..  

Blade Runner (1982)

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

In what is probably the peak of electronically generated film scores, Vangelis’ ethereal, dark musical landscape gives Ridley Scott’s classic futuristic sci-fi thriller the edge it needs.  Long delayed to the public as a stand-alone collection, the soundtrack became something of a bootlegger’s prize, until it was released years later, jumping the charts, and reclaiming the charts in 2013 with a vinyl release.  The most recent sequel built largely on the same ambient moodiness that so defined the original.  

Up (2009)

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

The first Pixar film to win the Academy Award, the jazz-inflected score of Up features an opening musical montage, without any dialogue, that creates an entire life of a married couple, from childhood through marriage and dying, and is evocative as any musical sequence you may ever see, animated, computer generated, live action or otherwise.  Composed by the film composer of the moment, Michael Giacchino (“Coco”, “War of the Planet of the Apes”), it is a film that is both moving and funny, with a musical accompaniment that is completely emotional but never maudlin.

Latest in Pop Culture