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BOT's Top 100 Film Scores Countdown (2021): Fast Five Edition (TOP 10 WEDNESDAY EVENING EST)

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Time to close out the first half of the Countdown

 

 

 

55. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)


Original Music by John Williams

 

 

 

312 Points 


Top 10 Placements: 1

 

 

Prior Placements:
2015- Honorable Mention
2017- #48
2019- #70
 

 

It has been a slow start to the 100 for John Williams but it is sure to slowly and steadily pick up for him. Coming up at 55 is the acclaimed 1977 science fiction blockbuster that wasn't Star Wars. It took John Williams over 300 tries to nail down the iconic five-tone motif used by scientists to communicate with the visiting spaceship. The score briefly incorporates the melody from "When You Wish Upon a Star", as Spielberg envisioned the music for the film as a whole to be a mixture of that melody's feel with science fiction. The film score uses a ARP 2500 synthesizer and the company's vice president appears as the person who plays the 5-note sequence on the huge synthesizer in the film's climax.

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54. Ben-Hur (1959)

 

Original Music by Miklós Rózsa

 

 


314 Points


Top 5 Placements: 1

 

 

Prior Placements:
2015- #67
2017- #14
2019- #76
 

 

For a brief moment, the William Wyler biblical epic cracked the Top 15 of the Countdown, and it has been struggling to get close ever since. Rózsa scored most of MGM Studios' historical films in the 1950s and his work on Wyler's picture was a tremendous cap to his decade. Rózsa heavily researched era-appropriate Greek and Roman music, and composed over 3 hours of music for the movie, of which about 150 minutes ended up being used, to date still being one of the longest film scores in cinema history. It was so lengthy it had to be released on 3 LP records. Rózsa's work on the film won him his third Oscar.

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53. Goldfinger (1964)

 

Original Music by John Barry

 

 


317 Points


Top 10 Placements: 1

 

 

Prior Placements:
2015- #42
2017- #99
2019- #72
 

 

 

John Barry's music for probably the most iconic James Bond film has done a fair-share of yo-yoing around the Countdown, from being almost in the Top 40 to almost out entirely. This was Barry's second of 11 Bond film scores and it was the first time Barry had creative control over his work for the film series. In keeping with the film's emphasis on gold and other metals, Barry utilized copious amounts of bombastic brass instruments in the film score. Barry also composed the film's iconic title song, the main melodies of which he heavily used in the film score itself. Two of the session musicians for the recording of the score were John Paul Jones and Jimmy Page, who would go on to be among the founding members of Led Zeppelin.

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52. RoboCop (1987)

 

Original Music by Basil Poledouris

 

 


322 Points


Top 5 Placements: 1

 

 

Prior Placements:
2015- #94
2017- Honorable Mention
2019- #65
 

 

 

Coming in at #52, this is the highest that Paul Verhoeven's dystopian sci-fi crime flick has reached on the 100. Composition and recording of the film score was aided by the studio kicking in extra money for the film's budget once it reached post-production. Basil Poledouris was hired by Verhoeven to work on the film after the two had collaborated on Flesh+Blood. To reflect the cyborg nature of RoboCop, being part man and part machine, the score features heavy interplay between a normal orchestra and electronic music and synthesizers.

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51. Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)

 

Original Music by Javier Navarrete

 

 


325 Points

 

 

Prior Placements:
2015- #76
2017- #95
2019- #31

 

 

After almost cracking the Top 30 in 2019, Guillermo Del Toro's horror fantasy drops 20 places to be the final film of the first half. Navarrete structured much of the score around a central lullaby, and the music for the film strides the fine line between a grim fairy tale and a dark historical drama, as the film shifts between the protagonists magical descent into a fantasy adventure and her time dealing with her family's precarious situation amidst the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War. The film was nominated for an Oscar for Original Score, but it lost to Gustavo Santaolalla's work for Babel, which did not feature on a single submitted list.

