Top 25 Film Scores

Updated August 5, 2020 | Infoplease Staff

Table of contents

The following table lists the top 25 film scores from 100 years of film, according to the American Film Institute. The awards were presented at a live concert performed by the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra on Sept. 23, 2005.

Rank	Film title	Studio	Year	Composer
1.	Star Wars	Twentieth Century Fox	1977	John Williams
2.	Gone With the Wind	MGM	1939	Max Steiner
3.	Lawrence of Arabia	Columbia	1962	Maurice Jarre
4.	Psycho	Paramount	1960	Bernard Herrmann
5.	The Godfather	Paramount	1972	Nino Rota
6.	Jaws	Universal	1975	John Williams
7.	Laura	Twentieth Century Fox	1944	David Raksin
8.	The Magnificent Seven	United Artists	1960	Elmer Bernstein
9.	Chinatown	Paramount	1974	Jerry Goldsmith
10.	High Noon	United Artists	1952	Dimitri Tiomkin
11.	The Adventures of Robin Hood	Warner Bros.	1938	Erich Wolfgang Korngold
12.	Vertigo	Paramount	1958	Bernard Herrmann
13.	King Kong	RKO	1933	Max Steiner
14.	E.T. the Extraterrestrial	Universal	1982	John Williams
15.	Out of Africa	Universal	1985	John Barry
16.	Sunset Blvd.	Paramount	1950	Franz Waxman
17.	To Kill a Mockingbird	Universal	1962	Elmer Bernstein
18.	Planet of the Apes	Twentieth Century Fox	1968	Jerry Goldsmith
19.	A Streetcar Named Desire	Warner Bros.	1951	Alex North
20.	The Pink Panther	United Artists	1964	Henry Mancini
21.	Ben-Hur	MGM	1959	Miklos Rozsa
22.	On the Waterfront	Columbia	1954	Leonard Bernstein
23.	The Mission	Warner Bros.	1986	Ennio Morricone
24.	On Golden Pond	Universal	1981	Dave Grusin
25.	How the West Was Won	MGM, Cinerama Releasing	1962	Alfred Newman