Score! Why UK Film Music is on a Roll

Spring is in the air and so is film music this month, because we’re celebrating the key role of music in the movies. Composers can make or break a film, drawing tears at will and heightening tension or drama with a single chord. Many of the finest of all time were recorded right here in the UK, as international composers and filmmakers follow in John Williams’ footsteps to record in the same studios as Star Wars and Indiana Jones, but increasingly UK films themselves are showcasing the best music, and biggest composers, around.

Consider, for example, Daniel Pemberton, a Golden Globe, BAFTA and Oscar nominee who’s behind not only the music for the Spider-Verse films and recent hit Project Hail Mary, but also some of the coolest British films of the past decade. He worked with Guy Ritchie (The Gentlemen; Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels) on the breezy, ‘60s inspired sounds of The Man From U.N.C.L.E., the ideal score to listen to while zipping around on a Vespa looking glamorous. He seems to reinvent his style for every film, however. For King Arthur: Legend of the Sword he leaned into the most ancient instruments he could find. Steve Jobs for Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire, Trainspotting) saw him compose essentially three scores in one, while their Yesterday collaboration required a soundtrack flavoured with the Beatles.

Another extremely versatile British name is David Arnold, who worked on smart comedy in Edgar Wright’s Hot Fuzz, social drama for Made in Dagenham and then epic action on James Bond films including Die Another Day, Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, stepping into the shoes of the legendary John Barry. He has also scored TV hits like Sherlock and Good Omens, biopics like Amazing Grace and more than a few chart hits, with the likes of Bjork and Ed Sheeran.

Arnold is not to be confused with another David, David Holmes, the Northern Irish DJ-turned-composer who is a regular Steven Soderbergh collaborator; he can be heard in The Christophers this year and last year’s achingly cool spy thriller Black Bag with Michael Fassbender (Frank). Holmes has also been the first port of call for many filmmakers working on Northern Irish subject matter, after scoring Ordinary Love and Good Vibrations for local directors Lisa Barros D'Sa and Glenn Leyburn, as well as the Troubles thriller ’71 for British based filmmaker Yann Demange (Top Boy) and the haunting drama Hunger for Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave).

Did you know that the first woman ever to win the Academy Award for Best Score is British? Rachel Portman, who won for 1996’s Emma, has been busy ever since, on films including Belle, Never Let Me Go, Their Finest and The Return. Anne Dudley soon followed in her footsteps, winning for The Full Monty, and Stephen Warbeck followed her with a win for Shakespeare In Love, only his second score after Mrs Brown. Steven Price is another recent winner, with an Oscar for the extraordinary score for Gravity and sweeping work on everything from documentaries like David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet to Edgar Wright’s Last Night in Soho and Baby Driver.

The Gregson-Williams family has given us not one but two world-class composers. Harry Gregson Williams is one of Ridley Scott’s regular collaborators, crafting the music on House of Gucci, The Last Duel and The Martian as well as the epic heights of Gladiator II. His brother Rupert Gregson-Williams gave us on The Crown and Behind Her Eyes as well as a lot of Adam Sandler comedies. Interestingly, both have worked on the delightful family films of Aardman Animation: Harry did both Chicken Run films and Early Man for the studio, while Rupert scored the horror-pastiche Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

Other huge, established UK names include Henry Jackman, who worked with Matthew Vaughn on Kick-Ass, animation house Locksmith on Ron’s Gone Wrong and Paul Greengrass on Captain Phillips. Greengrass also turns regularly to John Powell, who did United 93 and Green Zone for example, but also a diverse mix of films including Pan and animation That Christmas. Another composer who’s a dab hand with a period drama is Patrick Doyle, who gave us the memorable scores to Gosford Park and Sense And Sensibility, as well as the likes of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and a host of Kenneth Branagh-directed films like Murder On The Orient Express and Death on the Nile. It’s worth seeking out the work of George Fenton too. As well as being Ken Loach’s regular composer, on films like The Wind That Shakes the Barley and The Old Oak, he also wrote the award-winning music to hit documentaries Planet Earth and Blue Planet.

Some of the most in-demand British composers came out of the country’s famous rock scene. Radiohead star Jonny Greenwood has become one of the most in-demand artists in film music in recent years, particularly for his collaborations with newly minted Oscar winner Paul Thomas Anderson, but he’s also responsible for the stunning scores to Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog, Lynne Ramsay’s You Were Never Really Here and Pablo Larrain’s Spencer. Clint Mansell also started out in rock, in Pop Will Eat Itself, but went on to write music for Duncan Jones’ Moon, Ben Wheatley films like High-Rise and In the Earth, and Jon S. Baird’s Filth. He even scored the unconventional animated film Loving Vincent, a film that was entirely oil-painted. And there’s Atticus Ross who, along with his Nine Inch Nails bandmate Trent Reznor, scored Mank and Empire of Light as well as winning Oscars for The Social Network and Soul.

Coming up behind all these established names is a wealth of rising UK talent, including the likes of Amelia Warner (Mr. Malcolm’s List, Wild Mountain Thyme); Natalie Holt (Deadwater Fell, Wallander, Loki); Benjamin Wallfisch, who got his start on Moon and has gone on to huge success on Predator, Alien and Blade Runner films); and Vik Sharma (Fighting With My Family). There must be something in the air – or maybe that’s just music.