TOP 10 HANS ZIMMER SOUNDTRACKS
Best elevating music you can get!
We all enjoy the soundtracks that play in the background during staple moments in movies. Hans Zimmer is one of if not the best Film Score Producer out there. Each of his pieces has the power to motivate a person and make our hair stand on our skin. Some even use these film scores to listen to in order to get rid of their anxiety before important moments in life like before interviews or test and examinations.
Hans Zimmer Soundtracks have an exceptional appeal to it. They are creations of wonder and awe. Hans Zimmer is wanted by many Film Producers on their movies. His best Scores yet are with the Great Christopher Nolan.
Hans Zimmer Has won several Awards for his scores including Grammys, Academy Awards, BAFTA and the Golden Globes.
Here are 10 soundtracks that I feel are the best he has to offer:
- Inception — Time:
Writer/director Christopher Nolan’s narrative for “Inception” involved the importance of dreams and how time slows down within the course of a dream. And if you have a dream within your dream — descending in dream level — events occur even more slowly. Zimmer’s uses his score to underline that theme, often taking snippets of music designed to be heard on one dream level and repeating the same theme on another level at an even slower tempo. It’s a strong score that matches a bold film.
2. Pirates of the Caribbean:
This unique piece of art is easily identifiable anywhere. Zimmer collaborated with Klaus Badelt on ‘The Curse of the Black Pearl’, writing the film’s main themes as a duo. Although critics berated the composers’ work for its lack of connections to the ‘swashbuckling’ genre, Zimmer and Badelt succeeded in creating a score which is both epically beautiful and cheekily evocative of the unpredictable Captain Jack.
3. Sherlock Holmes:
Since Guy Ritchie (director) reportedly used Zimmer’s “Dark Knight” score as a working track while he was making “Sherlock Holmes,” director Guy Ritchie followed through to persuade Zimmer to score his film as well, with the provision that it should sound very different than the Batman films. Zimmer made sure of that by utilizing squeaky violins, a banjo, a cimbalon and a “broken pub piano” to create a distinctive score that does not resemble what one might expect of a Sherlock score but perfectly captures the slightly-skewed tone of Ritchie’s version. Zimmer’s work here brought him his eighth Oscar nomination, and he also earned his 11th nomination for a Grammy Award.
4. The Last Samurai:
This Score is a less known one but personally one of my favorites. It has the Hans Zimmer’s iconic slow pace to sudden thrills. He managed to capture the right essence of a samurai with his music. In this piece he involves Japanese culture as well by using their cultural instruments in certain places to give the Japanese feel to the Soundtrack.
5. The Dark Knight:
Zimmer scored all three of Christopher Nolan’s Batman films and was partnered with 8-time Oscar nominee James Newton Howard on the first two — “Batman Begins” (2005) and “The Dark Knight” (2008). (Zimmer scored by trilogy’s finale — 2012’s “The Dark Knight Rises” — by himself.) They worked together note-by-note on the more operatic score of “Batman Begins,” but when it came to scoring the very different electronic music of “The Dark Knight,” they chose to work separately, with Howard handling the Harvey Dent sections and Zimmer focusing on the unforgettable Joker theme music. The soundtracks in this movie are the ones that got him recognized to the 90s generation and was his path to much more greatness.
6. The Lion King:
This was his most iconic composition which brought a smile to many faces while watching the movie. Thanks to his use of African voices and instruments in the 1992 South African-based “The Power of One,” Zimmer was approached by Disney to score his first animated film, the classic “The Lion King.” Though he was denied entry into South Africa because his work on “The Power of One” deemed him to be a “subversive,” Zimmer composed an African-based score using that continent’s traditional vocal stylings and African instrumentation that became his most widely-heard and most honored. For his music, Zimmer won his first Academy Award, his first Golden Globe Award, his first BAFTA nomination and earned two Grammy Awards from three nominations.
7. Interstellar:
This is Hans’ most grossing Soundtrack. In his fifth collaboration with director Christopher Nolan, Zimmer created a score that mirrored the unpredictability of the film’s plot. While the bulk of the score was conducted via computers and synthesizers (all played by Zimmer), add to that a 60-person choir who were asked to sing while turned away from the microphones so they could serve as reverb to the pianos. Finally, at key moments of the film, Zimmer adds the sound of a 1926 pipe organ whose majestic sounds serve to underline that emotion displayed by the characters. It’s an unusual approach to an unusual space opera.
8. The Da Vinci Code:
Zimmer’s religious soundscape, scored with a massive orchestra, chorus and organ, gives you the feeling you’ve just walked into a glorious stained-glass cathedral. Although the film itself had mixed reviews, Zimmer’s epic soundtrack was nominated for the 2007 Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score.
Director Ron Howard said: “Hans Zimmer has given us extraordinarily memorable music to appreciate within the framework of a film or completely on its own, where you can let the sounds carry you on your own private journey.”
9. Man of Steel — Flight:
This Movie had mixed reviews but the soundtracks were what carried it according to me. My personal favorite from the whole movie is the “Flight”. This is the one when Superman learns to fly. It has a unique pull to it that makes you feel powerful.
10. Is She With You — Batman v Superman:
You want powerful music? You listen to this. Hans Zimmer has created this Godly Soundtrack for an Apt Character who is an Amazonian Godess herself, “Wonder Woman ”. This was her first entry into the DC Movie-verse and it couldn’t be a better one to show an entry of a powerful God. The Soundtrack has a certain gravitas that makes you feel empowered.
