10.
Wendy Carlos
Carlos began her career by synthesising pieces of classical music. Her talent of making these pieces seen original and unique brought her to fame. She is most notable for 'A Clockwork Orange'. She also composed the music for 'The Shining' and 'Tron'. Her synthetic music is noticable in many futuristic films. She also takes photos of solar eclipses.
9.
Tyler Bates
Tyler Bates is mainly a horror and thiller composer with credits including Dawn of the Dead, Slither, Halloween and Watchmen. He also composed the music for 300 but, there was much controversy as he had plagerised the soundtrack from Elliot Goldenthal's Titus. Nevertheless he is quite a composer with some really tense pieces of music on his soundtracks.
8.
Craig Armstrong
This man is brilliant. He has an OBE and a BAFTA award for his score of Romeo + Juliet. Although the composer of several Rom Coms such as Love Actually, he does have some more meaty credits to his name. His score for Moulin Rouge won him an Original Score award and a Golden Globe. His latest film is Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, coming out this year.
7.
David Arnold
Arnold composed the music for the latest 5 James Bond films. He also composed the music for comedy Little Britain and even appeared in two episodes. He rearranged the Dr Who theme tune for the 8th doctor and wona Grammy for his score of Independence Day. Bond 23, the next James Bond film has his name on it.
6.
Jerry Goldsmith
Jerry Goldsmith is a famous conductor and composer and has written countless epic pieces. His nominations are substantial with 17 Academy Awards, 9 Golden Globes, 4 BAFTA'S and 5 Grammys. He has composed the music for over 200 films most notably, Gladiator, Rambo, The Twilight Zone, Alien and Psycho.
5.
Klaus Badelt
Klaus Badelt is known best for composing the inspirational Pirates of the Caribbean music. But, he also has composed for numerous other epic films including The Time Machine, Catwoman and Poseidon. He is also currently working with Hans Zimmer to provide the music for the next Pirates of the Caribbean film; On Stranger Tides.
4.
Danny Elfman
He used to be in the rock band Oingo Boingo until its split in 1976, he then became a film composer. He composes for pretty much all of his friend Tim Burton's films. He also provides the singing voice of the character Jack Skellington in The Nightmare Before Christmas which he wrote the music for. He composed The Simpsons theme tune and is the occasional voice. He's had an incredible 73 nominations and 33 wins.
3.
Alan Menken
Alan Menken is best known for his many scores for Disney films, but he has done a few others. He has won a total of 8 Oscars, more than any other living person. These films are: The Little Mermaid, Beauty and Beast, Aladdin, Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, Home on the Range, Enchanted and upcoming Tangled. His lively songs are always recognisable anywhere.
2.
John Williams
If theres any timeless and iconic action film that you can name theres a big chance John Williams will have been involved in the score. Just to name a few of the epic films he has composed for are; Harry Potter, Star Wars, Jaws, Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones and Superman. I'm pretty sure you can all hum the theme tunes to these films even if you havn't seen the films. Who could forget the utterly terrifying da na...da na....da na..da na da na da na da na of Jaws. (You'll have to insert you own music in there). John Williams will always be legendary because of the amazing reminder of himself he leaves on his films.
1.
Hans Zimmer
All the other composers on this list have a specific field that they compose for. Epic movies, Disney films, they all have something unique about them. Well, Hans Zimmer is all of them. He has composed for every type of film there is and won awards for them too. He ranked 72 on The Telegraphs list of top 100 living geniuses. He's composed for over 100 films but here are what I think are his most memorable; The Lion King, The Da Vinci Code, The Dark Night, Sherlock Holmes, Inception, The Simpsons Movie, Hannibal, The Princes of Egypt and Pirates of the Caribbean (Klaus Badelt only wrote the theme music). He can turn his hand to any kind of music and thats what puts him top of my list. Any trained composer can write music for their specific field but it does take a genius to write for all the varied films that Hans Zimmer has.
Well there is my list, I hope you agree with some of my choices and next time you watch any of these films you might think about the great men and women who composed them.
