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.

  1. John Williams
  2. Hans Zimmer
  3. Bernard Herrmann
  4. Ennio Morricone
  5. Max Steiner
  6. Jerry Goldsmith
  7. Danny Elfman
  8. James Horner
  9. Howard Shore
  10. John Barry
  11. Alfred Newman
  12. Henry Mancini
  13. Alan Silvestri
  14. Joe Hisaishi
  15. Maurice Jarre
  16. Thomas Newman
  17. James Newton Howard
  18. Alexandre Desplat
  19. Elmer Bernstein
  20. Nino Rota
  21. Rachel Portman
  22. Michael Giacchino
  23. Vangelis
  24. Dimitri Tiomkin
  25. Erich Wolfgang Korngold
  26. A.R. Rahman
  27. Randy Newman
  28. Miklós Rózsa
  29. Alan Menken
  30. Philip Glass
  31. Franz Waxman
  32. Michel Legrand
  33. Brian Tyler
  34. Lalo Schifrin
  35. Ramin Djawadi
  36. Harry Gregson-Williams
  37. Alex North
  38. Ilaiyaraaja
  39. Henry Jackman
  40. Toru Takemitsu
  41. John Powell
  42. Bill Conti
  43. Jonny Greenwood
  44. Randy Edelman
  45. Patrick Doyle
  46. Georges Delerue
  47. Basil Poledouris
  48. John Carpenter
  49. John Ottman
  50. Michael Kamen
  51. Tyler Bates
  52. John Debney
  53. Atticus Ross
  54. Clint Mansell
  55. Trent Reznor
  56. Steve Jablonsky
  57. Angelo Badalamenti
  58. David Arnold
  59. Fumio Hayasaka
  60. Trevor Rabin
  61. Charlie Chaplin
  62. Anne Dudley
  63. Dave Grusin
  64. Akira Ifukube
  65. Justin Hurwitz
  66. Benjamin Wallfisch
  67. Klaus Badelt
  68. Hildur Guðnadóttir
  69. Elliot Goldenthal
  70. Sergei Prokofiev
  71. Christophe Beck
  72. Herbie Hancock
  73. Quincy Jones
  74. Brad Fiedel
  75. Aaron Copland
  76. George Fenton
  77. Masaru Sato
  78. Carter Burwell
  79. Dmitri Shostakovich
  80. Bear McCreary
  81. Trevor Jones
  82. Jack Nitzsche
  83. Harold Faltermeyer
  84. David Newman
  85. Terence Blanchard
  86. Marc Shaiman
  87. Heitor Pereira
  88. Wojciech Kilar
  89. Marvin Hamlisch
  90. Marco Beltrami
  91. Gabriel Yared
  92. Philippe Sarde
  93. Carl W. Stalling
  94. Michael Nyman
  95. S. D. Burman
  96. Lorne Baife
  97. Giorgio Moroder
  98. David Shire
  99. Jon Brion
  100. Mark Mothersbaugh
  101. Mark Mancina
  102. Christopher Young
  103. Dario Marianelli
  104. Ralph Vaughan Williams
  105. Victor Young
  106. Herbert Stothart
  107. Rupert Gregson-Williams
  108. John Murphy
  109. Ludwig Göransson
  110. Eric Serra
  111. Naoki Sato
  112. Hugo Friedhofer
  113. Lesley Barber
  114. Ray Heindorf
  115. Theodore Shapiro
  116. Yoko Kanno
  117. Louis F. Gottschalk
  118. Richard M. Sherman
  119. Robert B. Sherman
  120. Mark Isham
  121. Murray Gold
  122. Christopher Lennertz
  123. David Raksin
  124. Graeme Revell
  125. Aaron Zigman
  126. Daft Punk
  127. Mychael Danna
  128. Roy Webb
  129. Andre Previn
  130. Craig Armstrong
  131. Shankar-Jaikishan
  132. Simon Franglen
  133. Daniel Pemberton
  134. Georgie Stoll
  135. Kenji Kawai
  136. Walter Scharf
  137. Harald Kloser
  138. Morris Stoloff
  139. Francis Lai
  140. Rolfe Kent
  141. Georges Auric
  142. Tom Holkenborg
  143. Wendy Carlos
  144. Alessandro Cicognini
  145. Camille Saint-Saëns
  146. Junkie XL
  147. Malcolm Arnold
  148. Joseph Bishara
  149. Lennie Hayton
  150. Eduard Artemiev

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