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With the first half of the Countdown in the books, here are some stats:

 

 

Composer Appearances:

 

Spoiler

Ennio Morricone- 4
Alan Silvestri- 4
Bernard Herrmann- 3
Michael Giacchino- 2
Phillip Glass- 2
Thomas Newman- 2
Basil Poledouris- 2
Hans Zimmer- 2
Malcolm Arnold- 1
John Barry- 1
Elmer Bernstein- 1
Nicholas Britell- 1
Nick Cave- 1
Carmine Coppola- 1
Alexandre Desplat- 1
Daft Punk- 1
Danny Elfman- 1
Warren Ellis- 1
Brad Fiedel- 1
Michael Galasso- 1
Lisa Gerrard- 1
Goblin- 1
Jerry Goldsmith- 1
Dave Grusin- 1
Justin Hurwitz- 1
Maurice Jarre- 1
Mica Levi- 1
Henry Mancini- 1
John Murphy- 1
Javier Navarrete
Jack Nitzsche- 1
Alex North- 1
Michael Nyman- 1
John Powell- 1
David Raksin- 1
Miklós Rózsa- 1
Nino Rota- 1
Howard Shore- 1
Shigeru Umebayashi- 1
Underworld- 1
Franz Waxman- 1
John Williams- 1

 

 

 

Scores by Decade:

 

Spoiler

1940s- 2
1950s- 6
1960s- 3
1970s- 6
1980s- 8
1990s- 5
2000s- 9
2010s- 11


 

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And here are the next three films that comprised the Next Ten Out

 

 

 

116th. Joker (2019) by Hildur Guðnadóttir

 

 

 


119th. The Mask of Zorro (1998) by James Horner

 

 

 


114th. The Matrix (1999) by Don Davis

 

 

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1 hour ago, 4815162342 said:

With the first half of the Countdown in the books, here are some stats:

 

 

Composer Appearances:

 

  Hide contents

Ennio Morricone- 4
Alan Silvestri- 4
Bernard Herrmann- 3
Michael Giacchino- 2
Phillip Glass- 2
Thomas Newman- 2
Basil Poledouris- 2
Hans Zimmer- 2
Malcolm Arnold- 1
John Barry- 1
Elmer Bernstein- 1
Nicholas Britell- 1
Nick Cave- 1
Carmine Coppola- 1
Alexandre Desplat- 1
Daft Punk- 1
Danny Elfman- 1
Warren Ellis- 1
Brad Fiedel- 1
Michael Galasso- 1
Lisa Gerrard- 1
Goblin- 1
Jerry Goldsmith- 1
Dave Grusin- 1
Justin Hurwitz- 1
Maurice Jarre- 1
Mica Levi- 1
Henry Mancini- 1
John Murphy- 1
Javier Navarrete
Jack Nitzsche- 1
Alex North- 1
Michael Nyman- 1
John Powell- 1
David Raksin- 1
Miklós Rózsa- 1
Nino Rota- 1
Howard Shore- 1
Shigeru Umebayashi- 1
Underworld- 1
Franz Waxman- 1
John Williams- 1

 

 

 

Scores by Decade:

 

  Hide contents

1940s- 2
1950s- 6
1960s- 3
1970s- 6
1980s- 8
1990s- 5
2000s- 9
2010s- 11


 


2010s and Silvestri leading the countdown? This is the worst timeline!

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11 hours ago, The Panda said:


2010s and Silvestri leading the countdown? This is the worst timeline!

 

 

Guess you either have to get yourself a DeLorean or you'll just have to wait and see how the second half turns out.

 

 

Welcome to the Top 50!

 

 

 

50. The Last of the Mohicans (1992)

 

Original Music by Trevor Jones and Randy Edelman

 

 


326 Points


Top 10 Placements: 1

 

 

Prior Placements:
2015- #53
2017- #57
2019- #51
 

 

 

Kicking off the second half is a film that has its first time on this side of the 50, though overall its appearances on the Countdown have been remarkably consistent. Composer Trevor Jones was originally working on the film solo, following Mann's instruction to use an entirely electronic score, but late in production Mann changed his mind to have the music be predominantly orchestral, resulting in substantial crunch with little time to get everything done. Composer Randy Edelman was brought in to score portions of the movie so Jones could finish the rest, resulting in the two sharing credit, and the film score thereby being deemed ineligible for Oscar consideration under the rules of the time. The movie's main theme is based on an orchestration of the Scottish song "The Gael".

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49. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)

 

Original Music by James Horner

 

 


330 Points


Top 10 Placements: 2

 

 

Prior Placements:
2015- #66
2017- #40
2019- #52
 

 

 

We now return to where few men (and women) have gone before, with the film score that became James Horner's big break into Hollywood, energizing a career that would span over two decades. Jerry Goldsmith was not considered an option to come back for the second Star Trek film because of the substantial budget cuts it was operating under (dropping in budget from over $40 million to about $12 million), resulting in a search for a lower budget composer that finally settled on Horner. Director Nicholas Meyer forbade Horner from using any of Goldsmith's score for the first film, instead giving the sequel is own musical stamp. The result is a film score designed to evoke a swashbuckling and nautical atmosphere, analogizing the Enterprise and other spaceships as the next step in adventure on the high seas. Some synthesziers and other electronic elements were worked into the score to set it apart from other sci-fi films such as ET and the Star Wars movies, with one such instrument called the "Blaster beam."

