Another year of movies, another unforgettable year of original film scores. We rank the top 10 to come out of 2024. Take a look at our list below and see what the best score of the year is!
This year’s best original scores are a wonderfully varied bag, including legendary composers such as Tim Burton and Hans Zimmer alongside exciting newcomers like Umberto Smerilli. Each score in this list works in tandem with the film they accompany to enhance the atmosphere, mood, and style, whether it is in subtle and withdrawn ways, or melodramatic and loud ones. You can see our list of best original film scores of 2024 below, ranked from worst to best and with some special mentions included at the bottom too!
It is also worth noting that The Brutalist’s original score by Daniel Blumberg was likely to have been included in this list, but, as a writer who is kept hostage by the UK release date calendar, I have not seen the movie, and therefore can’t put it in… yet!
10. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
Film review: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Review: Welcome Back, Tim Burton
Full Score: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (Score from the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Between composer Danny Elfman and director Tim Burton, it’s hard to distinguish who was having the most fun and rolling back the years hardest when working on Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. As you might expect from such frequent collaborators—Elfman has composed the music for nearly all of the director’s films—the original score melds perfectly with this irresistibly odd Burton reboot. Whether it is the marching band beat and spooky distortion of the opening and closing titles, or the classically haunting vocals of “The Attic”, this original score is a quintessentially Elfman.
What Elfman does particularly well is pick up on the quirks and musical cues of his score for the original Beetlejuice (1988), maintaining the first score’s haunted house playfulness, whilst adding updated and vigorous flourishes, such as some electronic bravado. An added bonus on the official original score album release are the four extra tracks that take place in the Waiting Room: whimsical, jazzy, and irresistibly fun.
9. A Different Man
Film review: A Different Man Review: Sebastian Stan Stuns
Full Score: A Different Man (Original Soundtrack)
One of the year’s cleverest and most thought-provoking films, A Different Man, is accompanied by a similarly complex original score. Umberto Smerilli’s music is simultaneously melancholic, moving, beautiful, and dread-inducing. The score’s main theme is the most obvious example of this haunting tone, even having some swashbuckling, melodramatic moments, but its many different tones and emotions drip down into the rest of the music too.
Take the track “Melancholy”, for example, which nabs the leitmotif of the main theme and simplifies it into a ghostly, mournful piano-centric track, before bold drums and brass thunder in to compound A Different Man’s drama. Aaron Schimberg’s film tackles major themes such as society’s obsession with beauty standards, but it still carries a lot of humour and dynamism, reflected in Smerilli’s short-but-sweet jazz-based track, “The Chase”.
Capping off this excellent original score and propelling it into our Top 10 Best Original Film Scores of 2024 is “I Wanna Get Next to You”, composed and arranged by Smerilli and featuring actor Adam Pearson, who plays Oswald. This track represents Oswald perfectly: playful, flamboyant, and admirably confident.
8. Love Lies Bleeding
Film review: Love Lies Bleeding Review: Intoxicating Thriller
Full Score: Love Lies Bleeding (Original Score)
Clint Mansell brings us his best original score in more than a decade with Love Lies Bleeding. After high points in the late 2000s / early 2010s, when he scored films such as Black Swan (2010), Drive (2011), and Stoker (2013), Mansell’s mid to late 2010s work was more mixed. With his first collaboration with filmmaker Rose Glass though, the master of balletic and elegant electronic music is back with a neon-soaked, violent bang.
The film and original score start off superbly: as the camera tracks down to the ground level of the gym in which Kristen Stewart’s Lou works, Mansell’s aptly-titled opener “Louville” helps plunge the audience headfirst into this dangerous, volatile world of gunrunning and bodybuilding. A low, ominous drone is peppered patiently by subtle drums and occasional electronic twangs, before the music descends into an unpredictable, pulsating cacophony of madness—much like the movie itself.
At other times, Mansell’s original score is bracing and scary, such as in “Pain Is Weakness”; there is even some beauty buried within, such as at the climax of the amusingly titled, “I F*cking Love You, You Idiot”. The result is an OST that comfortably places in our Top 10 Best Original Scores of 2024.
7. Dune: Part Two
Film review: Dune Part Two Review: Villeneuve Continues to Push Boundaries
Full Score: Dune: Part Two (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Sequels are hard to get right, but when done successfully, they can be special. This notion might not always stick true to Dune: Part Two (although many will disagree with that statement), but it most certainly applies to Hans Zimmer’s follow-up original score. Granted, Zimmer reuses many themes from the first film, meaning it is ineligible for the upcoming Oscars, but it is still a masterful accompaniment to Denis Villeneuve’s blockbuster.
