Critics: Top 58 Film Scores of 2008
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Recently I crosschecked 22 websites that review film scores (Including this site) and made a list over the 58 best film scores released in 2008 according to film music critics. What is a critic anyway? It’s people like me who without scruples say what they want about people’s hard work. Well I decided to only use sources I use and trust. Furthermore I decided that a film score would only be eligible if it had at least 4 reviews. That’s a pretty decent sample size I thought so that’s that. The sources I used: Soundtrack Magazine, ScoreNotes, Filmtracks, Movie Music UK, Music From The Movies, Tracksounds, SoundtrackNet, IGN Music, MovieWave, Maintitles, The Score Blog, ORG Scores, BSO Spirit (Spanish), Score Magacine (Spanish), Cine & BSO (Spanish), Moviemotion (Dutch), Colonne Sonore (Italian), Soundtracks.pl (Polish), MuzykaFilmowa, (Polish), Filmmusik 2000 (German), Cinemascope (Greek)
Let’s begin the countdown! (This might be bandwidth heavy, but click away!)
| #58 | The Mist Mark Isham |
SCORE: 43/100 |
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| #57 | The Day the Earth Stood Still Tyler Bates |
![]() SCORE: 43/100 |
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| #56 | Body of Lies Marc Streitenfeld |
![]() SCORE: 47/100 |
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| #55 | Twilight Carter Burwell |
![]() SCORE: 47/100 |
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| #54 | Vantage Point Atli Orvarsson |
![]() SCORE: 53/100 |
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| #53 | Iron Man Ramin Djawadi |
![]() SCORE: 55/100 |
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| #52 | 27 Dresses Randy Edelman |
![]() SCORE: 56/100 |
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| #51 | Jumper John Powell |
![]() SCORE: 56/100 |
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| #50 | Changeling Clint Eastwood |
![]() SCORE: 56/100 |
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| #49 | The X-Files: I Want To Believe Mark Snow |
![]() SCORE: 58/100 |
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| #48 | Sleepwalking Christopher Young |
![]() SCORE: 58/100 |
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| #47 | Meet Dave John Debney |
![]() SCORE: 59/100 |
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| #46 | The Life Before Her Eyes James Horner |
![]() SCORE: 59/100 |
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| #45 | Leatherheads Randy Newman |
![]() SCORE: 59/100 |
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| #44 | Fool’s Gold George Fenton |
![]() SCORE: 61/100 |
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| #43 | Get Smart Trevor Rabin |
![]() SCORE: 61/100 |
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| #42 | Burn After Reading Carter Burwell |
![]() SCORE: 61/100 |
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| #41 | The Mummy: Tomb of the Emperor Randy Edelman |
![]() SCORE: 62/100 |
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| #40 | The Duchess Rachel Portman |
![]() SCORE: 63/100 |
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| #39 | Appaloosa Jeff Beal |
![]() SCORE: 63/100 |
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| #38 | Eagle Eye Brian Tyler |
![]() SCORE: 63/100 |
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| #37 | Stop-Loss John Powell |
![]() SCORE: 64/100 |
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| #36 | The Great Debaters James Newton Howard & Peter Golub |
![]() SCORE: 64/100 |
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| #35 | Nim’s Island Patrick Doyle |
![]() SCORE: 65/100 |
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| #34 | Horton Hears a Who! John Powell |
![]() SCORE: 65/100 |
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| #33 | The Happening James Newton Howard |
![]() SCORE: 65/100 |
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| #32 | Hellboy II: The Golden Army Danny Elfman |
![]() SCORE: 66/100 |
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| #31 | Valkyrie John Ottman |
![]() SCORE: 66/100 |
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| #30 | Doomsday Tyler Bates |
![]() SCORE: 66/100 |
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| #29 | 10,000 B.C. Harald Kloser & Thomas Wander |
![]() SCORE: 66/100 |
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| #28 | Kung Fu Panda Hans Zimmer & John Powell |
![]() SCORE: 67/100 |
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| #27 | The Other Boleyn Girl Paul Cantelon |
![]() SCORE: 67/100 |
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| #26 | Hancock John Powell |
![]() SCORE: 67/100 |
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| #25 | Untraceable Christopher Young |
![]() SCORE: 68/100 |
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| #24 | American Gangster Marc Streitenfeld |
![]() SCORE: 68/100 |
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| #23 | Rambo Brian Tyler |
![]() SCORE: 68/100 |
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| #22 | In Bruges Carter Burwell |
![]() SCORE: 68/100 |
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| #21 | Quantum of Solace David Arnold |
![]() SCORE: 69/100 |
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| #20 | The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian Harry Gregson-Williams |
![]() SCORE: 71/100 |
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| #19 | Bolt John Powell |
![]() SCORE: 72/100 |
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| #18 | Frost/Nixon Hans Zimmer |
![]() SCORE: 72/100 |
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| #17 | The Bucket List Marc Shaiman |
![]() SCORE: 73/100 |
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| #16 | Speed Racer Michael Giacchino |
![]() SCORE: 73/100 |
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| #15 | The Dark Knight Hans Zimmer & James Newton Howard |
![]() SCORE: 73/100 |
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| #14 | Wall-E Thomas Newman |
![]() SCORE: 73/100 |
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| #13 | Wanted Danny Elfman |
![]() SCORE: 74/100 |
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| #12 | Tropic Thunder Theodore Shapiro |
![]() SCORE: 74/100 |
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| #11 | Journey to the Center of the Earth Andrew Lockington |
![]() SCORE: 74/100 |
| #10 | I Am Legend James Newton Howard |
![]() SCORE: 74/100 |
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| #9 | The Spiderwick Chronicles James Horner |
![]() SCORE: 75/100 |
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| #8 | Surf’s Up Mychael Danna |
![]() SCORE: 75/100 |
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| #7 | Bangkok Dangerous Brian Tyler |
![]() SCORE: 75/100 |
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| #6 | The Incredible Hulk Craig Armstrong |
![]() SCORE: 76/100 |
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| #5 | The Forbidden Kingdom David Buckley |
![]() SCORE: 76/100 |
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| #4 | Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull John Williams |
![]() SCORE: 77/100 |
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| #3 | City of Ember Andrew Lockington |
![]() SCORE: 78/100 |
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| #2 | Defiance James Newton Howard & Joshua Bell |
![]() SCORE: 82/100 |
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| #1 | The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Alexandre Desplat |
![]() SCORE: 83/100 |
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So it was The Curious Case with it’s 6 reviews (so far) spanning from a score of 60 to 100 that is the best liked among film music critics 2008. This list is by no means final and it can of course never be because reviews of 2008 scores can come in 2009 as well as 2012. Saying that, it’s quite interesting to see this list and I am surprised that some scores are so high and some so low. There are more scores in 2008 like Slumdog Millionaire, Passengers, Seven Pounds, Largo Winch, Revolutionary Road, The Spirit, Che, The Tale of Despereaux, Let The Right One In, Loft, The Visitor, Max Payne, Babylon A.D., Flash of Genius, Death Race, Milk, Mongol and others that I couldn’t find at least 4 reviews for. Maybe I will come with an update later on when I have more data, so take this list as you wish, but I’m sure it’s an interesting read.
Other articles of interest:
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Soundtrack Seek
great post. thanks alot!
Reply
Jorn Tillnes Reply:
February 8th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
You are welcome! Glad you liked it.
Reply