PEOPLE- IN. COMPOSER

1. James Horner

Music_department | Titanic

James Horner began studying piano at the age of five, and trained at the Royal College of Music in London, England, before moving to California in the 1970s. After receiving a bachelor's degree in music at USC, he would go on to earn his master's degree at UCLA and teach music theory there. He ...

2. Hans Zimmer

Composer | Gladiator

German-born composer Hans Zimmer is recognized as one of Hollywood's most innovative musical talents. He featured in the music video for The Buggles' single "Video Killed the Radio Star", which became a worldwide hit and helped usher in a new era of global entertainment as the first music video to ...

3. Thomas Newman

Music_department | Skyfall

Thomas Newman is an American film score composer. He was born in Los Angeles. His father was notable film score composer Alfred Newman (1900-1970). The Newman family is of Russian-Jewish descent, and includes several other well-known musicians. Thomas' mother Martha Louis Montgomery (1920-2005) ...

4. Howard Shore

Music_department | The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Howard Shore is a Canadian composer, born in Toronto. He was born in a Jewish family. He started studying music when 8-years-old, and played as a member of bands by the time he was 13-years-old. He was interested in a professional career in music as a teenager. He studied music at the Berklee ...

5. Gustavo Santaolalla

Music_department | Brokeback Mountain

Argentine musician and leader of the now defunct bands "Arco Iris" and "Soluna", Gustavo Santaolalla was one of the references of his country's national music by the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 1970s. During the 70s he relocated to the United States, where he formed the band Wet Picnic, ...

6. James Newton Howard

Music_department | King Kong

James Newton Howard attended the University of Southern California's music school, but dropped out to tour with Elton John, and eventually compose music for film and television. He started with Head Office (1985) in 1985. He has been nominated for eight Academy Awards. He currently is a songwriter, ...

7. Clint Mansell

Composer | Black Swan

Clinton Darryl Mansell is an English singer, musician and film composer known for his collaborations with Darren Aronofsky. He composed Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, Black Swan, The Wrestler, Noah, Ghost in the Shell, Peacemaker, Doom Patrol, Loving Vincent, Mass Effect 3, Titans, World ...

8. Brian Eno

Soundtrack | The Lovely Bones

Regarded as one of the best producers and musicians in rock history, Eno started his career in 1971 with Roxy Music. The band released two albums, "Roxy Music" and "For Your Pleasure", with the two Brians in the lineup (the other one was, of course, lead singer Bryan Ferry); a conflict between the ...

9. Dario Marianelli

Composer | Atonement

Dario Marianelli was born in Pisa and studied piano and composition in Florence and London. After a year as a postgraduate composer at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, he spent 3 years at the National Film and Television School, from which he graduated in 1997. Dario's film scores include '...

10. Moby

Soundtrack | Southland Tales

Richard Melville Hall was born September 11, 1965, in the Manhattan, New York City, in the Harlem neighborhood to Elizabeth McBride (née Warner) and James Frederick Hall. His mother was a medical secretary and his father a professor of chemistry. The nickname Moby was assigned by his father, and ...

11. Carter Burwell

Composer | Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Carter Burwell was born on November 18, 1954 in New York City, New York, USA. He is a composer and actor, known for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017), Carol (2015) and True Grit (2010). He has been married to Christine Sciulli since 1999.

12. Rachel Portman

Composer | Never Let Me Go

Rachel Portman, Composer

British composer Rachel Portman became the first female composer to win an Academy Award, which she received for the score of Emma. She was also the first female composer to win a Primetime Emmy Award, which she received for the film, Bessie. She has received two further ...

13. Mark Isham

Composer | Crash

From his days as one of the pioneering icons of electronic music to his current status as a world-renowned legendary film composer, Mark Isham continues to be one of the most prolific and provocative artists on the scene. His gift for creating unforgettable melodies and his love of fresh, ...

14. Randy Edelman

Music_department | The Last of the Mohicans

Randy Edelman was born on June 10, 1947 in Paterson, New Jersey, USA. He is a composer and actor, known for The Last of the Mohicans (1992), xXx (2002) and Anaconda (1997). He has been married to Jackie DeShannon since June 3, 1976. They have one child.

