It took me until somewhere in the second page to realize how old this was.

Putting all the "what does 'best' mean" arguments aside- Yes, I think Williams is the best. But personally, I like Elfman best.

"Reno, Dakota, I know Nino Rota but I don't know the score"

Since I'm agreeing with Mr. Lopez, I can only assume Ragnarök is around the corner.

But yes, Barry's James Bond theme I think is up there (if not slightly) above the Psycho theme as the world's most recognizable piece of film music. (If only because many people may not be able to name the film source of Hermann's music).

I now eagerly await the return of Njörðr and the doom of men.

Bernard Hermann is still tops in my book.

Are you thinking of Monty Norman; the Bond theme that plays with Bond walking in front of the gun barrel to start a movie?

Barry did more of the individual songs and scores as opposed to a Bond theme, but there is definitely a sense of familiarity in his work.

I'd go with Goldsmith as number 1 with Angelo Badalamenti, Tangerine Dream, Williams, Vangelis, John Barry, Basil Poledouris, and Lalo Schiffrin following up in a varying degrees of where they belong.

It makes me drink more.

Hans Zimmer is my favorite. I also like many of his proteges and other composers he has worked with (Rabin, Gregson-Williams, Jablonsky, etc)

But I will agree that John Williams is definitely on the top of the list.

he's good but I've noticed a lot of his stuff have very similar sections

My Personal fav's

1:Bernard Herrmann (my persoanl fav is Jane Erye score)
2:Miklos Rozsa (BEN-HUR enough said)
3:John Williams (Superman The Movie my all-time fav movie and film score)
4:John Barry (King Kong 1975 and still the most underrated score of all-time)
5:Franz Waxman (Bride of Frankenstein (1935) the greatest of all the classic horror scores)
6:Jerry Goldsmith (The Sand Pebbles I love every part of that marvelous score)
7imitri Tiomkin (It's The Fall of the Roman Empire for me breathe taking score)


I have over 600+ film scores in my collection and always adding more!

Is it just me or is he working less these days?

Can anyone explain this?

Except for Harry Potter and Star Wars and the occasional Spielberg film you have not seen his name listed on many movie credits the last couple of years.

I remember back in the day he would score almost every movie.

Well he is 77 years old. And it's not like he has to work. He knows what Spielberg likes and wants, same with Lucas. He doesn't have to guess, or forge a working relationship. Hence why he still works with them.

I much prefer Jerry Goldsmith to John Williams. Williams has made incredible contributions to film music, to be sure, but he is overly bombastic a lot of the times and also benefits from his association with iconic films.

When it boils down to it, I enjoy hearing a Williams score, but I love listening to a Goldsmith score.

AGREED 100 PERCENT!!!!!!!

John Barry's work on the Bond scores, IMO, places him ahead of John Williams.

I mean, we are talking about the scores for From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, The Man With The Golden Gun... these films alone have scoring that is brilliant and almost beyond comparison IMO. Not to mention the scores for Moonraker and A View To A Kill, which are also both quite impressive.

I also agree that Bernard Herrmann did some amazing scores, too, for the Hitchcock films. Vertigo comes to mind, for example. But I still rate him behind John Barry.

As for John Williams, yes he's very good. But of all his work, I actually like his scoring for the tv series Lost In Space the best. Possibly my favorite musical scoring for a tv series ever. Really. His cues for this show were brilliant.

wish I could find the clip from brian does hollywood where williams wins for best porn score

Not a Williams fan at all. Not remotely. I'm one of the biggest-ever fans of James Horner, who is often in competition with Hans Zimmer for the title of most hated, most attacked, most reviled composer there is.

Williams turned 80 today. What an icon. Hands down the greatest film composer of all time.

John Williams is the man. Unbelievable track record.

Williams is very good, perhaps even one of the 20 greatest all-time composers of film scores.

NOO THis guy with the Melodica is hands down the best composer ever!!

I posted this in another thread but I'll post it again :P

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/-w-58hQ9dLk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Looking back on this thread, it seems I was incredibly civil. Let me fix that now by saying John Williams can go suck a fuck stick (although I still love the Superman score).

Does he plan to retire? I wonder what his last film will be. He should do something great, some great last film, and then retire. What would suck is if he finishes off The Patriout 2 or some shit movie and then drops dead the next day.

I consider the following film composers far superior to Williams:

Bernard Herrmann
Miklos Rosza
Ennio Morricone
Hugo Friedhofer
Alfred Newman
Franz Waxman
Victor Young
Max Steiner
Elmer Bernstein
Jerry Goldsmith
Jo Hisaishi
Akira Ifukube
Kenji Kawai

I'm sure I'm forgetting a few.

Angelo Badalamenti
Howard Shore

And, of course, Michael Nyman.