Who's the best film score writer working today?

Who is the best ? Who creates that mood via music that sucks you in, but doesn't take you out of the film?

Clint Mansell? (Moon, The Fountain)
Nick Cave / Warren Ellis? (The Assassination of Jesse James, Hell or high water)
Trent Reznor / Atticus Ross? (The Book of Eli)
Cliff Martinez? (Neon Demon, Drive, Contagion)
Mica Levi? (under the skin, Jackie, Monos)
Hans Zimmer? (Inception etc)
Michael Nyman? Rachel Portman? Alexandr Desplat?

?

Hans Zimmer is likely my current favourite, but Trent Reznor / Atticus Ross are high up there too.

Why Zimmer? What is it about his scores that makes him the best?

Good question. I don't know if I would say he is the best, but he is my favourite because I enjoy the sound of his scores. I feel his scores enhance the films and I can't recall a bad score that he did.

Joe Hisaishi for me. It's the atmosphere, just the right amount of sentimentality and, most importantly, the memorability of his music that does it for me, which I feel is something that is becoming less and less important lately. I used to buy or at least listen to musical scores regularly. I think the lack of memorability in modern musical scores is why I barely do that any more.

I'm not really an anime fan but I do love his work on Kitano's films.

Same here. That and his work in Miyazaki's movies is all excellent.

I also like Desplat's work, especially in Wes Anderson's movies, and Johann Johansson's (R.I.P.) for pretty much the same reasons.

Thomas Newman is my favourite (Skyfall, Road to Perdition, The Shawshank Redemption, WALL-E etc.). I think Hans Zimmer is the best ever. Hot take: John Williams is over-rated.

I do appreciate Ludwig Gorransson (Oppenheimer, Tenet), Rupert and Harry Gregson-Williams, as well as Hisaishi.

I agree that T. Newman and Zimmer have both done some fabulous scores. Actually Zimmer has a whole group of people who help with his work. There's no one alive better than John Williams for the heroic type of film score.

Cliff Martinez does not write in their styles, but he's done some pretty tasty work, especially with percussion, for example in The Lincoln Lawyer (2011). N.B. I'm acquainted with Cliff. We were both in the same band at different times.

I'm partial to symphonic and live instrument composing although I admired Sean Callery's great synthesizer work in the TV series 24.

Cheers @ScarletLion for naming Portman. Love her work.


Other for me would be AR Rahman, Thomas Newman, Mychael Danna, Newton Brothers, Nathan Johnson & Amit Trivedi.

John Williams is recently retired (after Indy 5).

So that leaves,.. Ludwig Göransson, Laura Karpan, Lorne Balfe and Ramin Djawadi are among the best imho