15. John Powell

Composer | How to Train Your Dragon 2

John Powell was born on September 18, 1963 in London, England, UK. He is a composer, known for How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014), Happy Feet (2006) and Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018). He was previously married to Melinda Lerner.

16. Tyler Bates

Composer | John Wick: Chapter 4

It's anything but typical for the realms of film or music... Tyler Bates regularly transitions from scoring some of the world's biggest film and television franchises, such as Guardians of the Galaxy and John Wick, to rocking massive audiences with Marilyn Manson and back to the studio again ...

17. Nathan Larson

Soundtrack | Phone Booth

Nathan Larson cut his teeth in the hardcore punk scene in Washington D.C., where he played in seminal bands, such as Swiz. Larson relocated to New York City in 1988, and in the '90s he was the lead guitarist for the influential prog-punk outfit Shudder To Think. Larson is a producer, performer, and...

18. Roger Deakins

Cinematographer | Blade Runner 2049

Roger Deakins is an English cinematographer best known for his work on the films of the Coen brothers, Sam Mendes, and Denis Villeneuve.

He is a member of both the American and British Society of Cinematographers.

Deakins' first feature film in America as cinematographer was Mountains of the Moon (...

19. Paul Haslinger

Composer | Somewhere Boy

Paul Haslinger is an Austrian musician and composer. He lives and works in Los Angeles.

Paul began his career as a member of Electronic Music pioneers Tangerine Dream. He toured with the band extensively from 1985-90 and contributed to projects such as the album "Underwater Sunlight" (1986), as well...

20. Henry Mancini

Soundtrack | Breakfast at Tiffany's

Born in Cleveland, Ohio, but brought up in Pennsylvania, where he played the flute in a local band, as a youth, before sending some arrangements to Benny Goodman. Goodman offered him a job and, after serving in WWII, he joined the rearranged Glenn Miller band. In 1952, he was given a two-week ...

21. Rob Simonsen

Composer | Deadpool & Wolverine

Rob Simonsen is a singular composer, solo artist and co-founder of composer collective The Echo Society. Simonsen has paved his own musical path, and through years of education and experimentation, crafted a voice that both respects music traditions and explores new bounds. His body of work ...

22. Clint Eastwood

Actor | Million Dollar Baby

Clint Eastwood was born May 31, 1930 in San Francisco, to Clinton Eastwood Sr., a bond salesman and later manufacturing executive for Georgia-Pacific Corporation, and Ruth Wood (née Margret Ruth Runner), a housewife turned IBM clerk. He grew up in nearby Piedmont. At school Clint took interest in ...

23. Brian Reitzell

Soundtrack | Lost in Translation

Brian Reitzell was born in 1966. He is known for Lost in Translation (2003), Marie Antoinette (2006) and Red Riding Hood (2011).

24. Alan Silvestri

Composer | The Polar Express

In his ongoing, decades-long career as a composer, Alan Silvestri has blazed an innovative trail with his exciting and melodic scores, winning the applause of Hollywood and movie audiences the world over. With a credit list of over 100 films Silvestri has composed some of the most recognizable and ...

25. Rolfe Kent

Composer | Up in the Air

Rolfe Kent was born in 1963 in St. Albans, Hertfordshire, England, UK. He is a composer and producer, known for Up in the Air (2009), Downsizing (2017) and Sideways (2004).

26. Jon Brion

Composer | Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Jon Brion was born on December 11, 1963 in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, USA. He is a composer and actor, known for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), The Other Guys (2010) and Step Brothers (2008).

27. Alexandre Desplat

Composer | The King's Speech

Composer and conductor Alexandre Desplat, Oscar winner and seven-time Academy Award nominated, for his prolific filmography and his collaborations with Stephen Frears, Terrence Malick, Ang Lee, Kathryn Bigelow, Jacques Audiard, Wes Anderson, Roman Polanski, George Clooney or Matteo Garrone is one ...

