If the American blockbuster had a signature sound, odds are that it would come from the mind of John Williams.
The legendary film composer has crafted the soundscapes for myriad films like Jaws (1975), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1980), and Home Alone (1990), and along the way, he's been nominated for over 50 Academy Awards (taking home five) and won over two dozen Grammys. Williams is the rare composer that most Americans can name and hum a few bars — that's because he's given the musical backbone to a sizable portion of some of the biggest, most popular movies of all time.
The bicoastal son of a jazz musician, Williams has set the mood for everything from turn-of-the-century bar fights to interstellar shootouts while always instilling a bit of discordant bombast and grandiosity in whatever he wrote. Imperial and imposing but always on the move, Williams' scores have been the heartbeat of Hollywood's cultural dominance for a long time.
