Top 10 Scores of the 00’s

Review by Zach Saltz

Posted - 10/10/09

Go to Top 10 Scores

There has been a great deal of terrific film scores through the course of the last decade and in typical Academy Awards fashion, none of the top ten scores of the 2000s have won Best Score.  We have mediocre and unmemorable music from the likes of Finding Neverland, Babel, and Slumdog Millionaire that takes home the top prize, while music from films such as The New World and Hearts in Atlantis do not even receive a nomination.  Typical.  If they still had categories for Black and White cinematography, the Academy would nominate and award Slumdog Millionaire.  Stupid Indian movie.

Music in the movies is for me just as important as the motion picture itself.  Often times, I will reward a film my approval simply because its score is so good; it should come as no surprise that all ten of these films will feature prominently on any future best-of-the-decade lists yet to come.  I must note that my absolute favorite music from any movie of this decade, from The Best of Youth, is not included on this list because it is not a completely original score; its main melody, which, according to my iTunes I have listen to 61 times since 2007, was lifted from Jules et Jim.  Runners-up on this list would include Far From Heaven (2002), Love Actually (2003), The Departed (2006), Atonement (2007), The Lives of Others (2007), and (of course) In the Bedroom (2001; I couldn’t leave it out entirely, could I?)

10. Minority Report (John Williams, 2002).  If most people had to pick the best John Williams score this decade, Minority Report would likely not immediately leap to most people’s minds.  But this is indeed one of the master’s very best, an action score that actually contains a great deal of compassion and emotion.  This selection, a haunting riff that is played throughout the film, underscores the subtle complexities of the characters and the darkness that looms in their past and not-too-distant future.

9. United 93 (John Powell, 2006).  Overall, there is not much orchestral music used in Paul Greengrass’ fact-based 9/11 docudrama.  But when it is sparingly used, it evokes and further illustrates the horrific events of the day as reenacted by the film.  The final piece, used during the climatic showdown as the passengers aboard Flight 93 fearlessly fight for control of the aircraft as it goes down, is develops a furious pace and makes the sequence even more heart-pounding and memorable, if that is imaginable. 

8. Pride and Prejudice (Dario Marianelli, 2005).  The initial pace is quick and mercurial, but when the melody slows down, it is endlessly intoxicating and beautiful.  The second violin part is ravishing, and when the entire orchestra enters (1:58) it becomes a work of wonder.  The entire film has terrific music, with orchestrations fastidiously mimicking the style of 19^th Century Britain.  This theme, the main romantic melody, is played at the end of the movie, which makes the finale all the more special and memorable.

7. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Alexandre Desplat, 2008).  This is a strange, whimsical, masterful musical score that enhances David Fincher’s surreal story of a man who ages backwards.  Beautiful use of the harp at the beginning of the piece, and this selection evokes something very unusual that the film also pinpoints well – the long and strenuous passage of time, which can be beautiful and hard to represent in musical form.  Interesting use of muted trumpet (1:59), and painfully evocative of the film’s tragic circumstances.

6. A Beautiful Mind (James Horner, 2001).  James Horner’s scores are always beautiful, but have a nasty habit of replicating from one another.  The main riffs from this score are practically duplicated for House of Sand and Fog (2003), but Horner can be forgiven; this score is so beautiful that it doesn’t deserve only one movie.  It is full of wonder and ingenuity, reflecting Ron Howard’s film perfectly, along with further enhancing the film’s depiction of John Nash’s descent into insanity.  Like a Philip Glass score, it is almost numbingly repetitive at times, but completely allusive and undeniably haunting.

5. Hearts in Atlantis (Mychael Danna, 2001).  One of the great underrated films of the decade, this score is wondrously evocative of the nostalgia and austere atmosphere sharply contrasted throughout Scott Hicks’ film.  There are very clear dark undercurrents to the score, which are later amended by lush overtones and a beautifully melodic main theme.  Some may call it over-the-top, but it perfectly evokes the mood and atmosphere of this delicate and memorable little film.

4. The Hours (Phillip Glass, 2002).  I’ve always been a Phillip Glass fan and this score, along with his compositions for Errol Morris’ The Fog of War (2003), are his two best of the decade.  The piano strains are kaleidoscopic and majestic, like a bit of uncontrollable rage with fierce repeated rhythms and sly intonations.  The melodies are like knives pulsating in and out of you, and can be tremendously sad and emotionally draining, like the musical equivalent of a lush waterfall.

3. Nowhere In Africa (Niki Reiser, 2003).  The only foreign film on my list, Niki Reiser’s score is one of the most impressive in its stunning versatility, incorporating indigenous African chants and drumbeats, along with classically expressionist symphonic sounds.  The music perfectly captures the mixture of the two worlds, as illustrated by the movie, and has many distinctly separate themes that are specific to individual scenes and story developments throughout the picture, as with the first minute of this selection, the film’s most memorable theme.

2. 25^th Hour (Terrence Blanchard, 2002).  Terrence Blanchard’s compositions have been a little too over-the-top for Spike Lee’s films in the past, but this stunning and epic score is perfectly balanced with the events that unfold on the screen.  The music is like a requiem, eagerly aware of the doom that it is anticipating, with a jazzy drumbeat and melodic string chorus.  The love theme, featuring primarily piano, is luscious, but this theme, used in the memorable opening title sequence of the film, perfectly captures the Greek-like pain and agony experienced by the Edward Norton character along with the post-9/11 city of New York.

1. The New World (James Horner, 2005).  The kaleidoscopic imagery of Terrence Malick’s 2005 masterpiece is matched by James Horner’s rapturous piano, which covers as many scales as a Rachmaninov concerto.  The main repeated love theme, however, is memorable and painfully evocative of the lush landscapes of Malick’s undiscovered country, ripe with new possibility and feelings of supreme love and remorse.  Listen to the part at (1:07); does film music really get much more gorgeous than this?  This film also uses the overture to Wagner’s Das Rheingold (memorably used during the final sequence) and Mozart’s Piano Concerto 23 K. 488, meaning that Horner’s stunning melodies are not even the best musical feature of this perfect film.  But for our sake, this is the decade’s finest film score, awesomely beautiful and yet surprisingly subtle at times, augmenting an already ageless masterwork.