John Williams
John Towner Williams (born February 8, 1932) is an American composer and conductor. In a career that has spanned seven decades, he has composed some of the most popular, recognizable, and critically acclaimed film scoresin cinema history. He has a distinct sound that mixes romanticism, impressionism and atonal music with complex orchestration. He is best known for his collaborations with Steven Spielberg and George Lucas and has received numerous accolades including 26 Grammy Awards, five Academy Awards, seven BAFTA Awards, three Emmy Awards and four Golden Globe Awards. With 54 Academy Award nominations, he is the second-most nominated person, after Walt Disney, and is the oldest Oscar nominee in any category, at 91 years old. Williams's early work as a film composer includes Valley of the Dolls (1967), Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969), Images and The Cowboys (both 1972), The Long Goodbye (1973) and The Towering Inferno (1974). He has collaborated with Spielberg since The Sugarland Express (1974), composing music for all but five of his feature films. He received five Academy Awards for Best Score for Fiddler on the Roof (1971), Jaws (1975), Star Wars (1977), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) and Schindler's List (1993). Other memorable collaborations with Spielberg include Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), the Indiana Jones franchise (1981–2023), Hook (1991), Jurassic Park (1993), Saving Private Ryan (1998), Catch Me If You Can (2002), War Horse (2011), Lincoln (2012), and The Fabelmans (2022). He also scored Superman (1978), the first two Home Alone films (1990–1992), and the first three Harry Potter films (2001–2004). Williams has also composed numerous classical concertos and other works for orchestral ensembles and solo instruments. He served as the Boston Pops' principal conductor from 1980 to 1993 and is its laureate conductor. Other works by Williams include theme music for the 1984 Summer Olympic Games; NBC Sunday Night Football; "The Mission" theme (used by NBC News and Seven News in Australia); and the television series Lost in Space, Land of the Giants and Amazing Stories. Among other accolades, he has received the Kennedy Center Honor in 2004, the National Medal of the Arts in 2009 and the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2016. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1998, the Hollywood Bowl's Hall of Fame in 2000 and the American Classical Music Hall of Fame in 2004. He has composed the score for nine of the top 25 highest-grossing films at the U.S. box office. In 2022, Williams was appointed an Honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) by Queen Elizabeth II, "for services to film music". In 2005, the American Film Institute placed Williams's score to Star Wars first on its list AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores; his scores for Jaws and E.T. also made the list. The Library of Congress entered the Star Wars soundtrack into the National Recording Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Description above from the Wikipedia article John Williams, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Filmography (88)
Disclosure Day
Superman
Jurassic World Rebirth
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
Jurassic World Dominion
The Fabelmans
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
The Post
The BFG
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
The Book Thief
Lincoln
The Adventures of Tintin
War Horse
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
War of the Worlds
Munich
Memoirs of a Geisha
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
The Terminal
Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Catch Me If You Can
Minority Report
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
A.I. Artificial Intelligence
The Patriot
Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace
Angela's Ashes
Saving Private Ryan
Stepmom
The Lost World: Jurassic Park
Seven Years in Tibet
Amistad
Rosewood
Sleepers
Nixon
Sabrina
Jurassic Park
Schindler's List
Home Alone 2: Lost in New York
Far and Away
Hook
JFK
Home Alone
Presumed Innocent
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Born on the Fourth of July
Always
The Accidental Tourist
Empire of the Sun
The Witches of Eastwick
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
The River
Return of the Jedi
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
Raiders of the Lost Ark
The Empire Strikes Back
Superman II
1941
Superman
Jaws 2
The Fury
Star Wars
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Black Sunday
Midway
Family Plot
The Missouri Breaks
Jaws
The Eiger Sanction
The Towering Inferno
Earthquake
The Sugarland Express
The Long Goodbye
The Poseidon Adventure
The Cowboys
Images
Fiddler on the Roof
A Guide for the Married Man
Valley of the Dolls
How to Steal a Million
The Killers
The Guns of Navarone