One thing both Dune films get right are the quieter moments of reflection amidst the monumental battles on Arrakis. Zimmer’s opening track, “Beginnings Are Such Delicate Times”, has none of the thrashing drums or thudding bass that people can, often unfairly, reduce his scores down to.. Instead, it’s an absorbing, near 9-minute track that slowly builds through soft, ethereal synthesisers and wavering woodwind instruments. The climax is epic and loud, but still retains that mystical beauty—a description that couldn’t be more fitting for both Arrakis and the Dune movies.
There are, of course, those spine tingling, bracing moments such as “Harkonnen Arena” or the more classically uplifting “Worm Ride”, but it is these more pensive moments where Zimmer’s score shines, the same motifs used and heard again with dramatic, moving effect in the appropriately titled, “A Time of Quiet Between the Storms”.
6. Challengers
Film review: Challengers Review: Unbridled Filmmaking Talent
Full Score: Challengers (Original Score)
It wouldn’t be a Best Original Scores of the year list without at least one Trent Reznor and Attitcus Ross album (spoiler: another of theirs drops in at Number Two on our list). Sitting at Number Five is their volatile, sexy score for the equally volatile and sexy film, Challengers.
Composed of crunching guitars, unrelenting drum beats, playful singing, and even some Kraftwerk-inspired electronica, Reznor and Ross’ score is a thing of unchained, unpredictable beauty. The same can be said for Luca Guadagnino’s irresistible and indefinable sports drama; quite frankly, it’s a wonder how the three men managed to create such a vibrant, energetic, seductive, melodramatic film out of a sport that is classically known for clean clothing and high court etiquette.
The original score for Challengers helps create the energy for both the on-court duels and the off-court drama, never lulling between any setting. “Challengers: Match Point” is a delightful, relentless electronic riff, whilst songs like “L’oeuf” have that disarmingly off-kilter and instantly recognisable piano that has become a trademark of Reznor and Ross’ film scores.
5. Nickel Boys
Film review: Nickel Boys Film Review: An Experience Like No Other
Full Score: Nickel Boys (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
The original score for Nickel Boys, which is composed by Alex Somers and Scott Alario, doesn’t break as many boundaries as, say, the film’s unique first-person point-of-view cinematography and camerawork. But where it might lack that innovative touch, it makes up for as being a subtle and perfect accompaniment to the unforgettable story being told on screen.
Somers and Alario’s original score also mimics the hazy feel of memories that director RaMell Ross also conjures up throughout Nickel Boys. In the movie’s opening track, “Stare”, looping vocals overlaid with stuttering static perfectly complement the first scenes of Nickel Boys, where youngster Elwood Curtis remembers things from family events when he was a young child. Similar restrained distortion and looping notes are used later in “Out Out”, reflecting the experimental memory space that Ross transports us to (in this case, a time lapse shot from a moving train capturing the changing American landscape).
Telling the story of two young African-American boys living in 1960s Florida who are sent to an abusive reformatory school, Nickel Boys is inevitably and necessarily a harsh watch. The film’s original score utilises soft piano and floating strings to contribute to this deeply troubling tone, whilst never verging into anything saccharine. On its surface, Somers and Alario’s original score is subtle, but dig deeper, and the chilling, melancholic complexity comes to light.
4. I Saw the TV Glow
Film review: I Saw the TV Glow Review: Boldly Imaginative
Full Score: I Saw the TV Glow (Original Motion Picture Score)
The signs of promise were already there in Jane Schoenbrun’s eerie and thought-provoking fiction debut, We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, and with their next feature, I Saw the TV Glow, that initial promise has now flourished into something singular and exciting. The critical success of We’re All Going to the World’s Fair is reflected in the contributors to I Saw the TV Glow’s soundtrack: Caroline Polachek, Bartees Strange, L’Rain, yeule. All contribute to the film’s vital late 90’s/early 00’s energy, bringing angst, frustration, longing, and more to the film’s compelling story.
Composer Alex G’s incredible original score also brings similar feelings, aiding I Saw the TV Glow’s ethereal, otherworldly dreamscape to melt into its more realistic and everyday settings. “Saturday Night in Maddy’s Basement”, for example, plays as Owen (Justice Smith) goes to sleep at Maddy’s (Brigette Lundy-Paine) house, a moment that signals both hope and fear inside the youngster. Here, Alex G’s music undercuts this moment with a tone that straddles potential happiness and the scariness of the unknown.
