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

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27. Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

 

Original Music by Tom Holkenborg aka Junkie XL

 

 

479 Points

 

 

Prior Placements:
2017- #79
2019- #28
 

 

Though it had a decent showing the first time it was eligible, the score to George Miller's explosive return to Australian dystopia made a huge jump in 2019, and has held firm in that spot this time around. George Miller at various times had approached Hans Zimmer, John Powell, and Marco Beltrami to do the score for his long-gestating return to the Mad Max world, but wound up collaborating a Dutch composer not well known in film music circles, though he had contributed to a number of films prior to Fury Road. Holkenborg worked on the score for about a year, from August 2013 to August 2014, and said the lengthy period allowed for plenty of room to experiment and test potential cues out. The score was used by Miller to assist the various actors in post-production when they came in to do ADR. The score attracted critical praise for its relentless energy and aggression, simulating the film's style as a 2-hour car chase, with occasional valleys and moments of introspection.

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26. Blade Runner (1982)

 

Original Music by Vangelis

 

 

479 Points

Top 5 Placements: 1

Top 10 Tiebreaker over Mad Max Fury Road

 

 

Prior Placements:
2015- #17
2017- #55
2019- #15
 

 

We come to the final tiebreaker of the Top 100. Though it has cracked the Top 20 twice, Ridley Scott's sci-fi noir falls just outside the top quarter this time around. The score by Greek composer Vangelis was designed to hit on the merging of the two different genres, by harmonizing futuristic-sounding synthesizers with more classical compositions. Vangelis performed much of the music himself on his own synthesizers. Another major element of the film's score are a series of saxophone solos from British saxophonist Dick Morrissey, who worked frequently with Vangelis. Though the film score was critically praised, it would take over a decade for it to receive a proper commercial release.

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25. Titanic (1997)

 

Original Music by James Horner

 

 

489 Points

Top 5 Placements: 1
#1 Rankings: 1

 

 

Prior Placements:
2015- #27
2017- #18
2019- #8
 

 

After making the big jump into the Top 10 in 2019, James Horner's work for the romantic disaster epic has backslid almost to where it was in 2015. It's not the only film to fall out of the Top 10 from last time around. Horner and James Cameron had a major falling out while working together on Aliens, but after a decade the two reconciled, though not before Cameron offered scoring duties to Irish musician Enya, to whose music he had written the screenplay. Many of the vocals heard through the film were performed by Norwegian singer Sissel Kyrkjebø, whom Horner picked from over twenty options he considered, though in some tracks Horner utilized a synthesized choir. The soundtrack for Titanic is one of the best selling albums in US history and it won the Oscar for Original Dramatic Score (the Academy at the time split score between dramatic films and comedy/musical films).

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24. Halloween (1978)

 

Original Music by John Carpenter

 

 

499 Points

 

 

Prior Placements:
2015- #25
2017- #42
2019- #18
 

 

After reaching an all-time best on the Countdown in 2019, the eerie, tense music for Carpenter's iconic slasher has dropped a handful of spaces. Much of the film's score is centered on a single piano performed mostly by Carpenter himself, and Carpenter composed the score in only three days, even though as he stated in an interview he had little ability for reading and writing music. While not that complicated or sophisticated, the music drew widespread acclaim for setting the exact perfect mood for the murder and terror that slowly unfolds through the movie. The main theme for the movie has become an iconic part of horror cinema and ranks up there in terms of a musical mission statement for a movie.

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23. Chariots of Fire (1981)

 

Original Music by Vangelis

 

 

504 Points

Top 10 Placements: 2
#1 Rankings: 1

 

 

Prior Placements: 
2015- #18
2017- #25
2019- #45
 

 

After suffering a 20-place drop in 2019, the score to the famous film about competitive sprinting rebounds almost into the Top 20. Though the film is set in the 1920s, Greek composer Vangelis boldly departed from cinema convention for historical/period pieces and instead crafted a electronic synthesizer-based film score. The use of Vangelis was enabled in part by the director's prior experience working with the composer. Vangelis felt a personal connection to the music since his father was a runner, and he considered the score to be in part a tribute to him. Vangelis played almost all of the instruments , including synthesizers, and acoustic piano, himself. Vangelis would later be sued for plagiarism relating to the film score, and in a dramatic court case proved he had composed everything originally and the case would serve as precedent in future British musical copyright cases.

