Hans Zimmer

Hans Zimmer turned the modern blockbuster score into a wall of sound. Starting out in synth-pop, he brought synthesisers, pounding percussion and huge, pulsing ostinatos into the orchestra, and learned to make a few notes feel enormous.

The Lion King earned him an Oscar, and Gladiator and his Christopher Nolan scores, from The Dark Knight and Inception to Interstellar with its towering church organ, set the template many action scores still follow. He won a second Oscar for Dune, building its alien world from invented instruments and processed voices.