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8. Jerry Goldsmith. 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 ...
- 10 Ennio Morricone
- 9 James Horner
- 8 Elmer Bernstein
- 7 Alexandre Desplat
- 6 Hans Zimmer
- 5 Dimitri Tiomkin
- 4 Jerry Goldsmith
- 3 Max Steiner
- 2 Alfred Newman
- 1 John Williams
6 nominations While many of Ennio Morricone's best scores were unfairly overlooked by the Oscars (including The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, Once Upon a Time in America, and Cinema Paradiso), he nevertheless still received a solid six nominations during his lengthy career. For a while, it looked as though he was never going to win an Oscar, and was...
8 nominations James Horner was nominated eight different times for Best Original Score at the Oscars, and received an additional two nominations for Best Original Song. His work on one of the biggest movies of all time - Titanic- was what earned him his two Oscars: one for the film's epic, bittersweet score, and the second for his work writing the ...
10 nominations With a career that began in the 1950s and last until the early 2000s, Elmer Bernstein was one of Hollywood's most prolific composers. His Western and war film scores are particularly iconic, with his work on the John Sturges directed (and Steve McQueen starring) The Magnificent Seven (1960) and The Great Escape(1963) standing out. RE...
11 nominations Even though he only composed his first feature film score in the late 1990s, Alexandre Desplat has already racked up 11 nominations (an average of almost one every two years). Of those nominations, he's had two wins: one for 2014's The Grand Budapest Hotel, and then another for 2017's The Shape of Water. He's a favorite composer of W...
12 nominations One of the most famous composers working in film today, Hans Zimmer has been behind too many iconic film scores to count - many of them anthemic, uplifting, and epic in sound. His career took off in the 1980s, with him scoring his first nomination for 1988's Rain Man. 1994 saw him get his first win for Best Original Score, when he ri...
14 nominations Due to most of his scores being well over half a century old at this point, Dimitri Tiomkinisn't quite as much of a household name compared to other prolific composers nowadays. However, his work being older doesn't make it any less great or important, and he was recognized for it by getting 14 nominations for Best Original Score fro...
17 nominations If you watch a fair few American movies from the second half of the 20th century, you'll inevitably run into a Jerry Goldsmith score surprisingly fast. Goldsmith was indeed worthy of Oscar gold, as he deservedly won for the chilling score he wrote for 1976's The Omen, though his other 16 nominations didn't lead to wins. RELATED: Acto...
24 nominations An individual would have to be prolific to earn more than 20 Oscar nominations, but Max Steiner was a prolific composer and then some. Between 1929 and 1965, he racked up about 240 credits, which neatly works out as one nomination for every 10 scores, on average. Not only could he deliver scores when it came to quantity, but his musi...
43 nominations According to some, there are three godfathers of film music during Hollywood's Golden Age. Two were the aforementioned Dimitri Tiomkin and Max Steiner, and the third was Alfred Newman. Of the three, he easily earned the most nominations for Best Original Score, with 43 of his works getting included among the nominees for the prize du...
47 nominations Standing above the competition with close to 50 nominations for Best Original Score, John Williams is undeniably a towering figure in the world of film composers. He's won five Oscars from those 47 nominations and has honestly composed too many iconic scores to count (including for franchises like Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Harry ...
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- Rachel Portman. Four women in cinematic history have won Academy Awards for Best Original Score: Marilyn Bergman for Yentl, Rachel Portman for Emma, Ann Dudley for The Full Monty, and Hildur Guonadottir for Joker.
- Elmer Bernstein. With due deference to Howard Shore, Phillip Glass, Alexandre Desplat, and other worthy contenders, Elmer Bernstein has over 250 credits as a film composer.
- Jerry Goldsmith. With over 250 credits amassed from 1953 until his death in 2004, Jerry Goldsmith is responsible for some of the most memorable film music of all time.
- Hans Zimmer. German composer Hans Zimmer earned his first Oscar nomination for Rain Man in 1989. Five years later, he won the Academy Award for scoring The Lion King.
24. Harry Gregson-Williams. 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.
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- John Williams. Possibly one of the most prolific film composers of all time, John Williams has written music for over one hundred films. He’s particularly known for his huge orchestral pieces, tailored perfectly to the score of a piece — he oftens watches the entire movie without a soundtrack to decide what to write for it.
- Hans Zimmer. Our next composer, Hans Zimmer, might not be as much of a household name as John Williams, but he is equally as prodigious in the film world.
- Max Steiner. Born in Austria in 1888, Max Steiner was a child prodigy and began composing professionally by the age of fifteen. He was one of the earliest film composers, having moved to California when talking pictures first became popular.
- Ennio Morricone. Most famous for his series of “Spaghetti Western” films in the 1970s and 1980s, Ennio Morricone was an incredibly prolific Italian composer who wrote the music for almost 500 movies during his lifetime.
Jan 20, 2024 · Howard Shore. Howard Shore ’s stunning orchestral evocations of Tolkien’s Middle Earth have shot him into the ranks of all-time great film composers. His score for The Lord of the Rings, voted the nation’s favourite in our Classic FM Movie Music Hall of Fame poll last year, is an epic set of 80 themes, ranging from the chilling and ...
Feb 24, 2023 · 1 John Williams. Who else could top this list but the greatest composer of all time, John Williams. Delivering iconic scores to the likes of Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Jaws, Superman, E.T, Indiana ...
![Top 10 most influential composers [*UPDATED*]](https://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?p=who+is+the+most+successful+movie+composer+of+all+time+was+christ&ei=UTF-8&_tsrc=apple&th=103.5&tw=103.5&imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ludwig-van.com%2Ftoronto%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2Fsites%2F2%2F2014%2F05%2FClassical_music_composers_montage-300x300.jpg&rurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ludwig-van.com%2Ftoronto%2F2014%2F05%2F15%2Ftop-10-most-influential-composers%2F&size=36KB&name=Top+10+most+influential+composers+%5B%2AUPDATED%2A%5D&oid=4&h=300&w=300&turl=https%3A%2F%2Ftse1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP._o7gnRKH4vfG1ihEABQ-6QAAAA%26pid%3DApi%26rs%3D1%26c%3D1%26qlt%3D95%26w%3D103%26h%3D103&tt=Top+10+most+influential+composers+%5B%2AUPDATED%2A%5D&sigr=lb1_.XUSfrbA&sigit=Yr3gO_Q19JeG&sigi=uBjYJaSgBmZh&sign=7ClqkKJewbNT&sigt=7ClqkKJewbNT "Top 10 most influential composers [*UPDATED*]")
