Last Updated on 26 September 2023
The following list is the Official Definitive List of the 150 best movie composers ever. I averaged 27 different ranked lists of “best film composers of all time” to get this definitive compilation. See my Methodology page for the research process that was used, including links to all 27 lists that were averaged.
- John Williams
- Hans Zimmer
- Bernard Herrmann
- Ennio Morricone
- Max Steiner
- Jerry Goldsmith
- Danny Elfman
- James Horner
- Howard Shore
- John Barry
- Alfred Newman
- Henry Mancini
- Alan Silvestri
- Joe Hisaishi
- Maurice Jarre
- Thomas Newman
- James Newton Howard
- Alexandre Desplat
- Elmer Bernstein
- Nino Rota
- Rachel Portman
- Michael Giacchino
- Vangelis
- Dimitri Tiomkin
- Erich Wolfgang Korngold
- A.R. Rahman
- Randy Newman
- Miklós Rózsa
- Alan Menken
- Philip Glass
- Franz Waxman
- Michel Legrand
- Brian Tyler
- Lalo Schifrin
- Ramin Djawadi
- Harry Gregson-Williams
- Alex North
- Ilaiyaraaja
- Henry Jackman
- Toru Takemitsu
- John Powell
- Bill Conti
- Jonny Greenwood
- Randy Edelman
- Patrick Doyle
- Georges Delerue
- Basil Poledouris
- John Carpenter
- John Ottman
- Michael Kamen
- Tyler Bates
- John Debney
- Atticus Ross
- Clint Mansell
- Trent Reznor
- Steve Jablonsky
- Angelo Badalamenti
- David Arnold
- Fumio Hayasaka
- Trevor Rabin
- Charlie Chaplin
- Anne Dudley
- Dave Grusin
- Akira Ifukube
- Justin Hurwitz
- Benjamin Wallfisch
- Klaus Badelt
- Hildur Guðnadóttir
- Elliot Goldenthal
- Sergei Prokofiev
- Christophe Beck
- Herbie Hancock
- Quincy Jones
- Brad Fiedel
- Aaron Copland
- George Fenton
- Masaru Sato
- Carter Burwell
- Dmitri Shostakovich
- Bear McCreary
- Trevor Jones
- Jack Nitzsche
- Harold Faltermeyer
- David Newman
- Terence Blanchard
- Marc Shaiman
- Heitor Pereira
- Wojciech Kilar
- Marvin Hamlisch
- Marco Beltrami
- Gabriel Yared
- Philippe Sarde
- Carl W. Stalling
- Michael Nyman
- S. D. Burman
- Lorne Baife
- Giorgio Moroder
- David Shire
- Jon Brion
- Mark Mothersbaugh
- Mark Mancina
- Christopher Young
- Dario Marianelli
- Ralph Vaughan Williams
- Victor Young
- Herbert Stothart
- Rupert Gregson-Williams
- John Murphy
- Ludwig Göransson
- Eric Serra
- Naoki Sato
- Hugo Friedhofer
- Lesley Barber
- Ray Heindorf
- Theodore Shapiro
- Yoko Kanno
- Louis F. Gottschalk
- Richard M. Sherman
- Robert B. Sherman
- Mark Isham
- Murray Gold
- Christopher Lennertz
- David Raksin
- Graeme Revell
- Aaron Zigman
- Daft Punk
- Mychael Danna
- Roy Webb
- Andre Previn
- Craig Armstrong
- Shankar-Jaikishan
- Simon Franglen
- Daniel Pemberton
- Georgie Stoll
- Kenji Kawai
- Walter Scharf
- Harald Kloser
- Morris Stoloff
- Francis Lai
- Rolfe Kent
- Georges Auric
- Tom Holkenborg
- Wendy Carlos
- Alessandro Cicognini
- Camille Saint-Saëns
- Junkie XL
- Malcolm Arnold
- Joseph Bishara
- Lennie Hayton
- Eduard Artemiev
