Before Part 2 commences, a quick reminder of the criteria and guidelines for the list:

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1. Some themes will be on the list. However, this is about music that amplifies more than reminding us we’re watching a particular movie. As such...
2. Iconic doesn’t mean best. Doctor Zhivago's “Lara’s Theme” is not on this list. It's iconic, but Jarre has done better.
3. The list is about individual pieces of music, not the entire score.
4. The piece must be entirely compelling. While The Silence of the Lambs' opening five notes are an incredible mood-setter and the gold standard for kicking off a psychological thriller, the rest of the main title (while not bad) doesn’t measure up.
5. If the music doesn’t fit, it doesn’t count. “Chevaliers de Sangreal” would crack most people’s list, and it’s good, but it sounds more like Hans Zimmer came up with something cool and stuffed it into whatever his next movie was, which happened to be the freakin’ Da Vinci Code.
6. We all hear things we like and slide them into a Spotify playlist, but that’s not what this list is about. Thus, I must have seen the movie recently enough for the other criteria to apply. Seeing Laura at 11 doesn’t count

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60. “The Victor” - L.A. Confidential, Jerry Goldsmith

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Intentional or not, L.A. Confidential lacks the dark undertone of most noir classics. It’s aesthetically vibrant and more thematically optimistic, wrapping itself neatly with lasting love and happy endings. Goldsmith’s score reflects this approach, always pulling its punches, never going for the jugular. One may not enjoy that restraint, but there’s no denying how expertly the noir master captured Curtis Hanson’s vision as “The Victor” plays out Edmund Exley, Bud White, and Lynn Bracken.

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59. “The Games Begin” - The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, James Newton Howard

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Say what you will, but Catching Fire hype was very real in the fall of 2013. The Quarter Quell delivered, but the transition from Cinna’s brutal murder to Katniss getting raised into the arena to her deep dive into the water and mad dash to the cornucopia is a pulse-pounding sequence that lived up to the hype and then some.

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58. “The Middle of the World” - Moonlight, Nicholas Brittell

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Brittell deserves credit for scoring Moonlight well at all; it’s not the sort of drama that leaves room for any obvious road to travel. Yet, he found some genuine drama in string music that would ordinarily sound like a pretentious copout. “The Middle of the World” sounds like struggle, but also subtly captures the nuance of Chiron’s hopelessness by constantly shifting gears, continually keeping us simultaneously on our toes and suspended in the same trap in which our protagonist finds himself.

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57. “Poor Things’ Finale and End Credits” - Poor Things, Jerskin Fendrix

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Bella Baxter’s final act strains credulity. Instead of the delightfully bonkers storytelling of the preceding two hours, director Yorgos Lanthimos goes for the patriarchy-murdering jugular. If the film had ended with Bella forging her path sans deforming her mother’s psychopathic ex-husband, “Finale and End Credits” would have worked better. As it is, Fendrix gives a uniquely triumphant conclusion for our one-of-a-kind heroine that leaves us just as thrilled for Bella as she is for herself.

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56. “The Game” - Remember the Titans, Trevor Rabin

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Remember the Titans does many things to stand out from the sports movie crowd, but Trevor Rabin’s music is the biggest hero. Scoring sports is one of the most difficult tasks for a composer, and the thrill of watching the Titans score the winning touchdown and clinch the state championship is because of Rabin’s score.

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55. “Benedict Knows the Truth” - Ocean’s 11, David Holmes

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Steven Soderbergh’s remake of the 1960 caper has a breezy style and the world’s most charismatic cast. It didn’t need a kickass score to make it what it became, but boy, did it help. Holmes has rarely scored big studio flicks, but he took advantage of the opportunity here, capping off the epic heist of Terry Benedict’s three Las Vegas casinos with a satisfying sense of fun-filled resolve.

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54. “Day One” - Interstellar, Hans Zimmer

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There is a brief moment, before Christopher Nolan’s narrative lunacy takes hold, where Interstellar has you convinced it might be slightly capable of not being a total hunk of garbage. Ultimately, it fails, but that one fleeting moment is due to the anticipatory atmosphere created by “Day One.” Before Nolan’s “vision” derails a promising sci-fi epic, Zimmer gives us an air of mystery, dread, optimism, and curiosity.

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53. “The Wicked Flee” - True Grit, Carter Burwell

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The Coen Brothers remake of True Grit is superior in every way, from the casting upgrades to the shorter runtime. But the biggest step up is the music, and “The Wicked Flee,” played over Rooster’s valiant dash through the great Western plains to save a snake-bitted Mattie, is still a deeply moving tribute to the bond formed between a drunken U.S. Marshal and a precocious young girl seeking revenge for her father’s murder.

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52. “Epilogue” - La La Land, Justin Hurwitz

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La La Land is a YMMV movie, so its self-indulgence will either tug at the heartstrings or roll the eyes. The ending, where Mia and Sebastian lock eyes at his jazz club years after she strikes gold as a major Hollywood star succeeded by an An American in Paris-esque vision of the love that could’ve been, is the ultimate test of this idea.

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Regardless, the old-fashioned movie magic boiling over those last few minutes is undeniable, largely due to Hurwitz’s romantic scoring.

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51. “This Land” - The Lion King, Hans Zimmer

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The songs are iconic, and for good reason, but the unsung hero of The Lion King’s roaring success is Zimmer’s score, expertly evoking the majesty of Africa’s vast plains and the Disney-fied melodrama of the film’s Hamlet-inspired story. “This Land” is Zimmer at his most original and inventive, long before the Inception “BWAAAA” took over cinema’s musical zeitgeist, and helped solidify The Lion King’s place as the definitive film of the Disney Renaissance.

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50. “The Mole” - Dunkirk, Hans Zimmer

Zimmer does a lot of heavy lifting for Nolan across many of his films, but this truth is never more apparent than in Dunkirk. The vast emptiness Nolan employs to feign substance and atmosphere is never accented by Zimmer’s genius; Zimmer creates it to compensate for Nolan’s shortcomings. “The Mole” sets in the anxiety and hopelessness of the evacuation. Whatever tension one feels while watching the film is down to that fact.

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‍49. “Apollo 11 Launch” - First Man, Justin Hurwitz

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Hurwitz’s scoring of First Man is something sorely needed in modern, big studio movies. “Apollo 11 Launch” reintegrates the leitmotif of “The Armstrongs” while creating an intense sense of drama and breathlessness. It’s possible to completely arrest the audience without relying on high-volume audio effects, and “Apollo 11 Launch” is a masterstroke for understanding that.

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‍48. “Rachael’s Song” - Blade Runner, Vangelis

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Vangelis was hit or miss; Chariots of Fire and Alexander are atrocious, but Blade Runner is sci-fi scoring at its best. “Rachael’s Song” is the perfect theme for the replicant love interest who falsely believes she’s human. Its melancholy is so powerful it inspires empathy for Rachael’s realization that her memories are not hers and that her sense of identity is a lie.

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47. “Main Title and Calvera” - The Magnificent Seven, Elmer Bernstein

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Berstein’s theme is far better remembered in the public consciousness than the movie itself, but it’s hard to imagine a piece of music that could better encapsulate seven infallible heroes liberating the Old West. It sounds like heroism, triumph, and adventure. It’s a basic choice, but it remains a fantastic one nearly 65 years after its release.

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