Will Lord of the Rings be the one soundtrack to rule them all? Vote now in the Classic FM Movie Music Hall of Fame
Howard Shore's score topped the Classic FM Movie Musical Hall of Fame in 2024 – can it repeat that success this year?
At first glance, Canadian composer Howard Shore may have seemed an unusual choice for director Peter Jackson to pick to score the most ambitious production in cinema history, the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Until 2001 Shore was better known for his work in the crime and thriller genre, and had never taken on a project of this scale before.
Nevertheless, Shore’s score was a triumph - it features over 80 different themes and motifs representing the various characters and locations, and won him three Oscars, four Grammys and three Golden Globes.
And since 2023, it has topped the Classic FM Movie Music Hall of Fame (in 2020 it came second to John Williams’s music for Schindler’s List). That’s not bad when you consider the 2024 top ten includes three Williams soundtracks (Schindler’s List, Star Wars and Jurassic Park), two by John Barry (Out of Africa and Dances with Wolves), two by Ennio Morricone (The Mission and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly), one by Hans Zimmer (Gladiator) and one by Vangelis (guess which one that is...).
The fact that iconic scores such as Bernard Herrmann’s Psycho and Henry Mancini’s Pink Panther placed in the 90s may be surprising to some, but then when you look at what fell just outside the top 40 – The Great Escape, the James Bond theme, The Third Man, Jaws – it becomes apparent that a few hummable bars is not enough to win the vote.
Now it’s time to decide this year’s Hall of Fame – the vote opened on Monday 21st July and closes at 11.59pm on Sunday 10th August – so if you want your favourite soundtrack to have a chance of hitting the top spot, head over to Classic FM now.
You can find suggestions on Global Player when you go to vote, but for some other hints, the Radio Times films team will be picking their favourites from recent films in the issue of the magazine on sale Tuesday 5th August.
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