Favorite (non-John Williams) movie score.

Oh, there are so many that it's impossible to tell. But I have to say that Bernard Herrmann was a complete genius and his score for VERTIGO is probably the most hauntingly beautiful score of all time.

I also love Maurice Jarre's work for David Lean (Lawrence of Arabia is his first and his best), but also some of his more "modern" work, like the theme of Dead Poets Society, which is beautiful.

James Horner is sometimes almost as good as John Williams. Star Trek 2 is awesome, and Legends of the Fall is very, very beautiful, much better than the film itself! Willow is fantastic.

I like Randy Newmans' score for "Awakenings".

What else? Patrick Doyle's "Henry V" and "Much ado about Nothing" are tremendous pieces of music.

Danny Elfman is always repetitive, but always good. Edward Scissorhands and Nightmare Before Christimas are his masterpieces.

And I have to add japanese composer Jou Hisaishi, who is a genuine master. His scores for Hayao Miyazaki's films are wonderful. If you never heard of him, do try to listen to his work. "Kaze no tani no Naushika", "Laputa", "Tonari no Totoro", "Mononoke Hime", etc are real masterpieces.

As I said before....it's impossible to list all.

 

Ive gotta say "Last Of The Mohicans" but then again I havent heard many full film scores.

 

"'Kaze no tani no Naushika', 'Laputa', 'Tonari no Totoro', 'Mononoke Hime'"

Ouh, I'm reall not good with Japanese titles
except Mononoke, that's easy, obviously

The Final Fantasy Movie should have used Hisaishi, instead of Goldenthal (since they couldn't get Uematsu).

 

John Barry had some great scores too. All of his Bond scores were superb. I especially adore "On Her Majesty's Secret Service". Great soundtrack and the main movie theme is just brilliant.

 

John Barry had some great scores too. All of his Bond scores were superb. I especially adore "On Her Majesty's Secret Service". Great soundtrack and the main movie theme is just brilliant

As I mentioned earlier, I think his Bond scores are his weaker stuff. My favorites of his are THE LAST VALLEY and THE LION IN WINTER (the original recording, not the new Silva version).

Has anyone heard OUT OF AFRICA? How does the original compare with the McNeely re-recording?

 

James Horner, I keep insisting, is a hack. Complete, total, untalented hack. He's only paid highly because his daddy was someone important at some time or another. Around Hollywood, at least in the orchestration and music preparation (not to mention studio) circles, James Horner is something of a joke. On numerous occasion he has plagarized other well known film composers without giving credit. Here are the list of his offenses that I have heard:

Stole a portion of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the Klingon battle by Jerry Goldsmith for use in numberous parts of his score for "Battle beyond the Stars".

Stole the melody and phrasing of Schindler's list, not to mention the theme structure, and stuck it in some war movie of his.

Stole Prokofiev's "Death of Tybalt" and stuck it in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.

Stole part of Prokofiev's "Battle on the Ice" from Alexander Nevsky and stuck it in Star Trek II. The whole "Kahn motif/theme" was taken almost directly from Alexander Nevsky.

The list goes on and on. He truly is not an innovator. He constantly repeats himself, or what some composers call "stealing from yourself", in many scores. It's not a point of style...it's a lack of talent and creativity.

He is one of the highest paid hacks in Hollywood, right up there with Hans Zimmer, John Debney, and David Bell (total, complete lack of scoring/music writing skills).

My humble opinion, but it also is the opinion of many musicians, composers, orchestrators, and preparation companies. Trust me.

Note: If you think one of Horner's scores is simply too perfect for words, please remember that it was probably stolen.

 

I like Willow, KRULL, and ALIENS.

Don't get me wrong, JW is my favorite composer but I like James Horner alot.

If he's a hack based on your examples then so is GL and most every other director or composer.

Do you think SW is original? It's not. The scrolls at the beginning are taken from the old Flash Gordon Serials. The mythological based themes are pure Campbell. The action sequences are reminiscent of the old Erol Flynn swashbuckler films, and the Fantasy aspects are from Tolkien.

Does that matter to you? It doesn't matter to me because SW is still my favorite movie, and James Horner is still one of my favorite composers.

 

Anyway, BOT...I'd have to say Princess Mononoke. Well, either that, or Lord of the Rings. They both have creepy songs in them ("Gollum's Song" for LotR, and the one that starts out "In the moon I felt your heart" on Princess Mononoke) that I like a lot.

And besides, I've never really paid much attention to many others. Except love themes, which I'm addicted to for some strange reason. And man enough to admit it, too.

