John Williams is the best film composer of all time, and I can prove it.

John Williams turns 91 today, and to celebrate his birthday, I'm dropping a blog post I wrote last year here in the Cafe:

It’s really an indisputable fact. And yet, some people feel the need to dispute it. John Williams is, objectively, the GOAT.

First, let me be clear. There are and have been many incredible film composers who have written beautiful, powerful, thrilling, haunting, and exciting scores. Their music is not less great because John Williams happens to be the GOAT. This post is not meant to diminish their contributions to movie music in any way. Nor is it meant to overlook the composers whose work clearly influenced John Williams.

But here’s the thing: John Williams’ music not only made mediocre and good movies into good and great movies. His genius not only had an impact on film and popular music.

John Williams wrote music that changed the world — and not just for a moment, but for decades. For the foreseeable future. As far as we can tell, permanently.

It should be obvious what music I’m talking about.



Now, just as I don’t intend to diminish the work of other film composers, I also don’t mean to detract from George Lucas’s accomplishments — in filmmaking generally and in visual effects specifically — in Star Wars (1977). What he did undeniably elevated the visual craft of filmmaking, even if he borrowed a lot of story elements from Flash Gordon and Kurosawa. Not to mention the sheer fun and imagination of a galaxy with lightsabers and Imperial Star Destroyers and droids and Wookies and all the rest; the charm of Han Solo and his sizzling banter with Princess Leia; the villainy of Darth Vader — all these elements contribute to what makes Star Wars so darn enjoyable.

But the music of Star Wars is the reason we haven’t forgotten it. The reason we have sequels and prequels and spin-offs and one-offs and series and people who actually think Jediism is a real religion. The reason we have Star Wars Day.

Don’t believe me?

Imagine, if you will, that someone else had been chosen to write the score for Star Wars. Keep in mind that this was 1977, so let’s listen to a few samples of what other composers were doing around that time.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/429vzvYBjMt02NxLlrdq5f?si=1d64587bb1944c1f

Granted, many of these films are from completely different genres than Star Wars, so it’s not a wholly fair comparison. On the other hand, Star Wars sort of invented a new genre — the space opera — so whoever composed the music would have had little to lean on for reference. Any other composer, I would venture to guess, would have done what other composers for sci-fi and space movies were doing, and we would have ended up with a score heavy on the synthesizer and light on memorability.

But John Williams, genius that he is, chose the other half of the new genre name for inspiration: opera. Specifically, he used the concept of leitmotif as Richard Wagner did in his operas. A leitmotif is a short, recurring musical theme or phrase that is associated with a particular person, place, or idea. John Williams employs this idea not just in the first film, but in the sequels and prequels as well, unifying the entire saga: think of “Princess Leia’s Theme” or “The Imperial March.” These themes, these leitmotifs, have a powerful emotional effect on the audience, and they help the music — and the movie — stick in our minds long after we’ve left the theater.

In addition to his use of leitmotifs, John Williams wrote the Star Wars score to be played by a full orchestra at a time when that was no longer common. Revisit the playlist above. The vast majority of original scores in the 1970s were written for a much sparser instrumentation than those of the studio era. Many films didn’t even have an original score, properly speaking, as it had also become more common to use pop and folk songs for the entire soundtrack.

My point is this: if any other composer working in Hollywood in 1977 had been hired to write the score for Star Wars, the entire film would have been completely different. And honestly, I think it would have been a flop. Consider that fantastically novel opening title sequence — how cheesy and horrible that might have been if any other music had accompanied it. From the very first moment of the movie, it’s John Williams’ music that hooks us. Or imagine Darth Vader without his leitmotif. Or suppose synthesizers accompanied the throne room scene at the end instead of a brass fanfare. It gives me the willies just thinking about it.

The wrong music — a typical 1970s score — could have made Star Wars a mediocre film that quickly faded from our cultural consciousness. But it had the right music. It had John Williams. And it has thoroughly permeated our global culture because of him.

Incidentally, one of the other highest-grossing releases of 1977 also had a score by John Williams — Close Encounters of the Third Kind. In fact, in five of the next six years, the highest-grossing release had a score by John Williams. Oh, and there was a little movie a couple years before called Jaws that gave rise to the idea of the summer blockbuster, thus shaping the way the film industry would release and market films for the next several decades — guess who wrote that score?

And we haven’t even touched on his contributions to Indiana Jones and Harry Potter.

I can’t think of any other film composer that has accomplished anything approaching the magnitude of what John Williams has. You may subjectively prefer other film music over his, but the way John Williams’ music has shaped our culture, our world, our very history sets him far above his peers. He is, simply, the best.

For your listening enjoyment on the GOAT's birthday: