The greatest Hans Zimmer scores

Ad Feature

Across his 40 year career, Hans Zimmer has scored over 150 feature films and won two Oscars to go alongside his four Grammys. As well as critical acclaim, he’s also managed to create an instantly-recognisable style, blending electronics with traditional orchestral arrangements but never wanting to steal the spotlight, his music only ever enhances the scene it’s soundtracking.

This year, Hans Zimmer’s ‘A New Dimension’ tour will see his most famous moments performed by his band and the Odessa Opera Orchestra & Friends, with the shows led by longterm friend Gavin Greenaway.

Zimmer will serve as creative director for the show, with the famed composer explaining: “My aspiration with this new show is to preserve the culture of the orchestra and allow audiences to rediscover the unique facets of orchestral music.”

“We have found a way for everyone to exist in this music without anyone being the big star,” added Greenaway.

With the tour currently touring Europe and UK, we’ve decided to round up the ten best Hans Zimmer scores.

Fans can buy and sell tickets for Hans Zimmer at global marketplace, viagogo here.

10. The Prince Of Egypt (1998)

The Prince Of Egypt tells the tale of Moses, as he grows from being a prince of Egypt to a prophet, chosen by God to carry out his ultimate destiny of leading the Hebrews out of Egypt. It’s a dramatic tale and Zimmer’s score adds to the bombast of the animated film, weaving neatly between huge, cinematic pop songs sung by the likes of Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston.

9. Sherlock Holmes (2009)

While Guy Richie was editing his take on the iconic detective, he used Hans Zimmer score for The Dark Knight as temporary music until a new score had been created. When Zimmer was finally brought onboard, he was told to create something completely different. So he did, describing the Sherlock Holmes score as “the sound of The Pogues joining a Romanian orchestra”. He also did “horrible things” to a piano to create that rustic sound.

8. The Dark Knight (2008)

Teaming up again with James Newton Howard for the second of Christopher Nolan’s Batman films, Zimmer’s score is used to masterful effect throughout. Pulling influence from Kraftwerk and deliberately not creating a “heroic” motif that could be hummed by the audience, The Dark Knight’s score is as rebellious as the film itself. It went on to win the Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media.

7. Interstellar (2014)

While his work on the Dark Knight trilogy saw Zimmer create scores that were gritty and grounded in dark fantasy, Interstellar allowed him to go all out. A bombastic, bone-rattling score that is punctuated by moments of isolating quiet, it’s a complex piece of work that sounds out of this world.

6. Dune (2021)

Described by many as Zimmer’s most unorthodox score yet, the composer created new hybrid instruments to give the world of Dune an otherworldly feel. He made use of eerie voices to give the film a sense of unease, but also to drive home the fact that “the female characters in the film drive the story”. Music was such an integral part of the film that Zimmer created over an hour’s worth of new material to help filmmakers plan Dune: Part Two.

5. Pearl Harbour (2001)

Pearl Harbour is both an action-packed war film and a tragic romance so for the score, Zimmer had to make sure every moment was driving the story forward as well as serving the emotion behind the blood, bullets and twisted metal. While the film’s spotlight often lingers on the big explosions, it’s Zimmer’s score that gives Pearl Harbour its beating heart.

4. Pirates Of The Caribbean (2003)

Hans Zimmer wasn’t meant to score Pirates Of The Caribbean but after a few people didn’t work out, Zimmer teamed up with Klaus Badelt to write most of the score’s primary themes. Due to the tight turnaround, seven other composers were called upon to help flesh out Pirates Of The Carribean’s score but Zimmer returned to work on the next three films in the franchise, with each one further developing the simple, yet epic, orchestration.

3. Rain Man (1988)

A pivotal moment in Zimmer’s career, Rain Man saw him pick up his first Oscar nomination for a score that blended synthesizers with steel drums. “I kept thinking don’t be bigger than the characters. Try to keep it contained,” Zimmer said about his creation, while wanting to craft a score that reflected the way Dustin Hoffman’s Raymond related to the world at large. “Everything is so different to him. He might as well be on Mars. So, why don’t we just invent our own world music for a world that doesn’t really exist,” said Zimmer.

2. Gladiator (2000)

Hans Zimmer’s expansive score for Ridley Scott’s Gladiator went on to win him a Golden Globe and influenced countless cinematic epics in the years that followed. Ranging from idyllic and dreamy to mammoth and humbling, Zimmer’s score was as ambitious as the film and helped draw people into the rich, luxurious and often brutal world of Gladiator.

1. The Lion King (1994)

It takes a special sort of genius to weave a score around the bombastic, overblown pop of Elton John and Tim Rice but Hans Zimmer’s creation for The Lion King helped make it perhaps the greatest sounding Disney movie ever. In 2022, Zimmer admitted he only did The Lion King because he wanted to take his 6-year-old daughter to a film premiere but that score won him his first Oscar and cemented his status as a legendary composer.

The post The greatest Hans Zimmer scores appeared first on NME.