With the tragic death of James Horner and continued quality output from Silver
Age darlings John Williams and Ennio Morricone, 2015 was clearly a year for unabashed
sentimentality and nostalgia. Several of the year's best and most popular film scores were
fanciful resurrections of themes or styles from yesteryear, often in the context of major
feature endeavors.
Like 2014, much of the top music this year existed in large-scale science fiction, action, and
drama entries. It was a stronger year than recently experienced, all the nominees for the top
award at Filmtracks earning five stars and the close runner-ups almost equaling the same level
of excellence. Unlike 2014, there was an abundance of outstanding singular moments to consider
for the "Best Cue" category, over a dozen worthy runner-ups vying for consideration but
failing to make the cut.
While Horner, Williams, and Morricone earned most of the year's headlines, the first half of
2015 was an astounding period of time for Michael Giacchino, who earned an extremely rare pair
of "Top Film Score" nominations at Filmtracks in the same year as well as easily capturing the
"Best Composer" category. His five overall nominations, quite the feat for any year in
Filmtracks' awards, lead the pack, with John Williams, Danny Elfman, and Lorne Balfe each
earning three nominations. Also recognized with multiple nominations in 2015 are A.R. Rahman,
Joe Kraemer, Morricone, and Horner.
If ever there was a "consensus year" within the film music community in
this era, 2015 was such a convergence of opinion. While other years, including 2014, required
seemingly endless deliberation to choose a "Top Film Score" at Filmtracks, John Williams made
that decision an easy one in 2015. His monumentally exciting and lyrical continuation of the
Star Wars saga won not only for its amazing nostalgic appeal but also for its
incredible compositional complexity, Williams defying the march of time once again to win his
first top Filmtracks award since 2004.
Joining
Star Wars: The Force Awakens are Giacchino's lovely and propulsive throwback
fantasy score,
Tomorrowland, and his immensely proportioned
Jupiter Ascending,
as well as Rahman's beautiful religious epic from Iran,
Muhammad: The Messenger of God,
and Kraemer's addictive and intelligently arranged sequel score for
Mission Impossible -
Rogue Nation. This nomination represents the first such recognition for Kraemer, while
Williams has received more than a dozen such nods (along with numerous wins). Giacchino and
Rahman had each only been nominated once before in this category.
The runner-up in 2015 is Nigel Westlake's boisterously upbeat
Paper Planes from
Australia, a highly affable, light-hearted score that received consideration for a top-five
placement up to the very end. The honorable mentions rounding out the top ten of the year are
Horner's large-scale nature epic,
Wolf Totem, Robert Gulya's appropriately simple and
pretty
Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, Andrew Lockington's adventurous, wild ride in
San Andreas, and Morricone's widely awarded and challenging
The Hateful
Eight.
It became clear halfway through 2015 that Giacchino was the likely winner
for this award, exceeding Alexandre Desplat's combined, winning achievements in 2014 within
just a few months. This is Giacchino's second nomination in this category (2009) and his first
win. The sentimental favorite was Horner, whose year was highlighted by a remarkable drama,
Wolf Totem, and a wide range of other works that appropriately summarized his career in
his final year. Danny Elfman likewise enjoyed a solid year of production, led by ass-kicking,
last-minute salvaging work on
Avengers: Age of Ultron. Both Horner and Elfman have been
nominated several times in this category before.
The nominations for Morricone (another nostalgic choice) and Lorne Balfe represent each
composers' first such recognitions at Filmtracks in this category. Balfe's quietly strong year
was a largely unnoticed breakout for the Hans Zimmer associate, led by above-average music for
Home,
Manny, and
American Hero, as well as romanticism and action
exceeding expectations in
Terminator Genisys.
An untenable overall number of great cues in 2015 made this category almost
impossible to winnow down to the maximum of twenty entries. Several truly deserving cues just
missed the cut, causing the runner-up list to bloat out to a surprising fifteen in quantity.
Only
Star Wars: The Force Awakens placed two cues in the list, the music from all the
final scenes of the film a necessary inclusion. In the end, the award came down to a battle
between the immense "The Sea Miracle" from Rahman's
Muhammad: The Messenger of God,
Williams' fantastic conclusion and credits suite, "The Jedi Steps and Finale," from
Star
Wars: The Force Awakens, and Giacchino's inspiring "Pin-Ultimate Experience" from
Tomorrowland, with the Rahman cue ultimately squashing the other two with its massive
weight and operatic beauty.
In the second tier of competition in this category for 2015 was Elfman's extremely rowdy
fanfare, "Avengers Unite," from
Avengers: Age of Ultron, Morricone's hypnotizing and
intellectually satisfying "L'Ultima Diligenza di Red Rock - Versione Integrale" from
The
Hateful Eight, Westlake's lengthy and spirited "The Competition" from
Paper
Planes, and Horner's heartbreaking "Leaving for the Country" from
Wolf Totem.
Nearing these entries was the silly but snazzy "Symphony in Oh" by Balfe for
Home,
the creepy "The Abrasax Family Tree" from Giacchino's
Jupiter Ascending, Harry
Gregson-Williams' awe-inspiring "Crossing Mars" from
The Martian, and Kraemer's
revealing crescendo and counterpoint in "Meet the IMF" from
Mission Impossible - Rogue
Nation.
Rounding out the nominees this year are Patrick Doyle's rambunctious "Pumpkin Pursuit" from
the otherwise somewhat overrated
Cinderella, Elfman's intoxicatingly cool "Ana and
Christian" from every church's favorite movie,
Fifty Shades of Grey, Roque
Baños' broadly-scoped "Essex Leaving Harbor" from
In the Heart of the Sea,
Balfe's surprisingly dramatic titular cue from
Manny, Lockington's muscular action cue,
"Skydive," from
San Andreas, Marco Beltrami's lightly deviant "The Spook's
Apprentice" from
The Seventh Son, Williams' excellent treatment of themes in
"Farewell and the Trip" from
Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Daniel Pemberton's
counter-intuitive but lovely "The Circus of Machines II (Allegro)" from
Steve Jobs,
and Gulya's summarizing suite from
Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.
As already mentioned, the runner-up list from 2015 was considerable due to the overall
strength of the year. Three possible nominees proved to be somewhat redundant to cues
nominated above, including Elfman's "New Avengers - Avengers: Age of Ultron" from
Avengers: Age of Ultron, Rahman's "Abraha" from
Muhammad: The Messenger of
God, and Giacchino's "End Credits" from
Tomorrowland. Just missing the cut for
2015 are "First Mission" by Christophe Beck for
Ant-Man, "Bridge of Spies (End
Title)" by Thomas Newman for
Bridge of Spies, "If I Fight, You Fight (Training
Montage)" by Ludwig Göransson for
Creed, "Flying Ship Fight" by John Powell for
Pan, "Porsche Pursuit" by Nathaniel Méchaly for
Taken 3, and "Fate and
Hope" by Balfe for
Terminator Genisys.
Eliminated earlier in the process of determining these nominations but still worthy of
mentioning are "Celebrations" by Horner for
The 33, "Summit" by Dario Marianelli
for
Everest, "Run With the Herd" by Mychael and Jeff Danna for
The Good
Dinosaur, "Finale" by Henry Jackman and Matthew Margeson for
Kingsman: The Secret
Service, "Farewell" by Gabriel Yared for
The Prophet, and "Truth Main Title" by
Brian Tyler for
Truth. Other cues from
Jupiter Ascending and
Paper Planes
were strongly considered for this category as well.
