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It says something of my musical tastes that almost 90% of the contents of my iPhone is made up of Movie and TV Scores. Aside from simply helping to focus the mind, music is a continual source of inspiration and I regularly fill otherwise wasted hours traveling (and the like) by plotting out scenes to various soundtracks.

I have my favourites, but I’ve never yet taken the time to put them in order. Until now:

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1. Like a Dog Chasing Cars – Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard (The Dark Knight)
2. All Along the Watchtower – Bear McCreary featuring Bt4 (Battlestar Galactica: Season 3)
3. I Don’t think Now is the Best Time – Hans Zimmer (Pirates of the Caribbean 3)
4. My Name is Lincoln – Steve Jablonsky (The Island)
5. Red Warrior – Hans Zimmer (The Last Samurai)
6. Minas Tirith – Howard Shore (The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King)
7. The Greatest Story Never Told – Murray Gold (Doctor Who: Series 4)
8. Navras – Juno Reactor (The Matrix: Revolutions)
9. Ji Yeon – Michael Giacchino (Lost: Season 4)
10. Eagle Eye Main Title – Brian Tyler (Eagle Eye)

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So, there you have it. There was a lot of rearranging and a few painful cuts here and there, however, the top five were pretty much solid from the outset (though first and second place was an extremely close-run race). I strongly recommend you all to seek out these pieces as they are all quite incredible in their own ways. Furthermore, should you have any favourites yourself, please add them to the comments section – it’s possible they may have passed me by, and I’d hate to miss out.

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The Prince Ascendant
You’ll notice the very strong showing for Hans Zimmer – who is, quite frankly, something of a God to me – but I’d also like to make special mention of Battlestar Galactica‘s Bear McCreary. Despite being very early in his career (scoring BSG, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and now BSG prequel; Caprica), McCreary’s work is exceptional and I truly expect him to overtake Zimmer as his wealth of work continues to grow. I’d recommend you to locate and enjoy his entire discography – there are no songs among it that I do not enjoy – paying close attention to Violence and Variations, Storming New Caprica and Kat’s Sacrifice (all of Battlestar Galactica: Season 3) along with Passacagula (Battlestar Galactica: Season 1) and both Kara’s Coordinates and An Easterly View (from Battlestar Galactica: Season 4).

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Also Ran
Molossus (Batman Begins) – yet another of Zimmer’s work, this time with James Newton Howard, his collaborator on both of Christopher Nolan’s Batman revival films. This failed to make the list purely because of its similarity with the superior Like a Dog Chasing Cars. Other noteables from Zimmer and Howard’s collaborations include Myotis and Macrotus from Batman Begins along with A Dark Knight, Watch the World Burn (which is immensely bleak and brilliant) and Harvey Two-Face from The Dark Knight.

Summon the Worms (Children of Dune) by Brian Tyler which battled it out with the Eagle Eye theme for tenth place. The entire Children of Dune soundtrack is littered with gems – Inma Nushif (Montage), War Begins and Rya Wolves are all worth a look – though very niche in the types of scene they can inspire.

Enterprising Young Men (JJ Abrams’ Star Trek) by Michael Giacchino which is a great piece of music, but also a little too happy and bouncy for my usual style of writing. Only my personal feelings kept this out of contention. The same applies to yet another Zimmer track; Discombobulate (Sherlock Holmes). Giacchino is another composer to watch out for in the future and is certainly deserving of praise for the brilliantly atmospheric music he has produced for Lost over the years. Potential fans should also check out Labor of Love, also from Abrams’ Star Trek reboot.

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Honourable Mentions
Opening (Terminator: Salvation) by Danny Elfman is a very atmospheric track which always features in any background-music playlist I might put together. Sadly, it lacks that extra punch to elevate it to top-ten status. Elfman’s Spider-Man Theme (Spider-Man) is also a good piece of music, which fails to quite make the grade. I have faith that Danny will, one day, produce a fantastic piece and maybe knock Brian Tyler off the leader-board. He consistently produces excellent music, but just needs that extra push.

Steve Jablonsky is another composer I’d love to hear more of. He’s done fantastic work in the past – and earns fourth place in the top-ten with the intense and rising My Name is Lincoln (The Island) and seems to have gotten stuck in a rut ever since composing the – admittedly brilliant – Transformers soundtracks with (yet again) Hans Zimmer. There are many songs of worth to have come from that collaboration (at least, there are for the original Transformers film – I will wait to buy the soundtrack for Transformers 2 until I have fully recovered from how awful the film was). Particularly noteworthy are Arrival to Earth and Bumblebee.

The soundtrack-literate among you may have noticed a distinct lack of any work by, perhaps the most well-known movie composer, John Williams. Well, it may just be personal taste, but I’ve always found Williams’ work to make far too much use of fanfare and woodwind for any of his work to stand out as particularly exceptional music. One possible exception goes to Duel of the Fates (Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace) which is an admittedly epic piece of music and probably the only good to have crawled from the wreckage of the Star Wars prequels.

Honorable mentions go to Clinton Shorter (District 9), Lisa Gerrard (Gladiator) and Klaus Badelt (Pirates of the Carribean: The Curse of the Black Pearl) – all of whom I look forward to hearing more of. I’ll also make special note of the, now retired, Ennio Morricone – who composed the score for Mission to Mars, along with a host of other classic soundtracks dating back to the 1950s and including The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

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Trailers
What I haven’t included here is the various wonderful pieces of trailer music – and any fans of this should investigate the productions of Globus (previously called Immediate Music), X-Ray Dog and E.S.Posthumous. Particularly, I recommend Menouthis and Tikal (E.S.Posthumous), Preliator and Diem Ex Dei (Globus – in fact, check out the whole Epicon album), and Dark Empire – particularly the remix for the Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End trailer (X-Ray Dog).

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First Among Equals
And I’ll finish where I began, singing the much-deserved praises of Hans Zimmer. If you’re just discovering him today then I’ll also recommend to you Ronin (The Last Samurai), Drink Up Me Hearties (Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End) and The Battle (Gladiator – where Zimmer worked with the aforementioned Badelt and Gerrard).

I will continue to update this post as I discover more soundtracks deserving of mention. In the meantime, please feel free to draw my attention to any scores I may have missed.

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