Top 10 Scores Turning 20 in 2023

Back to our musical score time machine! For this edition, we're looking back to 2003! Quite the selections to choose from! Here's a look back at the scores of the year with my list of the 10 Best Scores Turning 20!

Let's start the ranking!

10. Cold Mountain (Gabriel Yared)

More notice went to the song work by music producer T Bone Burnett than Yared's plaintive score. The melancholic music often relies on piano and strings with some lovely melodies. Thankfully the score was released in full in 2021.

9. The Core (Christopher Young)

A larger-than-life score that is miles better than the film. Themes appear throughout, and often with an enormous choir and orchestra. Action and heroics sound like throwbacks to older scores in the disaster genre (and that's a great thing!)

8. Seabiscuit (Randy Newman)

A heartwarming underdog story seems to fit Newman nicely with his characteristic Americana sound. We hear some fantastic solos for trumpet, guitar and flute amid the typical warm Newman sound. It's moving but never gets overly sentimental.

7. Big Fish (Danny Elfman)

Elfman uses an interesting mix of styles for this Tim Burton film. Overall, it's more sentimental and subtle, with a bluegrass voice. The lyrical themes meet the whimsical fun in flashbacks. The motifs connect together in the gorgeous finale.

6. The Last Samurai (Hans Zimmer)

Lush strings and haunting Japanese instrumentation with some restrained action dot Zimmer's score. The melodies work nicely, even with some similarities to other work. The score works with Edward Zwick's epic film, and an emotional highlight for Zimmer.

5. The Matrix Revolutions (Don Davis)

The scores have grown even larger for each film in the trilogy. We get more minimalistic and atonal stylings, wild orchestral techniques, Juno Reactor continued collaboration, emotional and action climaxes - the powerful choral Neodammerung being the highlight.

4. Peter Pan (James Newton Howard)

Scores for Pan are always chock-full of action, drama, suspense, swashbuckling and flying themes. Right from the titles, JNH adds lilting themes with choir and celeste and enchanting moments throughout the score. His stunning flying cue also adds drums and synths that surprisingly helps the score take off.

3. Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (Harry Gregson-Williams)

Continuing his success in animation, Gregson-Williams' music shows off light hearted action, female vocal highlights and swashbuckling fun. The rousing orchestral themes add to one of the best early DreamWorks scores for this sadly forgotten film.

2. Finding Nemo (Thomas Newman)

Pixar changed musical tones completely to Thomas Newman after a string of scores by Randy Newman. Nemo has all the lovely orchestration and writing of a "serious" film combined with the wonder and whimsy of the underwater world. His sparingly used main theme is a great match for the film.  Newman's work here is only matched by his later work for Wall-E.

1. Lord of the Rings - The Return of the King (Howard Shore)

Shore's monumental trilogy ends with a fantastic score - building with new majestic themes and revisiting past themes with urgency and devastation. It also features some of the grandest battle music, sweeping action and most emotional moments. Thus ends one of the best film/score collaborations.


Honorable Mentions:
Elf (John Debney), Girl with the Pearl Earring (Alexandre Desplat), Looney Tunes Back in Action (Jerry Goldsmith), Love Actually (Craig Armstrong), X2 (John Ottman)

Any personal favorites of yours from 2003 that I didn't include?