I Saw the TV Glow is also striking in its psychological horror. The grungy elements of Polachek’s standout song, “Starburned and Unkissed”, make their way into Alex G’s original score, with distorted pianos and fuzzy electric guitars. All contribute to the film’s unshakably Lynchian vibe, as suburbia collides with horror and sadness to tell an unforgettable story of identity and transgenderism in contemporary America.
3. Conclave
Film review: Conclave (2024) Film Review: A Catholic Thriller
Full Score: Conclave (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
On the surface, Conclave—a film about the election process of the next pope—could be a monotonous bore, a humdrum affair of banal bureaucracy. However, in the hands of screenwriter Peter Straughan and director Edward Berger, it is a thrilling, scandalous, and mysterious film operating across many levels. Volker Bertelmann, who won an Academy Award for his work on Berger’s All Quiet on the Western Front (2022), is also an integral part of the movie’s success.
After the pope dies, cardinals gather under the leadership of Thomas Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) to vote on who will be the successor. Petty politics, scheming mind games, and scandalous revelations are constant; Bertelmann’s rattling original score helps drum up this boiler pot atmosphere of sequestration. Conclave’s score is similarly sparse to that of All Quiet on the Western Front, a shivering mixture of sudden lurches and nerve-jangling leitmotifs. As the suffocation of the situation silently bears down on the cardinals, Bertelmann’s score lurks in the background, hitting at the best moments to increase the scintillating on screen atmosphere.
2. Queer
Film review: Queer Film Review: Guadagnino Goes Bold
Full Score: Queer (Original Score)
Queer is Luca Guadagnino’s best film yet. It also involves what is the highlight of Daniel Craig’s career so far. Thirdly, the remarkable original score definitely sits alongside the best of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ incredibly successful movie collaborations.
Based on William S. Burroughs’ novella of the same name, Queer tells the story of an American expat, William Lee (Craig), who becomes infatuated with a younger man called Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey). The tale is disarming in how it portrays loneliness, human connection, and drug and alcohol addiction. Guadagnino’s unpredictable and experimental visuals keep us guessing throughout the film’s three parts, and also heighten this aching melancholy that Craig infuses so deeply into Lee’s character.
Reznor and Ross capture this haunting sadness throughout their original score; the soft, floating tune that plays first in “Pure Love” is a leitmotif that conjures up a deep emotional reaction in your soul. Furthermore, the original score becomes more comparable to Reznor and Ross’ earlier scores for films such as The Social Network and Gone Girl, with the duo injecting foreboding electronica into many tracks.
However, the masterpiece of the score is “LOVE.”, which incidentally accompanies the best scene of the film too. The same theme as “Pure Love” plays again, but this time even slower, even more painful in its trepidation and depression, before it evolves into something chilling and haunting via electronic instrumentation. The scene comes late in the film, so no spoilers here, but this remarkable set piece is truly unforgettable, as is Reznor and Ross’ climactic song.
1. Evil Does Not Exist
Film review: Evil Does Not Exist Review: The Ultimate Revenge Thriller
Full Score: Evil Does Not Exist (Original Score)
Ryūsuke Hamaguchi began working on Evil Does Not Exist with the intention of it being a short film accompanied by an Eiko Ishibashi original score. The duo also worked together to great effect on Drive My Car (2021). Eventually, the project evolved into a feature-length film, but Ishibashi’s musical influence was never lost.
Evil Does Not Exist begins with a long tracking shot of a sky crowded by trees, shot from the ground. Ishibashi’s soul-stirring, wistful track of the same name accompanies these extensive winter shots, with patient strings bringing forth notes that are sometimes terrifying, and other times inescapably sad. It creates a conflux of varying emotions that seeps into Evil Does Not Exist as a whole, with the film painting a complex picture of a village and its surrounding environment threatened by a real estate project.
Ishibashi returns to similar music themes later in Evil Does Not Exist, but also descends into other tones and emotions. In “Smoke”, sustained percussion and brass alongside rolling, ever-shifting drumbeats mirror the village’s increasingly panicked mindset. There are still moments of beauty here, but in the next instance Ishibashi can add distortion to signify the imminent possibility that it could all end if we’re not careful. On the whole, Hamaguchi presents neither easy questions nor easy answers; Ishibashi’s score does the same, working on a host of unpredictable, ever-changing levels.