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48. The Right Stuff (1983)

 

Original Music by Bill Conti

 

 


330 Points


Top 5 Placements: 1


Vote Tiebreaker over Star Trek II

 

 

Prior Placements:
2019- #86
 

 

Winning the tiebreaker over Wrath of Khan due to inclusion on just a solitary more list, Phillip Kaufman's historical epic about the start of the American space program was a newcomer in 2019, and now has cut its position on the Countdown by almost half, climbing 38 spots. The music for the film frequently evokes a soaring and aspirational tone as a metaphor for mankind daring to reach into the unknown and climb outside of its place on the planet. Conti's work won the Oscar for Original Score, beating out films such as Terms of Endearment and Return of the Jedi. Because The Right Stuff was a box office bomb, a planned album release for the film score was cancelled, and it would take 30 years before a standalone score release occurred.

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47. Inception (2010)

 

Original Music by Hans Zimmer

 

 


338 Points


Top 10 Placements: 2

 

 

Prior Placements:
2015- #13
2017- #17
2019- #27
 

 

Perhaps it was just the change in personnel submitting lists, but it certainly seems like Nolan's power/influence on the Score list is finally waning, with Inception, a film that twice threatened to break into the Top 10, now almost out of the Top 50. Frequent Nolan collaborator Hans Zimmer composes an intensely electronic film score for the sci-fi action/thriller, which incorporates on a recurring basis the now iconic "Bwaaaaahm" motif (which for a couple years afterwards basically took over many trailers, commercials, and the like). Zimmer wrote the music simultaneously with the film shoot, as opposed to waiting for a rough cut. Zimmer eschewed using a temp score while working on the film, and stated the process helped unleash his imagination, akin to the film's focus on dreams and creation within.

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46. Braveheart (1995)

 

Original Music by James Horner

 

 


342 Points

 

 

Prior Placements:
2017- Honorable Mention
2019- #62
 

 

Next comes Mel Gibson's historical epic about Scots seeking liberation from the English, and it has trended upwards since first being an honorable mention in 2017. This was Horner's second collaboration with Mel Gibson and would prove to be his most acclaimed. Horner heavily relies on Gaelic-style melodies and instruments in crafting the music for the film, and collaborated with Irish band Clannad to compose a theme tune for the film, though it was not made part of the film's album release. The score release for the film went on to be extremely successful commercially, and was nominated for an Oscar, though it would lose to the Italian film Il Postino, which came in tied for 403rd on the Score list.

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45. Up (2009)

 

Original Music by Michael Giacchino

 

 


345 Points

 

 

Prior Placements:
2015- #38
2017- #77
2019- #30
 

 

Aside from a massive drop in 2009, Michael Giacchino's third Pixar score has done pretty well for itself overall. Giacchino focused on crafting the score as a character-based work, utilizing heavy amounts of motifs and themes for the characters to drive the score at any particular moment. Giacchino would have the motifs change in arrangement and orchestral composition over the course of the film, likening it to an opera, in which for many, the musical themes for characters change at pivotal moments. Giacchino's work won an Oscar, being the first Pixar movie to win at the score category at the Academy Awards.

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44. The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

 

Original Music by Erich Wolfgang Korngold

 

 


346 Points


Top 5 Placements: 1

 

 

Prior Placements:
2015- #57
2017- #49
2019- #34
 

 

Dropping 10 spots from 2019 is the music to one of the most famous swashbuckling adventures out there. Korngold, Austrian-born, was busy composing an opera when Warner Bros. asked him to take on scoring duties for the movie. Korngold reluctantly agreed, but only on condition that he work without a contract and that he could withdraw at any time if he felt dissatisfied working on what he called an "action picture". Around the time Korngold returned to the US to start work, Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany and Korngold later reflected that taking the job probably saved his life. Korngold composed a grand symphonic work to match the vibrant Technicolor visuals of the movie and director Michael Curtiz's energetic direction. Korngold's bombastic and dynamic music is said to have established the musical style for much of Hollywood's Golden Age.

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