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22. The Magnificent Seven (1960)

 

Original Music by Elmer Bernstein

 

 

511 Points

 

 

Prior Placements:
2015- #46
2017- #26
2019- #20
 

 

The Western remake of Seven Samurai has settled into a regular spot on the Countdown, not being affected by shifts in list composition and quantity. The core of the film score is the iconic main theme, which over the past 60 years has made more than its fair share of infiltration into pop culture, being a rousing and upbeat adventure tune that symbolizes very much the gang of gunslingers being rounded up for an action-filled job. The score also incorporates more ethnic tunes relating to the film's setting being primarily in northern Mexico. The score was nominated for an Oscar, but lost to Ernest Gold's score for Exodus. Posterity has been kind to it though, as it was listed at No. 8 on the AFI's ranking of 100 Years of Film Scores.

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21. Conan the Barbarian (1982) 

 

Original Music by Basil Poledouris

 

 

513 Points

Top 5 Placements: 1
#1 Rankings: 1

 

 

Prior Placements:
2015- #49
2017- #60
2019- #25
 

 

The fantasy epic that first put Arnold Schwarzenegger on the map has hit its highest mark yet on the Countdown, inches away from cracking the Top 20. I am of course slightly biased as it was my personal #1, but I do feel that the score for this film does a job of audio storytelling on its own that few film scores have matched. Indeed, director John Milius' initial vision of the film was for it to have little to no dialogue, and in some parts of the film dialogue is mostly absent, letting the music, visuals, and actors' body language do all the heavy lifting. Poledouris was hired before filming had started and had Poledouris start composing music based on the pre-production storyboards and tinker and adjust as filming progressed. Poledouris made extensive use of Musync, a music and tempo editing hardware and software system invented by Robert Randles (subsequently nominated for an Oscar for Scientific Achievement), to modify the tempo of his compositions and synchronize them with the action in the film. The score is also noteworthy for being the last major studio picture to release with a mono soundtrack as opposed to stereo.

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With the Top 20 to start tomorrow evening, here are some updated stats:

 

 

Composer Appearances:

 

Spoiler

Bernard Herrmann- 4
James Horner- 4
Ennio Morricone- 4
Alan Silvestri- 4
Elmer Bernstein- 3
Michael Giacchino- 3
Basil Poledouris- 3
Hans Zimmer- 3
John Barry- 2
John Carpenter- 2
Bill Conti- 2
Phillip Glass- 2
Jerry Goldsmith- 2
Thomas Newman- 2
Howard Shore- 2
Max Steiner- 2
Vangelis- 2
Malcolm Arnold- 1
Klaus Badelt- 1
Nicholas Britell- 1
Nick Cave- 1
Carmine Coppola- 1
Alexandre Desplat- 1
Daft Punk- 1
Randy Edelman- 1
Danny Elfman- 1
Warren Ellis- 1
Brad Fiedel- 1
Michael Galasso- 1
Lisa Gerrard- 1
Goblin- 1
Dave Grusin- 1
Joe Hisaishi- 1
Tom Holkenborg- 1
Justin Hurwitz- 1
Maurice Jarre- 1
Trevor Jones- 1
Erich Wolfgang Korngold- 1
Mica Levi- 1
Henry Mancini- 1
Alan Menken- 1
John Murphy- 1
Javier Navarrete- 1
Randy Newman- 1
Jack Nitzsche- 1
Alex North- 1
Michael Nyman- 1
John Powell- 1
Sergei Prokofiev- 1
David Raksin- 1
Trent Reznor- 1
Atticus Ross- 1
Nino Rota- 1
Miklós Rózsa- 1
Shigeru Umebayashi- 1
Underworld- 1
Franz Waxman- 1
John Williams- 1

 

 

Film Scores by Decade:

 

Spoiler

1930s- 3
1940s- 3
1950s- 6
1960s- 7
1970s- 9
1980s- 15
1990s- 11
2000s- 12
2010s- 14

 

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And the final two members of the Next Ten Out

 

 

117th. Phantom Thread (2017) by Jonny Greenwood

 

 

 

120th. Ratatouille (2007) by Michael Giacchino
 

 

[Cap]

7 minutes ago, 4815162342 said:

 

 

  Hide contents

John Williams- 1

 

He is just circling like that shark.

