Christian Filmmakers

Hello!
  I thought it might be interesting for everyone to post their favorite film score(s). But, due to the dual-nature of film music (function in film vs. “standalone listenability”), for the purpose of this thread, let’s have our criteria be how enjoyable it is to listen to on its own. Of course, the quality of the FILM music itself may be incredible or outright horrendous. I just want to talk about film music we enjoy listening to Let’s also think about the score as a whole, rather than just the theme(s) to the film, or any specific cues ... you know, scores you can listen to from beginning to end, without feeling bored or wanting to skip anything. Scores that keep you wanting more!
  Personally, I probably couldn’t pick a favorite if my life depended on it. I suppose if it did, my favorite score would have to be Star Wars 5: The Empire Strikes Back by John Williams. I go through phases, though.
  Here are my all-time, top 10 favorites, in alphabetical order:
    Air Force One (Jerry Goldsmith and Joel McNeely)
    Braveheart (James Horner)
    Hook (John Williams)
    Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (John Williams)
    The Mummy Returns (Alan Silvestri)
    Star Trek: The Motion Picture (Jerry Goldsmith)
    Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan (James Horner)
    Star Wars 4: A New Hope (John Williams)
    Star Wars 5: The Empire Strikes Back (John Williams)
    Vertigo (Bernard Herrmann)

  25 honorable mentions:
    Batman (Danny Elfman)
    E.T.-Extra Terrestrial (John Williams)
    Edward Scissorhands (Danny Elfman)
    Free Willy (Basil Poledouris)
    Gladiator (Hans Zimmer and Lisa Gerrard)
    Harry Potter 4: The Goblet of Fire (Patrick Doyle)
    The Incredibles (Michael Giacchino)
    Jurassic Park (John Williams)
    Les Miserables (Basil Poledouris)
    Lord of the Rings 1: The Fellowship of the Ring (Howard Shore)
    Lord of the Rings 2: The Two Towers (Howard Shore)
    Lord of the Rings 3: The Return of the King (Howard Shore)
    The Lion King (Hans Zimmer)
    The Matrix (Don Davis)
    The Passion of the Christ (John Debney)
    The Patriot (John Williams)
    Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man’s Chest (Hans Zimmer & co.)
    Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World’s End (Hans Zimmer & co.)
    The Polar Express (Alan Silvestri)
    Star Trek 8: First Contact (Jerry and Joel Goldsmith)
    Star Wars 6: Return of the Jedi (John Williams)
    Superman (John Williams)
    The Three Muskateers (Michael Kamen)
    Titanic (James Horner)
    What Lies Beneath (Alan Silvestri)
   
  15 other extremely good listens:
    Back to the Future (Alan Silvestri)
    Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (Miklos Rosza)
    Bicentennial Man (James Horner)
    Born on the Fourth of July (John Williams)
    Independence Day (David Arnold)
    The Mask of Zorro (James Horner)
    Merlin (Trevor Jones)
    The Perfect Storm (James Horner)
    The Prince of Egypt (Hans Zimmer)
    Remember the Titans (Trevor Rabin)
    The Rescuers Down Under (Bruce Broughton)
    Schindler’s List (John Williams)
    The Sixth Sense (James Newton Howard)
    Spider-man 2 (Danny Elfman)
    Van Helsing (Alan Silvestri)
    X-Men 2: United (John Ottman)

  And I do feel that I would be remiss not to mention the following scores:
    The Mummy (Jerry Goldsmith)
    Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (Hans Zimmer)
    Star Trek 6: The Undiscovered Country (Cliff Eidelman)
    Star Trek 7: Generations (Dennis McCarthy)
    The Village (James Newton Howard)

  These are just my personal favorites. And again, I’m listing these almost strictly based on how enjoyable they are to listen to on their own! This is not a fair standard for film music, but nonetheless, it’s one that many people use. We’re talking about entire scores that are enjoyable, from prologue or main title all the way through the end of the credits, not scores that have a few great cues here and there.
  Also, please note that I didn’t include any musicals or anything that has music that’s primarily more than “underscore.” In that category, my favorites would have to be:

    Aladdin (Alan Menken)
    Beauty and the Beast (Alan Menken)
    Jonah: A Veggie Tales Movie (Kurt Heinecke, David Mullen, Mike Nawrocki, and Phil Vischer)
    The Little Mermaid (Alan Menken)
    The Nightmare Before Christmas (Danny Elfman)

  Now, by all means, please feel free to share your own! There are bound to be plenty of great scores that slipped my mind, or I don’t know about ... let’s share our favorite film music with each other!

Alex Beard, composer
http://www.composeralex.com
http://www.myspace.com/composeralex

Alex,

You’ve provided a pretty exhaustive list. I would agree to pretty much everything on your list, but would also add some additional favorites:

Finding Neverland - Jan AC Kaczmarek

The Water Horse - James Newton Howard

Finding Nemo - Thomas Newman

Wall-E - Thomas Newman

Kung Fu Panda - Hans Zimmer & John Powell

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion , the Witch and the Wardrobe - Harry Gregson Williams

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian - Harry Gregson Williams

There Will Be Blood - Johnny Greenwood

Ironman - Ramin Djawadi

I’m sure there are more, but I have to get back to work!

