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

[TalismanRing]

What's left?  LOTR, Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Jaws?  How much of the top 10 is John Williams?

[Kalo]

What's left?  LOTR, Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Jaws?  How much of the top 10 is John Williams?

 

alot don't forget Superman.

[TalismanRing]

alot don't forget Superman.

 

Ah, I thought it was already listed but it hasn't been - should be top 10.

 

[4815162342]

10. Jurassic Park (1993)

Original Music by John Williams
655 Points
Top 10 Placements: 2
Top 5 Placements: 2

SELECT TRACKS

Journey to the Island

Dennis Steals the Embryo

Remembering Petticoat Lane

High Wire Stunts

Welcome to Jurassic Park

The Top 10 arrives. First up is John Williams with his score to a film about an island where dinosaurs have been brought back to life to entertain the masses and it goes just about as well as you think it would. Williams' music is one of the biggest highlights of the film, with a very memorable main theme that slowly builds awe and emotion before letting it rip for a big crescendo. Of course Williams adds in a few other pretty good themes as well, plus his incidental adventure and mood music is as always a delightful treat.
 

[4815162342]

9. Superman: The Movie (1978)

Original Music by John Williams
657 Points
Top 10 Placements: 4
Top 5 Placements: 2


SELECT TRACKS

Superman Main Theme

The Planet Krypton

The Death of Jonathan

The Fortress of Solitude

Love Theme


Coming in at #9 is the creme de la creme of the superhero film score, the one that started them all and the one that has never been topped (though you could make a plausible case for Elfman's Batman music. The late 1970s through early 1980s was John Williams on fire and his music for Superman is about as perfect a match for the character as you can find anywhere. His main theme is soaring, awe-inspiring, and full of wonder, a proud and triumphant march celebrating a true hero. He also features some great secondary themes for Krypton, for the villains, for the Lois Lane romance, etc.

[The Futurist]

Wolfgang would be proud.

[4815162342]

8. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)

Original Music by Howard Shore
658 Points
Top 10 Placements: 6
Top 5 Placements: 3


SELECT TRACKS

Foundations of Stone

The Riders of Rohan

Breath of Life

Isengard Unleashed

Forth Eorlingas


You knew they were coming, well now they are here. At #8 our first Lord of the Rings film is the middle child of the trilogy. Howard Shore continues his Middle-Earth mastery by continuing to assign almost every person, place, or thing a musical cue. Notable ones introduced in this film include the Rohan theme, the White Rider theme, the Ent theme, etc. His music really evokes the drama and atmosphere of the narrative, using all aspects of the orchestra to build epic, swelling pieces that zap you into the action onscreen.

[James]

LOTR better win this. I think I had all of them in my Top 5.

[Kalo]

FOTR will Probably be #2 or #3 star wars or Empire is the winner of course. 

[Kvikk Lunsj]

LOTR better win this. I think I had all of them in my Top 5.

I hope not. This site has a boner for those movies.

[Kalo]

I hope not. This site has a boner for those movies.

 

Not just this site, they are pretty much universally loved everywhere and considered by a lot of people to be one of the best film trilogies ever made.. because well they are. 

[4815162342]

7. Jaws (1975)

Original Music by John Williams
737 Points
Top 10 Placements: 4
Top 5 Placements: 2


SELECT TRACKS

Main Titles

The Pier Incident

Father and Son

Out to Sea

The Great Shark Chase


In at #7 is Baumer's pride and joy. Jaws is a movie that for the first 3/4 is driven by what you don't see, or catch just glimpses of. To help accentuate that fear of the unknown killer is John Williams thrumming and simmering film score, which helps augment the tension and jolts a hundred-fold. The iconic main theme sends chills as it signals the imminent lunch for Bruce. The music kicks into adventure gear as our heroes go out to bring the shark to justice.

[4815162342]

6. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)

Original Music by Howard Shore

765 Points
Top 10 Placements: 6
Top 5 Placements: 6
#1 Placements: 1


SELECT TRACKS

The White Tree

Anduril

Shelob's Lair

The End of All Things

The Grey Havens


At #6 we have our second LOTR film, the climax of the trilogy. By this point in the series Howard Shore had composed a multitude of themes for the films, but he manages to squeeze in some more. The two most notable are the Gondor theme (very very barely referenced in the first film), a martial and proud cue, and the West cue, which gives dramatic moments extra heft and feeling. Shore does a brilliant job of weaving the cues together into an increasingly epic and operatic soundblast as the film nears its endgame.

[4815162342]

5. Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

Original Music by John Williams
893 Points
Top 10 Placements: 7
Top 5 Placements: 5
#1 Placements: 3


SELECT TRACKS

The Imperial March (Darth Vader's Theme)

Yoda's Theme

The Battle of Hoth

The Clash of Lightsabers

Rescue from Cloud City/Hyperspace


The Star Wars OT returns with the first crack in the Top 5. I personally find Empire Strikes Back to have the best music in the trilogy, since it adds in several new themes that really dominate the soundtrack, especially a certain theme that just might be the most popular and influential and omnipresent piece of modern film music ever. It uses themes from the first film when appropriate, but Williams avoids using them that much which helps the film and its music stand alone. Like all Star Wars music, Williams does a brilliant job at composing incidental action music that helps power and drive the energy and tension along.

[Plain Old Tele]

It's the Shore & Williams Show.

[4815162342]

It's the Shore & Williams Show.

 

It's not like this Top 10 is going to be hard to predict

[Empire]

Empire Strikes Back was my #1!

[Kvikk Lunsj]

I hope a New Hope is number 1. 

[JohnnY]

wow you guys have been in love with LOtR recently. I confess i've only listened to the first movie score, are the other two much different? Or are they like hans zimmer recycling pirates of caribbean (which I kinda like, actually)?

[BadAtGender]

wow you guys have been in love with LOtR recently. I confess i've only listened to the first movie score, are the other two much different? Or are they like hans zimmer recycling pirates of caribbean (which I kinda like, actually)?

 

A lot of the themes and motifs that Shore wrote are reused, but that's by design since they're often character based. And he's incredibly skilled about making them work in multiple ways for different moods. Concerning Hobbits shows up a lot in all three films, but it's very different when played over scenes of the Shire vs. scenes in Mordor.

 

And really, any good series is going to have music that provides connections like that. It's not recycling. The soundtrack is one of the most enduring emotional aspects of the film experience, so even if the viewer doesn't now for certain that the music they're hearing played in a previous movie, it provides a subconscious link. The series where it doesn't happen (*coughmcucough*) tend to stand out because of that lack.