Who is your favorite film composer? What is your favorite score? Mancini? Hermann? Zimmerman? Elfman? John Williams? John Barry? Michael J Lewis? Michael Kamen?
Let me just say that I take offense of Bill Conti not being in your list... Seriously... Going the distance? Does that ring a bell? The Dark Knight by Zimmerman is pretty awesome also.
Great Post! and yet, hard to answer. I have several films that have scores that I love. But by saying 'favorite' composer, I think that should mean they did more than one and thus there is something to make them consistently a favorite. So I would have to say, Mark Knoplfer (former lead guitarist of Dire Straits). He has composed for 8 films and had done countless other things which makes him very versatile. My favorite film he composed for would be, 'The Princess Bride'. I hope that it is okay that I added someone not on the list that you mentioned. I like John Barry too. (Out of Africa being my favorite). They are both British - a coincidence I did not realize until I thought about it.
Danny Elfman is a really good one. He did the music for, pretty much, all of the Tim Burton movies. He's also done music for The Simpsons and 1990's Batman (the one with all the Prince songs). He's very talented.
