So here's the list, as voted for by the members of the American Film Institute:

Star Wars - John Williams
Gone With The Wind - Max Steiner
Lawrence Of Arabia - Maurice Jarre
Psycho - Bernard Herrmann
The Godfather - Nino Rota
Jaws - John Williams
Laura - David Raksin
The Magnificent Seven - Elmer Bernstein
Chinatown - Jerry Goldsmith
High Noon - Dimitri Tiomkin
The Adventures Of Robin Hood - Erich Wolfgang Korngold
Vertigo - Bernard Herrmann
King Kong - Max Steiner
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial - John Williams
Out Of Africa - John Barry
Sunset Blvd. - Franz Waxman
To Kill A Mockingbird - Elmer Bernstein
Planet Of The Apes - Jerry Goldsmith
A Streetcar Named Desire - Alex North
The Pink Panther - Henry Mancini.

Taken from an article on The Register's web site here: Star Wars tops movie music poll

Personally I'm surprised Lord of the Rings didn't make it onto the list (and what the feck is John Barry doing on there? He's only ever written one piece of music!).

Never is going to be a compreshensive list though...AFI polls only include American films.

Wot, no Vangelis? We was robbed.



Say what?!

No Elfman? No Zimmer? No Horner? What's the world coming to? This list looks more like "Top Movie Music You Can Remember"

...no Vangelis (as pointed out by JJJ)? No John Carpenter? No North By Northwest?

Here's my list, but it's in no particular order:

The Empire Strikes Back - John Williams
Indiana Jones - John Williams
Edward Scissorhands - Danny Elfman
The Mission - Ennio Morricone
The Thing - John Carpenter
The Rock - Hans Zimmer
Batman Forever - Elliot Goldenthal
Labyrinth - Trevor Jones / David Bowie
Aliens - James Horner
Lord of the Rings - Howard Shore
Brazil - Michael Kamen

That soundtrack was by Ennio Morricone, albeit doing a damn good attempt at a Carpenter score

Damn my eyes. You are correct. I was taken with the 'everything that John Carpenter directs, he does the music for' thing. Well, I'll keep it in my list, but I cant think of any good bits of John Carpenter music, they all are a bit samey, but then that could be said for a lot of composers.

No Vangelis - not for Chariots of Fire but for The Bounty, Missing, 1492 The Conquest of Paradise (a soundtrack deserving of a much better movie) and of course Bladerunner..

Agree with the John Barry comment. But then he's not alone Williams is guilty of same but James Horner is the worst he simply recycles his themes over and over again.... Battle Beyond The Stars reappeared in Krull, Star Trek II, Aliens et al

Bernard Herrmann's score for "North by Northwest" should unquestionably be on that list! And where the hell is Ennio Morricone? This list is rather daft.

God passing over the face of the water(err think thats right)

By Moby and from the last scene in the film Heat

Yeah, but this is more related to movie scores than any one song that may appear in the soundtrack.

What about the original Halloween score?

I'd have to think about my top-ten list of film scores - I've got plenty of them at home!

Just to be anal, it's 'God moving over the face of the waters' - sorry, but it's one of my favourite pieces of music of all time. But as Omni said, that's one track and not a film score.

The music in Hal Hartley's film, Amateur is amazing. As is the music in Mike Leigh's Naked

The Grosse point blank score

Arranged by the late, great, Mr Joe Strummer

Elfman should definitely be in that list. I mean, the Batman score was an integral part of that movie, it set the dark tone perfectly and distinguished Burton`s Batman from the 60`s version.

That being said, I still don`t think much to his Spider-Man score.

Okay, so I'm exagerating (slightly) but if you listen to anything post-Bond they've all got the same horn/string sound to them!

He`s got a samey sound, is what you`re saying. I agree. He`s been trading off the Bond thing for years now, just like Williams has with Star Wars.

I think Elfman is good at writing themes but his filler music is usually somewhat lacking.

I think the same can also be said of John Williams as well, he has written some of the most memorable film themes ever (from Star Wars to Harry Potter) but I've found that in the last ten years or so his incidental music hasn't been as distinctive as it was in his earlier work.

I was very disappointed with the soundtrack for The Phantom Menace which, excluding The Duel of the Fates, seemed more like an Indiana Jones score to me than a Star Wars one.

Gotta agree there "Fates" is the only music from the prequels up there with his previous work, second only to the Imperial march in my book.

Agreed. His work for Minority Report, AI, and War of the Worlds was distinctly average. But I can always forgive him for the work he's already given us. If he'd only scored Star Wars, Indiana Jones and ET, he would still go down in history - they are outstanding works.

He also re-cycled parts large of Braveheart into the Titanic score.

Whilst it has been repeated a lot The Wrath of Khan soundtrack is very good though.