We’re already well into 2022, which means I’m very late! But as they say, better late than never. It’s time for the annual tradition of covering the “best” film scores of 2021. 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. These scores aren’t presented in any particular order, and are really just favorites – there are NO “best” scores! Feel free to chime in with some of your favorites from the world of film and beyond; even if they didn’t make the list, chances are they were close!
This was another tough year to decide my favorites, even harder than 2020. I started with around 600 scores that I’d listened to throughout the year, and quickly whittled that down to just over 100. That was the easy part. The rest consisted of re-listening to all of those scores, many times over, before I finally found a list of ten I was happy with. That said, there were another ten or twenty that could have ended up on there, and probably would have if I made the list a different day. But we have to go with our gut and our first instinct. Otherwise, I’d be at this indefinitely! Once again, I haven’t ordered this list – by now, I simply don’t see a point in it.
If you don’t want to listen to the embedded player below, you can listen to me ramble about my favorites on your podcast player of choice (including Spotify and Apple Podcasts). I’ve also previously written about most of these scores, and you can find these write-ups in my monthly recaps.
- Buckley’s Chance – Christopher Gordon
- The Green Knight – Daniel Hart
- Cryptozoo – John Carrol Kirby (Review)
- In the Earth – Clint Mansell (Review)
- Spencer – Jonny Greenwood (Review)
- La Panthere des Neiges – Nick Cave and Warren Ellis
- Dune – Hans Zimmer
- Drive my Car – Eiko Ishibashi (Review; Interview)
- The Novice – Alex Weston
- The Power – Gazelle Twin and Max de Wardener (Gazelle Twin Interview)