 

Movie scores are somehow limited, and a lot of tracks seem similar to others. I don't believe in this talk about "stealing" other people's music very much. James Horner has some great themes, you can't deny that.

And I've heard the same thing said about John Williams himself a lot of times. That he isn't original, that he does the same score over and over again, that Star Wars is something he completely stolen from "The Planets", and so on.

As for John Barry, I love his "Dances with Wolves" score.

 

First of all, this is not going to turn into a "I'll fight for my guy" kind of thread. There is a fine line between quoting and plagarizing.

James Horner plagarizes other composers... contemporary composers...peers...and passes it off as his own work. Yes, I know that most original works are not as original as everyone thinks, but there is something to be said of plagarism. Why does this irk me so? He gets paid lots (lots and lots) of money to steal other people's music. I will stop here, and quit trashing him, but please, for pete's sake...please know that other composer's work has the uncanny ability to make its way into Horner's scores completely intact.

 

pretty much anything by Danny Elfman. I love his music.

Beetlejuice
Batman
Nightmare before christmas
Edward Scissorhands
Spiderman, Hulk (though they don't compare to the ones above)

I love the beetlejuice theme. I can play it pretty well upto speed on piano

 

I think for me it would be The Lord of the Rings" The Fellowship of the Ring" It really helped to get throught the slow parts of the movie. Plus the Bridge of Khazad Dum has got to be one of my all time favs. Second only to Duel of the Fates

 

Yes LOTR is the best non JW music ever!


But JW could do better

 

I like the main Terminator theme by Brad Fiedel but everything else in that movie sucks.

Danny Elfman is Great.

But I would have to say...

Psycho.

 

GETTYSBURG all the way. Randy Edelman is a master of music. His music is half of the reason why the movie is so classic. I'm shocked that more people haven't listed it.

 

LOTR had some great music, like when Eowyn was outside on her own

i'm looking forward to Eowyn's scenes in ROTK where she absolutely rocks!

 

One of my favorite non-John Williams score is "The American President" by Marc Shaiman. I think it's one of the best scores ever.

 

Definitely Howard Shore's wroks for the two LOTR movies, I'm looking forward to ROTK. And for those who said that Williams could have done better, I somehow doubt it. Williams is still better than most composers these days (then again, how many movies nowadays actually have good music? Most of the time, they just cut and paste some MTV song into the movie), and he continues to do good stuff for Star Wars movies, but Shore's score for LOTR just have something special that made me immeadiately want to buy it after I saw the movie (this was certainly the case with TTT, I went to the music shop and bought the soundtrack immeadiately after watching the movie ). Williams' more recent works outside of Star Wars have failed to really impress me, an example of this is the music for the Harry Potter movies. It's great to listen to it during the movie, but it certainly didn't make me feel like buying the soundtrack and just listen to the music.

And then there's James Horner's score for 'Braveheart', great stuff (probably the best thing about the movie. I'm not exactly a fan of 'Braveheart', though the movie does have it's moments). There's also other great stuff from Horner, like his works for the two Jack Ryan movies featuring Harrison Ford ('Patriot Games' and 'Clear and Present Danger') and of course 'Star Trek Wrath of Khan'.

Other faves include Alan Silvestri for the 'Back to the Future' movies and Jerry Goldsmith for his works in 'Star Trek' movies and other movies like 'First Knight'.

 

BATMAN (1989) by Danny Elfman. Just awesome!

 

wow.. that is a huuuuge list

some things i noticed were missing

Highlander scores
Mary Shelly's Frankenstein
The Crow
Backdraft
the 5th Element
13th Warrior
Star Trek: Nemisis

just a few of my favs i didn't see

 

I really like Bernard Hermanns score for "Taxi Driver".

I also like:

ChinaTown - Jerry Goldsmith
Batman - Danny Elfman

 

1. Great Escape

2. Chariots of Fire

3. Godzilla (1954)

4. Magnificent Seven

5. Bridge on the River Kwai

6. Bugsy Malone

 

Off the top of my head:

Batman (1989)

Crimson Tide

Tron

Where Eagles Dare

The Battle of Britain

633 Squadron

I'll have to think about others.

 

I cannot remember if I have ever posted mine in here.... if I have maybe it will be fun to see the change.

Braveheart
Deep Impact
The Mask of Zorro
Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
The Prince of Egypt
Star Trek: First Contact
Star Trek: Nemesis

 

Edward Scissorhands, Danny Elfman
Interview with the Vampire, Elliot Goldenthal