A new year has started, which means it’s time to run through the “best” film scores of 2020! If you don’t want to read through the process, scroll down to listen to the podcast or scroll even further to get the bare list.
This was without a doubt the hardest best-of list for me to make to date. I started with approximately 550 scores, narrowed them down to 75, then kept whittling away until only ten were left. But half of the final list could conceivably be replaced with another twenty different scores on any given date. 2020 was simply filled with great scores. This is also the first year in which I haven’t ordered these scores. I’ve increasingly found that to be arbitrary (while also, at times, an exercise in near-futility).
I’d originally decided to do a full-length writeup of these scores. Instead, I’ve recorded myself talking about them. You can find embedded players within this page and on my website. You can also find this episode anywhere you get podcasts, including Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Finally, I’ve previously written about most of these scores, and you can find these write-ups in my monthly recaps.
- The Personal History of David Copperfield – Christopher Willis (Interview)
- Calm With Horses – Blanck Mass (Interview)
- Bad Education – Michael Abels (Interview)
- Shirley – Tamar-kali
- The Call of the Wild – John Powell
- Possessor – Jim Williams
- David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet – Steven Price
- Wonder Woman 1984 – Hans Zimmer
- Ammonite – Hauschka and Dustin O’Halloran
- Minari – Emile Mosseri
