An underrated composer of film scores?

Cliff Martinez should have two Oscars and a dozen nominations by now.

I feel like people recognise his work when they hear it, but not necessarily the name, unlike Hans Zimmer or John Williams.

Goran Bregovic doesn't get the acclaim he deserves. His film score for Emir Kusturica's Underground is one of the best score's of all time:

I love Bregovic and Bernstein but I don't think they are considered underrated. Anyway...

Bruce Smeaton is my choice.

I see where you're coming from, but I'm wondering if you feel this way in particular about more recent scores or just film music general? I ask because I think it's worth noting how contemporary film music is often described as placing less emphasis on traditional thematic scoring and is often dismissed as more generically "affective"... more concerned with texture and mood setting than classical Hollywood-era film-spanning themes that are more tied to narrative in how they transform in various ways and cue character development. If you take someone like Zimmer, who is often accused of laziness/obviousness, his recent scores often lack identifiable melody and are actually more rhythmically and timbrally driven. This may not be what you were referring to, so this isn't necessarily a response to how you were using the term, but I think it's easy to privilege more melodic scoring as "non-lazy" because melody (and its recognizable transformations) is something audiences can more easily latch onto, symbolically interpret, and "track" throughout a film than any other process in instrumental music because we can clearly hear the thought put into it. But I think that does a disservice to other kinds of subtle musical processes that may not be immediately obvious on the surface because it might just seem affective in function (and therefore lazy), but can actually host rich symbolic resonances when examined more closely.

Zimmer's music for Nolan's Batman trilogy, for instance, is infamous for how it jettisons the overtly thematic scoring of previous Batman films, but he actually cleverly uses other parameters like harmony over the course of the franchise to comment on themes of empowerment through displaced identity and moral ambivalence. Rob Simonsen's score for Foxcatcher (completely different) is extremely sparse and can be easily described as merely affective in function, but there's actually a complex relationship between the harmonic structures during the piano passages in the score and the character dynamics... several cues feature triangular networks of harmonies that transform and can be mapped onto the transformative relationships among the three central characters - the harmonic relationships thus serve a symbolic function, commenting on the precariousness of bonds and how bonds can shift (this musical relationship is absolutely not obvious on one or even two viewings of the film... it really requires a close examination of the score).

These are just a couple of cases where a score's "commentary" is not necessarily immediately evident from just viewing the film. What you find value in of course really depends on how you choose to engage with music in film. The example you gave from Homicide is a great example of how to use texture (isolated violin) and cultural association to comment on character, and what's great about it is that anyone can pick up on its siginificance while watching the film in the moment. We all have opinions on how well film music works for us in the moment, but for me, I tend to not pass judgment on the level of thought put into a composed score based on viewing the film alone because there may always be a level of complexity or commentary that I could be missing on a deeper level.

Too many to name, so I'll go with the first person that comes to mind. Basil Poledouris, I'm quite amazed his score for Conan was never nominated, it literally makes the movie.



I also love his first collaboration with Verhoeven pre-Robocop, Fresh & Blood, which is never brought-up outside of film score forums. Wonderful symphonic stuff, that sounds like it could have come from the 1600s, had they been able to record music then. They really don't make em like they used to.

how bout Michael Small, the musical voice of the 70s thriller? Klute, The Parallax View, The Stepford Wives, Marathon Man, The Driver, The China Syndrome, and not a single Oscar nomination between them.

Small is great, and a recent watch of Marathon Man reminded me of just how effective the music is in it. It really helps to build the escalating tension. One small note though, his music for The China Syndrome was rejected, that movie famously doesn't even have a score. It's unfortunate that he's not even talked about much, even in film fan score circles. 

I'm a bigger fan of his non-thriller scores however, the few there are, they really show off his versatility, Comes A Horseman is excellent as is Mountains of The Moon, and his score for Jaws: The Revenge is the best thing about that disaster. 

On the same token as Small, David Shire's another 70s composer who was often associated involved with thrillers, and doesn't get enough love. His credits include The Conversation, The Taking of Pelham 1,2,3, Farewell My Lovely, All The President's Men, The Hindenburg, 2010, and my personal favorite, his one big symphonic effort, the brilliant Return to Oz.

I'd like to add a mention for Mark Isham - I think his Golden Globe-nominated work on Nell is really quite beautiful.

Mark Isham again... The theme from Mrs. Soffel is stunning.