[charlie Jatinder]

On 7/16/2021 at 9:54 AM, The Panda said:

This forum’s love of Silvestri…

 

Could have one more film and all of them quite higher if I voted. So thank me.

 

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Ok let's get the Top 20 started

 

 

20. Back to the Future (1985)

 

Original Music by Alan Silvestri

 

 

518 Points

Top 10 Placements: 1
Top 5 Placements: 1
#1 Rankings: 2

 

 

Prior Placements:
2015- #15
2017- #15
2019- #39
 

 

 

After dropping two dozen spaces in 2019, the score to Zemeckis' time travel classic is back in the Top 20. It was Silvestri's second collaboration with Zemeckis and the two would go on to have many more. Featuring one of the more memorable main musical themes of the past 36 years, Back to Future's music was crafted based on a single instruction from Zemeckis: "It's gotta be big." So Silvestri worked in a big orchestral score to contrast with the small town setting with a recognizable heroic main theme. The guitar riff in the film used to wake up George McFly was performed by Eddie Van Halen and written specifically for the movie.

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19. The Lion King (1994) 

 

Original Music by Hans Zimmer

 

 

519 Points

Top 10 Placements: 2
Top 5 Placements: 1

 

 

Prior Placements:
2015- #26
2017- #27
2019- #49
 

 

 

After almost falling out of the top half in 2019, Hans Zimmer's work for the legendary animated film breaks into the Top 20 for the first time ever. Hans Zimmer was hired for the film based on his prior work in two films in African settings, The Power of One and A World Apart. Incorporating some of the cues from the songs into the score, Zimmer also composes a grand theme centered around the vitality and responsibility of the land to be ruled and cared for by the title characters. Zimmer's instrumental score for the film, though it won the Oscar for Original Score, was never given a full commercial release, until the soundtrack's commemorative 20th anniversary re-release in 2014

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18. Spirited Away (2001)

 

Original Music by Joe Hisaishi

 

 

520 Points

Top 10 Placements: 2
Top 5 Placements: 1

 

 

Prior Placements:
2017- #68
2019- #10
 

 

 

After just sneaking into the Top 10 in 2019, the score for Miyazaki's most awarded film drops back several places, but remains the highest-ranked animated movie by the skin of its teeth. This is definitely a film, similar to Princess Mononoke, where changes in who submits a list makes a difference. Composed by Miyazaki's regular contributor Joe Hisaishi, the score was acclaimed and received many awards in Japan when the film came out, though it did not receive the same amount of attention stateside as the film as a whole did, though it did win the Best Music award at the Annies. Hisaishi's music strikes at the intersection between the human and spirit worlds, with much of the music conveying the emotional journey of a young girl thrust into a fantastical adventure and coming to terms with her own nature and inner spirit.

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17. The Third Man (1949)

 

Original Music by Anton Karas

 

 

540 Points

Top 5 Placements: 1

 

 

Prior Placements:
2015- #39
2017- #61
2019- #53
 

 

 

Never before higher than 39th place back in 2015, Carol Reed's Vienna-set film noir has made an impressive jump into the top 20. climbing 36 spots from its 2019 location. The entire score was performed on the zither by Austrian musician and composer Anton Karas. Karas met Carol Reed by chance, as Reed happened to stop by a tavern and heard Karas playing music in the background. Karas initially declined working on the film, protesting he had never written music before, but eventually relented. The result of Karas' 6-week work was a memorable zither composition that has become one of cinema's iconic film themes, and it thrust a relatively unknown local musician into an international spotlight.

