> 1. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
> 2. The Super Mario Bros. Movie
> 3. Life on Our Planet
> 4. The Boys in the Boat
> 5. Star Wars Jedi: Survivor
> 6. Star Trek: Picard Season 3
> 7. Migration
> 8. The Boy and the Heron
> 9. American Fiction
> 10. The Flash

Oh hey, we ended up with a crossover of... 2. Rather humorously both animated films but also two of the finest (scores) for the medium in 2023.

> Comments on the top 10
> - It’s been a while since my favorite film from any given year also had my
> favorite score from that year - not since Return of the King! But
> perhaps that’s what you get when you basically take the subgenre that
> Daniel Pemberton once called “postmodern superhero scoring” and level up
> your game substantially.

I'm honestly not sure when Favorite Film/Favorite Score has overlapped for me....

> - George Clooney should direct very square movies more often than once a
> decade, if only to get scores as good as The Monuments Men and
> The Boys in the Boat more frequently.

Tried watching Monuments Men a few months ago but ended up skipping through the movie. Enjoyed what I heard of Desplat's score, though I'm not entirely sure it "fit" the film itself. Probably a case of "great album, not so great in context".

> - Thanks to 1 unit of Stephen Barton (or rather two 0.5 units of Barton
> from different works) we got both the best Star Wars video game score ever
> and the best season of Star Trek television scoring since the 1960s.

I probably should have buckled down and listened to both of those, but their runtimes combined with circling back to them rather late meant they fell by the wayside in order to hear newer works or re-listen to older ones. Maybe I'll get to them sometime this year and then kick myself for not including them for my rankings... like with The Piper whenever we get that!

> - Migration turned into a sequel to The Call of the Wild in
> a way - many of us initially dismissed the work as being lesser owing to
> it not being the same caliber as Powell’s inimitable trilogy of
> HTTYD scores, and then later we looked at the work on its own
> merits and realized that Powell is still so freaking good at this that
> being a tier down still makes it one of the most technically accomplished
> and catchiest scores of the year. Folks have said things like, “My
> goodness, the craftsmanship!” when talking about John Williams still
> cranking out capable action/adventure material in 2023, but there’s just
> as much artistry and creativity in Powell’s work 25 years after he
> co-wrote Antz.

.... I never started by comparing Migration with HTTYD and just felt it was really solid but not amazing. Also I'm not sure if *that* kind of Powell score is exactly my thing or not.

> Slotting behind Wallfisch’s cacophonous creation are Laura Karpman’s
> The Marvels and Gordy Haab’s Creation of the Gods I: Kingdom of
> Storms, two other fine examples of controlled chaos. Also in
> contention was Ludwig Göransson’s cerebral, uneasy Oppenheimer, its
> place just outside my top 10 likely annoying both its fans and its ardent
> detractors.

Glad to see these three did make it rather high for you even if not in the Top 10. Oppenheimer is the only one I'm still a bit "eh" on even though it's still very solid.

> 2023 specialty releases
> It was a banner year for James Horner releases, though I doubt even the
> composer’s most ardent fans will give much acclaim to the new Humanoids
> of the Deep release or the unintentionally hilarious Deadly
> Blessing. Intrada’s 3CD Windtalkers release was impressively
> comprehensive though unlikely to change your impression of the score based
> on the original album program (I could say the same for the label’s
> expanded release of James Newton Howard’s Peter Pan).

Yeah, Humanoids is very much "beginner composer doing his first horror flick" and not very interesting on its own outside of historical significants. Deadly Blessing, though, I unironically kinda love. Yes, The Omen rips are VERY evident but it's also the Horner horror score that has the most impact on his latter career outside of Wolfen... and I think is a blast to listen to in-and-of itself.

> Gorky Park was an interesting discovery for me; challenging at times, but
> better than expected. Intrada’s Battle Beyond the Stars and La-La
> Land’s The Mask of Zorro both featured several notable new tracks,
> and you’d think that’d be enough to get the nod from me, but I’ll actually
> argue that a different Horner work (mentioned a little bit later in this
> post) benefited the most from expansion in 2023.

BBtS is a lot of fun and glad to finally have it in my collection. Checked out Gorky Park on YouTube and decided to pass on it while Zorro is one I *might* try to get later but I'm also rather happy with the 1998 album. Oh, and same about Windtalkers in not feeling the need for a 3-disc set.

> 4) La-La Land’s Sneakers.

Ah, the OTHER Horner score you hinted at.

> One other random thought
> We really aren’t ever getting that expanded Top Gun: Maverick
> album, eh?

Yeeeeah, I don't think that's actually happening or maybe one of the specialty labels (probably LLL) will announce it someday. Kinda weird it apparently got lost in Release Hell given how massively popular the movie was/is.

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Great write-up and entertaining read as usual, John!