28. Christopher Young

Composer | Sinister

Composer Christopher Young was born in Red Bank, New Jersey. After graduating from Hampshire College in Massachusetts with a Bachelor of Arts degree in music, Young went on to pursue his post-graduate studies at North Texas State University. After college Christopher moved to Los Angeles, ...

29. Michael Kamen

Soundtrack | Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves

Michael Kamen was born on April 15, 1948 in New York City, New York, USA. He was a composer and actor, known for Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991), Don Juan DeMarco (1994) and X-Men (2000). He was married to Sandra Keenan. He died on November 18, 2003 in London, England, UK.

30. Serge Gainsbourg

Composer | Équateur

Serge Gainsbourg was born on April 2, 1928 in Paris, France. He was a composer and actor, known for Equator (1983), Je t'aime moi non plus (1976) and Death Proof (2007). He was married to Françoise Pancrazzi and Lise Levitzky. He died on March 2, 1991 in Paris, France.

31. Elmer Bernstein

Composer | Far from Heaven

Elmer Bernstein was educated at the Walden School and New York University. He served in the US Army Air Corps in World War II, writing scores for the service radio unit. He also wrote and arranged musical numbers for Glenn Miller's Army Air Force Band. A prolific and respected film music composer, ...

32. John Williams

Composer | Jurassic Park

As one of the best known, awarded, and financially successful composers in US history, John Williams is as easy to recall as John Philip Sousa, Aaron Copland or Leonard Bernstein, illustrating why he is "America's composer" time and again. With a massive list of awards that includes over 52 Oscar ...

33. Miklós Rózsa

Composer | Ben-Hur

A child prodigy, Miklos Rózsa learned to play the violin at the age of five and read music before he was able to read words. In 1926, he began studying at the Leipzig Conservatory where he was considered a brilliant student. He obtained his doctorate in music in 1930. Moving to Paris the following ...

34. Jerry Goldsmith

Composer | L.A. Confidential

Born on February 10, 1929, Jerry Goldsmith studied piano with Jakob Gimpel and composition, theory, and counterpoint with Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. He also attended classes in film composition given by Miklós Rózsa at the Univeristy of Southern California. In 1950, he was employed as a clerk ...

35. Bernard Herrmann

Composer | North by Northwest

The man behind the low woodwinds that open Citizen Kane (1941), the shrieking violins of Psycho (1960), and the plaintive saxophone of Taxi Driver (1976) was one of the most original and distinctive composers ever to work in film. He started early, winning a composition prize at the age of 13 and ...

36. John Barry

Soundtrack | Out of Africa

John Barry was born in York, England in 1933, and was the youngest of three children. His father, Jack, owned several local cinemas and by the age of fourteen, Barry was capable of running the projection box on his own - in particular, The Rialto in York. As he was brought up in a cinematic ...

37. Nino Rota

Composer | The Godfather

Born in Milan in 1911 into a family of musicians, Nino Rota was first a student of Orefice and Pizzetti. Then, still a child, he moved to Rome where he completed his studies at the Conservatory of Santa Cecilia in 1929 with Alfredo Casella. In the meantime, he had become an 'enfant prodige', famous...

38. Sergei Prokofiev

Soundtrack | Children of Men

Prokofiev was a multi-talented man and an innovative composer. He learned piano from his mother and chess from his father. He always had a chess set on his piano, and was able to play against the chess champions of his time. He studied music with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, graduated with highest ...

39. Alex North

Music_department | Spartacus

Alex North studied music at the Curtis Institute of Philadelphia, then won a scholarship to Juilliard in New York (1929) and the Moscow Conservatoire (1933), making him the first-ever American to become a member of the Union of Soviet Composers. In Europe, he worked as music director for the ...

40. Max Steiner

Composer | Gone with the Wind

Austrian composer Max Steiner achieved legendary status as the creator of hundreds of classic American film scores. He was born Maximilian Raoul Walter Steiner in Vienna, Austria, the son of Marie Mizzi (Hasiba) and Gabor Steiner, an impresario, and the grandson of actor and theater director and ...