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16. E.T.: The Extraterrestrial (1982)

 

Original Music by John Williams

 

 

541 Points

Top 10 Placements: 1

 

 

Prior Placements:
2015- #55
2017- #28
2019- #24
 

 

It took a long time, but John Williams has at last made his second appearance on the 100, and in a Countdown-best appearance for the film about a boy and his alien friend. Williams found composing the score initially daunting due to the challenge of writing music that would generate sympathy and empathy for an odd-looking alien creature. Williams when composing the score made heavy use of polytonality, which refers to the sound of two different keys played simultaneously, to present a slightly alien and otherworldly tone to some of the music. Similarly, Williams devised much of the music to reflect the curious and child-like nature of the title character, whose benign exploration of Earth impacts everyone he meets. E.T. would win the Original Score Oscar, beating out films such as Gandhi and Sophie's Choice. Interestingly, it took decades before the full score as heard in the film was made available via album, as most previous releases were either mostly or substantially concert arrangements instead of the actual cues.

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15. Batman (1989)

 

Original Music by Danny Elfman

 

 

545 Points

Top 5 Placements: 1

 

 

Prior Placements:
2015- #31
2017- #32
2019- #71
 

 

 

After a 40-place drop in 2019, the score to Tim Burton's semi-gothic take on the Caped Crusader has by far its best showing yet, climbing 56 spots. Tim Burton when hiring Danny Elfman for the job gave the composer a copy of The Dark Knight Returns as inspiration for the music. Legendary WB producer Jon Peters was reluctant to let Elfman have the job, but was won over when he heard some the early work Elfman did for the movie. Elfman's main theme for the film has had a lasting longevity, still being used, referenced, or sampled in various Batman-themed works over 30 years later. Overall, Elfman's score is generally considered to be one of the greatest musical compositions associated with a superhero.

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So, uh, the next few entries are gonna share something in common

 

 

14. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001)

 

Original Music by John Williams

 

 

654 Points

Top 10 Placements: 1
#1 Rankings: 1

 

 

Prior Placements:
2015- #24
2017- #19
2019- #63
 

 

We knew it was coming, but the John Williams Tsunami is about to begin. Similar to Batman, this also had a huge drop in 2019, and has rebounded dramatically in 2021 to an all-time best list appearance. It also has over a 100 point lead on Batman, making this the point where overall scores start to escalate dramatically, separating the elite from the non-contenders. James Horner was the first choice to score the first entry in the Harry Potter franchise and turned it down. I can only imagine what a Horner Potter would sound like, and whether he would have snuck in his recurring "Danger Cue" in somewhere. Williams' main themes for the movie became series standouts and are very recognizable to modern cinephiles. His work was nominated for an Oscar, but it lost to a film that has a very strong history with this list.

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13. Jaws (1975)

 

Original Music by John Williams

 

 

665 Points

Top 10 Placements: 2
Top 5 Placements: 1

 

 

Prior Placements:
2015- #7
2017- #7
2019- #6
 

 

 

Now comes the most famous two-note musical sequence in film history, and for the first time in the history of my running the list, it has dropped out of the Top 10. Most incarnations of said two-note cue were played on the Tuba, which Williams chose over the French Horn since he thought it would sound more threatening (he was right). Funnily enough, Spielberg initially thought Williams' suggestion of the two-note cue was a joke, and it is a good thing no one else laughed, since it marked the start of 40 years of collaboration between the two. Williams also designed aspects of the second half of the film, where the hunt goes onto open water, to take aspects of a pirate adventure film with rousing chase music. Williams' work for Jaws won him his first Oscar for Original Score (though not his first Oscar, which was for Fiddler on the Roof), and the American Film Institute ranked it as the 6th best Film Score in American cinema.

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12. Superman (1978)

 

Original Music by John Williams

 

 

689 Points 

Top 10 Placements: 2
Top 5 Placements: 1

 

 

Prior Placements:
2015- #9
2017- #8
2019- #9
 

 

Our third Williams film score in a row is for the great-grandaddy of the superhero genre, the original pioneer. Just as with Jaws, this is the first time it has dropped out of the Top 10 for the Countdown. Jerry Goldsmith, who had worked with director Richard Donner on The Omen, was planned to score the movie, but had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts. Williams' work is centered around the soaring main theme, which is easily one of the most iconic aspects of any superhero film over the past 45 years. The tagline for the movie was "You'll Believe a Man Can Fly" and with this main theme blasting during the movie, you'd buy it. Other aspects of the score lean into the goofy and fun side of things, echoing the film's earnest and campy tone, especially with its villains. The score earned John Williams an Academy Award nomination, but he lost to Giorgio Moroder's score for Midnight Express.