BOT's Top 100 Film Scores: The Countdown Thread (2015 Edition) (#1 Revealed Page 14, Full List Page 15)

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16. How to Train Your Dragon (2010)

Original Music by John Powell
424 Points
Top 10 Placements: 2
Top 5 Placements: 2
#1 Placements: 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CJ96LGGP6w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IBlQj2U5kU


2010 shows up yet again, this time with the breakout animated hit of that year. Putting aside the fact that a film about Vikings has Celtic/Scottish music with bagpipes galore, John Powell composes probably his best work to date for this film. The music covers all ranges, tones, and styles, from triumphant horn and bagpipe beats to romantic string cues to earthy, boppy bits. It's a textbook way of making a great film score via the sum of all the parts rather than focusing on just a couple bit themes to pound in repeatedly (something the second film was guilty of at times).

 

This is the highest-ranked animated film on the Countdown.

[Ethan Hunt]

Transformers and The Social Network made the list, all is right with the world

[Blankments]

Two other great tracks for HTTYD since I love that soundtrack so freaking much:

 

 

 

I'd also link Where's Hiccup for being a good finale piece, but eh... I like these two. It's a freaking great score even though it was only #4 on my list.

[Kalo]

forgot one of the best themes from ROTJ

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vDwqpzSrRU  

 

Also there are a lot of older themes in this one, but they are expanded on nicely.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UL4J9wQx6N8

[The Futurist]

The final haunting cues at the very end when Luke confronts Vador and the Emperor are incredible, they elevate the scene so much with those male choirs. It s like a requiem.

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15. Back to the Future (1985)

Original Music by Alan Silvestri
462 Points
Top 10 Placements: 3
Top 5 Placements: 2
#1 Placements: 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKyprXQDOfQ


After a long absence, Alan Silvestri returns to the Countdown with what is certainly his best-known film score. Back to the Future features a ton of licensed songs, but at the musical core is Silvestri's very famous main theme, which he is able to weave into the score in several different ways to convey different tones and kinds of adventure or drama. All in all he does a great job of displaying adventure and tension through the music.

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14. Schindler’s List (1993)

Original Music by John Williams
505 Points
Top 10 Placements: 4
Top 5 Placements: 2
#1 Placements: 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTs83Ej5nS8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYkB1t6X64s


If there are appropriate adjectives to describe John Williams' music for this film it'd be "mournful" and "somber." For Spielberg's magnum opus Williams scores music that is reverent, grieves for the lost, and sentimentally at times celebrates the successes of the characters in fighting to stay alive (or prevent a calamity). His main theme acts as both a sad tribute to the title character as well as a funeral dirge for all those he wasn't able to save.

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13. Inception (2010)

Original Music by Hans Zimmer
543 Points
Top 10 Placements: 2
Top 5 Placements: 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imamcajBEJs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WOcU7J9F3E


You all knew this was coming. One of the most, if not the most influential film score of the 2010s, Inception will go down as one of Zimmer's best known and best received musical works. His signature cue of horns blasting out at 12 on a 10-point scale has been imitated and replicated in numerous film scores and trailer music since, but it's not all just in-your-face musical explosions, he also has some nice progressions and elevations of music, slowly amping it up to reflect the growing emotion and tension of a scene, such as the finale. This will be the final appearance of the Nol-Zim Collective.

BWAHM

[The Futurist]

The Whole Inception score is fantastic.

The bwams copycats gave it a bad rep.

[Ethan Hunt]

Did I leave Schindler's List off my list??? gosh darn it!

[4815162342]

12. The Godfather (1972)

Original Music by Nino Rota
604 Points
Top 10 Placements: 4
Top 5 Placements: 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnSEZQEAPmE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmY7kH-KB48


It's one of the eternal questions: Which is better, Godfather 1 or 2? Well this Countdown provides one answer: Godfather 1's music is superior. Nino Rota composes a fantastic main theme waltz that permeates the entire film with tones of pride, grandeur, and power, yet also solitude. The music loves its horns, but it doesn't blast them at the audience, rather using them more often in low-key cues or solos. There's a lot of classically romantic music in the soundtrack that is lush and vibrant, which sets a nice counterpoint for the violent crime drama plot running through.

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11. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

Original Music by Maurice Jarre
634 Points
Top 10 Placements: 5
Top 5 Placements: 4
#1 Placements: 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_AjDz3vLN8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWyfgqKAJv8


For one of the grandest and most majestic historical epics out there, Maurice Jarre winds up and delivers a power strike with one of the most iconic musical cues out there, one that finds its way into our society even today. The core of Lawrence's music is that theme, a slow but sweeping piece that romanticizes the vast desert of Arabia and the journeys and adventures Lawrence finds himself in during World War I. Backing up that theme is a lot of exotic and naturalistic music that reflects the harshness of the desert and the martial nature of the Bedouin tribes Lawrence recruits to the cause. It's a great body of music to showcase our imminent entry into the Top 10.

Somewhere, Telemachos receives his equivalent of a Bat-signal.

[Kalo]

The Whole Inception score is fantastic.

The bwams copycats gave it a bad rep.

 

The Inception Score is amazing, very in your face and loud, but amazing. don't know why people complain about it so much. 

[Empire]

Inception score is good, but not #13 all-time good.

[Kvikk Lunsj]

Glad Schindler's List made it. I knew Elephant Man would not make it on the list. 

[Jake Gittes]

BWAHMMMM didn't even originally come from Zimmer, or am I mistaken? It was in "Mind Heist"/trailer before it was in the movie.

 

Anyway, my favorite cues from Inception are the quiet ones. Very moody and haunting:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x940gCfwUMM

[TalismanRing]

 

11. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

Original Music by Maurice Jarre

634 Points

Top 10 Placements: 5

Top 5 Placements: 4

#1 Placements: 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_AjDz3vLN8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWyfgqKAJv8

For one of the grandest and most majestic historical epics out there, Maurice Jarre winds up and delivers a power strike with one of the most iconic musical cues out there, one that finds its way into our society even today. The core of Lawrence's music is that theme, a slow but sweeping piece that romanticizes the vast desert of Arabia and the journeys and adventures Lawrence finds himself in during World War I. Backing up that theme is a lot of exotic and naturalistic music that reflects the harshness of the desert and the martial nature of the Bedouin tribes Lawrence recruits to the cause. It's a great body of music to showcase our imminent entry into the Top 10.

Somewhere, Telemachos receives his equivalent of a Bat-signal.

 

 

Tele didn't rate it #1 though, I know because I did.  Out of the top 10.

[John Marston]

I must have missed the voting. Oops

[Plain Old Tele]

Tele didn't rate it #1 though, I know because I did.  Out of the top 10.

 

[John Marston]

This list is actually pretty good.