Blessings,

John Doryk
film composer/sound designer
Night Sky Music & Sound Design
http://www.johndoryk.com

The Lord of the Rings scores

Both Narnia Scores

National Treasure Book of Secrets has a beautiful theme.

Children of Dune I have also found enjoyable listening

The Last Samurai

Pirates of the Carribean At Worlds end. (the music tried desparately to add some heart to the film…  )

The last few songs on the Gladiator soundtrack are awesome (Elysium, Honor Him and Now We Are Free.)

Those are many of my favorites.

It’s hard for me to separate the love of the score for listening vs. loving the score because I love the music.  The two are kind of intertwined for me.

I’ve always loved Empire Strikes Back theme and many others that were mentioned.  Superman the Movie is one of my favorites and Raiders of the Lost Ark.  I’ve also had a love for the music to Prince of Egypt, The Passion of the Christ, Crimson Tide, Batman Begins, Grand Canyon, Scent of A Woman, and the music to Disney’s original animated Jungle Book has always been a great score that I’ve loved.  Star Trek 2 is awesome and I loved Cocoon.  I have also had a love for Danny Elfman’s Batman as well as Edward Scissorhands.  Star Trek the Motion Picture is really great as well by Jerry Goldsmith.  The recent Narnia: The Lion, Witch and Wardrobe is a great score as well as the score for Transformers.  So many more—but this is just off the top of my head.

The mention of Dune brought back memories of a great score by Toto to the movie Dune.  That was a great score, too.  I used to love Peter Gabriel’s The Passion, but it’s hard to separate the great music from the film that it represents… so it’s hard to endorse it.  I also love the Lord of the Rings scores—beautiful and haunting as well as inspiring.  Awesome themes. 

For Christian films I’ve always loved Time Changer as well as the music to the Climb.  Great scores.  And let’s not forget the music to Veggietales Esther “The Battle is not ours”—what a great and moving song.

Lord of the Rings (all)

The Last Samurai (nice sweeping melodies)

Gladiator (nice sweeping melodies once again)

Pirates of the Carribean 1 and 3, second was lacking in emotion, mostly just a bunch of loud scary music with an organ here an there

The Cronicles of Narnia, both that have come out so far that are not done by BBC

The Nativity Story (nice big sound, I especially like the way they intertwined christmas melodies here and there)

The Prince of Egypt.

National Treasure Book of secrets

Braveheart

Indiana Jones the Raiders of the lost Ark and The last Crusade

The Incredibles

Ratatouille

Jung Fu Panda

Many, many others.

“Po, we do not wash our pits in sacred pool of tears.”

A lot of my favorites have been mentioned already - The Lord of the Rings, Narnia, Gladiator, Braveheart, Kung Fu Panda.

I also like the Batman Begins, Bourne, Master and Commander, and End of the Spear soundtracks, and the Jumper theme music (which is the only reason I watched that movie ).

Oh dear, were is Ennio Morricone on this list, he wrote some of the most beautiful scores….

I don’t think I can really pick one over the other out of most of these so I’ll just names my faves of each composer:

Erich Wolfgang Korngold:
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)*
The Sea Hawk
Captain Blood

John Williams:
Jurassic Park  
E.T The Extra-Terrestrial*
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Star Wars
Presumed Innocent
The Patriot
Schindler’s List
Hook

Ennio Morricone:
Once Upon A Time In The West*
The, The Bad, And the Ugly
Cinema Paradiso

Elmer Bernstein:
The Magnificent Seven
The Great Escape
The Comancheros

Danny Elfman:
Edward Scissorhands*
Batman
Spider-Man

James Newton Howard:
Blood Diamond
Dinosour

Howard Shore:
The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy

Michael Kamen
Band Of Brothers

Harry Gregson Williams
Kindom Of Heaven
Sinbad: Legend Of The Seven Seas
The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe
Prince Caspian

Patrick Doyle
Eragon

Philip Glass
The Illusionist

Javier Navarrete
Pans Labyrinth*

Rupert Gregson Williams
Bee Movie

John Frizzell/Randy Edelman
Gods And Generals

Michael Giacchino
Ratatouille (2007)

Jan A.P. Kaczmarek
Finding Neverland

Marco Beltrami:
3:10 to Yuma

Of course the before mentioned Alan Menkin is a musical genius and I’m a general fan of most everything he and Steve Schwartz puts out.

Note: I’ve put a star* beside the ones that if you haven’t heard yet, you must! 

-Daniel C

I almost forgot Vangelis who did Blade Runner.  That’s a cool score and I heard it influenced the folks who did Batman Begins

My all-time favorite:

The Empire Strikes Back
~ John Williams

Then, in no particular order:

Princess Mononoke
~ Joe Hisaishi

An American Tail
~ James Horner

Steamboy
~ Steve Jablonski

The Bourne Supremacy
~ John Powell

Ben Hur
~ Mikos Rosza

The Incredibles
~ Michael Giacchino

Final Fantasy VII
(technically a video game score, but deserved to be a movie score)
~ Nobuo Uematsu

Atonement
~ Dario Marianelli

I totally forgot to mention the Bourne series and Master and commander