41. Danny Elfman

Music_department | The Nightmare Before Christmas

As Danny Elfman was growing up in the Los Angeles area, he was largely unaware of his talent for composing. It wasn't until the early 1970s that Danny and his older brother Richard Elfman started a musical troupe while in Paris; the group "Mystic Knights of Oingo-Boingo" was created for Richard's ...

42. Pino Donaggio

Composer | Dressed to Kill

Born in Burano (Venice) in 1941, Pino Donaggio studied violin at the Conservatory of Venice and Milan.

After a period of adolescent performer of classical music with the Solisti Veneti and the Soloists of Milan, in 1959 he began to devote himself to the pop music that soon led to international ...

43. Maurice Jarre

Composer | Lawrence of Arabia

Unlike many musicians who started to learn music while still in their childhood, Maurice Jarre was already late in his teens when he discovered music and decided to make a career in that field. Against his father's will, he enrolled at Conservatoire de Paris where he studied percussions, ...

44. Mikis Theodorakis

Composer | Z

Mikis Theodorakis was born in the Greek island of Chios, in 1925. It was the same year that the other great composer of Greece was born in Xanthi, Manos Hatzidakis. He fought during the 2nd World War, and was captured at the city of Tripoli. He was tortured, but when he was set free, he joined the ...

45. Wojciech Kilar

Composer | Bram Stoker's Dracula

Wojciech Kilar was born on July 17, 1932 in Lwów, Lwowskie, Poland [now Lviv, Ukraine]. He was a composer, known for Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), The Ninth Gate (1999) and The Pianist (2002). He was married to Barbara Pomianowska. He died on December 29, 2013 in Katowice, Slaskie, Poland.

46. Joseph Vitarelli

Soundtrack | Pulp Fiction

Joseph Vitarelli is perhaps best known as composer of the highly acclaimed HBO epic "John Adams" directed by Tom Hooper, as well as his iconic score to John Dahl's modern film noir "The Last Seduction" which starred Linda Fiorentino, Bill Pullman and Peter Berg. Other film credits include the score...

47. Michael Nyman

Composer | The Piano

Michael Nyman studied piano, harpsichord and music history with Alan Bush at the Royal Academy of Music, and musicology with Thurston Dart at King's College, London. Between 1968 and 1978 he worked as a music critic and in 1977 he founded the Campiello Band, later renamed the Michael Nyman Band. ...

48. Mychael Danna

Composer | Life of Pi

Mychael Danna is an Oscar and and Emmy Award-winning film composer recognized for his evocative blending of non-western traditions with orchestral and electronic music. His highly awarded works include the Oscar-winning score for Ang Lee's Life of Pi (2012), and his many Genie Award-winning scores ...

49. Harry Gregson-Williams

Composer | Shrek

Harry Gregson-Williams is one of Hollywood's most sought-after and prolific composers whose long list of film and television credits underscore the diverse range of his talents. He most recently wrote the music for "The Last Duel" and "House of Gucci" both directed by Ridley Scott. In addition, he ...

50. Jan de Bont

Director | Speed

Jan de Bont was one of 17 children born into a Roman Catholic Dutch family in Eindhoven on 22 October 1943. Credited with being creative and having a good mentality for camera techniques, he became a popular cinematographer. He worked on a huge number of films before finding himself on the ...

51. Alex Wurman

Composer | Ultra City Smiths

Emmy Award-winning composer Alex Wurman is highly versatile with a broad musical palette. He can traverse the film-score landscape by writing a critically-acclaimed score for an Oscar®-winning film, to supporting comedy with musical punctuation for box office giants, to capturing the essence of ...

52. Dave Grusin

Music_department | The Fabulous Baker Boys

Dave Grusin was born on June 26, 1934 in Littleton, Colorado, USA. He is a composer and actor, known for The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989), The Firm (1993) and The Graduate (1967). He was previously married to Edith Ruth Price, Sara Jane Tallman and Barbara Jo Davidson.

53. Jan A.P. Kaczmarek

Composer | Finding Neverland

Jan A. P. Kaczmarek is a composer with a tremendous international reputation that continues to grow. As a successful recording artist and touring musician, Jan turned to composing film scores as his primary occupation. Jan's first success in the United States came in theater. After composing ...