23 Best Movie Scores of All Time — Filmmaker Playlist

Normally on hold for Paul Thomas Anderson or a Radiohead tour, this marks Jonny Greenwood’s second collaboration with director Lynne Ramsay and third with actor Joaquin Phoenix.

Swaying more heavily toward synth and ambient, the score bounces back and forth between a Radiohead vibe, and some of the more aggressive tones we’ve heard in things like The Master, There Will Be Blood, or Phantom Thread. 

The score doesn’t have the notoriety or acclaim, but just because something is a bit of a secret doesn’t mean it has to stay that way. This score, much like this film, has gone underappreciated.

Alfred Hitchcock's go-to composer, Bernard Herrmann could have his own section on this list. His credits include Psycho, North by Northwest, Vertigo, Citizen Kane, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Taxi Driver, and so many more.

The Psycho score is largely string-based, and the frantic scratching of the strings makes it one of the most iconic film scores.

It might be considered blasphemy to put Blade Runner 2049’s score here instead of the original Blade Runner score by Vangelis, so I’ll play that one too. Two different interpretations of the same world with familiar but wholly unique soundscapes.

On a blind test, I prefer the 2049 score. Call me crazy. Zimmer and Wallfisch had their work cut out to live up to and differentiate from the original, and they succeeded. But it wasn’t without a bump or two along the way. Jóhann Jóhannsson (Denis Villeneuve's go-to composer who made the awesome Sicario score) was the original composer on the film.

Late in production, Villeneuve felt the score needed to be closer to the original Vangelis soundtrack. Jóhannsson was pulled from the project and Zimmer and Wallfish joined at the very last minute (July 2017 for an October 2017 release date). What we hear now was likely influenced by all three composers.

The most iconic film franchises tend to have similarly iconic film scores, and there is no franchise more well-known than Star Wars.

This prompts a chicken vs egg question — would we know these themes if the movies weren’t as good? Is there an exposure effect where the more we hear these themes the more we like them?

Either way, there’s no denying John Williams brought the A-game on this Oscar-winning score. From Tatooine to the Death Star to the Cantina, the music from Star Wars is powerful, evocative and one of the best film scores of all time.

Creeping into nightmares from decade-to-decade, generation-to-generation is John Carpenter’s eerie piano. It’s so basic, so instinctual, it feels like it could be happening to you. 

Interestingly, the composer of the score is John Carpenter, the writer and director of Halloween. In total, Carpenter was paid only $10,000 to write, direct, and score the film. The film went on to gross $70 million.

Another score almost everyone will recognize, the Bond theme is catchy, energizing, and instantly triggers memories. Since its introduction in Dr. No, the theme has been altered and adjusted with various instruments in subsequent Bond films.

The authorship of the song is a bit of a hot topic. Both Monty Norman and John Barry vie for the credit. There have been multiple lawsuits over the matter, both of which Norman has come away victorious. Norman claims the theme was inspired by his song Good Sign, Bad Sign.

Two scores for the price of one here, which admittedly, is kind of cheating, but I couldn’t resist. The pleasant, simpleness of the piano perfectly suits the gentle melancholy of Her. 

Composed by members of the band Arcade Fire, it's a bit of a surprising contribution. Arcade Fire’s music tends to be a bit more melodic and catchy. Her is the only film Arcade Fire has scored to date, even though their songs have been used in a few soundtracks, including the trailer for Where the Wild Things Are (2009), also directed by Spike Jonze. 

The Moonlight vs. La La Land saga continues, and while Moonlight took home Best Picture Oscar gold, it was La La Land that grabbed the Academy Award for Best Original Score.

As a silver lining, while composer Nicholas Britel didn’t win for Moonlight, he was nominated again for this If Beale Street Could Talk score and won an Emmy for his opening titles score in Succession.

That’s not to diminish the beautiful sharp violin in this track. Director Barry Jenkins asked for a score that could split the difference between classical and codeine. What results is an aesthetic of orchestral music that’s been “chopped and screwed.”

This song has been used in so many sports highlight videos it’s easy to forget where it came from. That place is from conductor Clint Mansell, the composer on nearly all of Darren Aronofsky’s films (The Fountain, The Wrestler, Black Swan, Noah).

The track is undeniably epic and has outstanding build-up. Both Sunshine and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers used the track in their trailers. Here, the song accompanies epic battles, whereas, in Requiem for A Dream, it helps illustrate a graphic downfall.

This romantic score might paint a glamorous impression of the often cold, dramatic Phantom Thread, but it’s perfect montage music.

Jonny Greenwood’s (lead guitarist and keyboardist of Radiohead) second score on the list, he has been making amazing scores in the 2010s. Greenwood scored There Will Be Blood, The Master, Inherent Vice, and Phantom Thread.

In a trend you’ll see a few times on this list, Anderson repaid the favor by directing a couple Radiohead music videos and a short film.

It’s rare a film composer can successfully pull off a world tour, but it’s even more rare to find someone as talented as Hans Zimmer, perhaps the most sought after composer in Hollywood.

I’ll say numerous variations of this statement throughout the article, but you can’t make a “best movie scores of all time” list without Hans Zimmer. With so many scores to choose from, Inception’s score thrives off its simplicity, build up, and spectacle. A few chords serve as the basis for the entire track.

Other great songs from Zimmer’s work on Inception include Dream is Collapsing, and his manipulation of the great Edith Piaf’s Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien.

The go-to composer for Chris Nolan, Zimmer scored Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, Dark Knight Rises, Interstellar, Dunkirk, and also The Lion King, Gladiator, Pirates of the Caribbean and countless other blockbuster titles. He even has an asteroid named after him.

A truly heart-pounding, head-throbbing score belonging to the only movie that deserves it. This track starts with a huge bang and holds from start to finish. My favorite part comes in the second half when the score softens, allowing for an epic violin build up.

Composer Tom Holkenborg workshopped the score for an entire year after seeing 3 hours of film from the movie. The deluxe edition of the Mad Max: Fury Road tracklisting includes over 2 hours of original music, longer than the film itself.

Despite incredible scores for films like Once Upon a Time in the West, The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, and Cinema Paradiso, it took until 2016 for Morricone to win an Oscar on Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight. 

Wait, is that the Stranger Things score? Nope, that’s the buried Only God Forgives score that came out three years prior. If this score was used in Drive instead, it would be much more well-known. 

The Oscar winner for Best Original Score in 2017 (an amazing year for scores), La La Land is built around music. When the soundtrack was released, it reached #2 on the US Billboard 200 list, and #1 in the UK.

It’s hard to pick one specific song from the tracklist, so instead, I chose the Epilogue, composed of a mixture of nearly every musical number. Running for nearly 8 minutes, there’s highs, lows, swells, crescendos, and nearly every musical instrument you could think of. 

Zimmer strikes again, this time along with an assist from James Newton Howard (Pretty Woman, The Fugitive, King Kong, The Hunger Games). There are so many amazing cues on The Dark Knight tracklist, from Why So Serious? to A Dark Knight I could’ve featured any of them.

The creativity here is out of control, Zimmer used razor blades on the string instruments for the Why So Serious? to represent chaos and anarchy. Bits and pieces of this score appear in all 3 of Christopher Nolan’s Batman films. The intense, pounding, but also accessible scores play a large part in establishing the darker, grittier superhero franchise.

Written by Hitchcock's go-to composer Bernard Herrmann, this score was composed and recorded by Muir Mathieson due to an American musician strike. With swirling notes and quiet, tip-toe like harps the score is full of mystery and intrigue. Herrmann says the track was inspired largely by Richard Wagner's “Tristan und Isolde.”