Performer

John Williams

Composer in the Nutevio catalogue.

Born
8 February 1932
Age
94
Active
1964–present
Known for
Composer
View filmography
  • Composer · 70
  • Actor · 10

The essay

Reading John Williams

Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.

Why this filmmaker matters

John Williams has 0 scores in the Nutevio catalogue. John Towner Williams (born February 8, 1932) is an American composer and conductor. In a career that has spanned seven decades, he has composed some of the most popular, recognizable, and critically acclaimed film scoresin cinema history. He has a distinct sound that mixes romanticism, impressionism and atonal music with complex orchestration. He is best known for his collaborations with Steven Spielberg and George Lucas and has received numerous accolades including 26 Grammy Awards, five Academy Awards, seven BAFTA Awards, three Emmy Awards and four Golden Globe Awards. With 54 Academy Award nominations, he is the second-most nominated person, after Walt Disney, and is the oldest Oscar nominee in any category, at 91 years old. Williams's early work as a film composer includes Valley of the Dolls (1967), Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969), Images and The Cowboys (both 1972), The Long Goodbye (1973) and The Towering Inferno (1974). He has collaborated with Spielberg since The Sugarland Express (1974), composing music for all but five of his feature films. He received five Academy Awards for Best Score for Fiddler on the Roof (1971), Jaws (1975), Star Wars (1977), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) and Schindler's List (1993). Other memorable collaborations with Spielberg include Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), the Indiana Jones franchise (1981–2023), Hook (1991), Jurassic Park (1993), Saving Private Ryan (1998), Catch Me If You Can (2002), War Horse (2011), Lincoln (2012), and The Fabelmans (2022). He also scored Superman (1978), the first two Home Alone films (1990–1992), and the first three Harry Potter films (2001–2004). Williams has also composed numerous classical concertos and other works for orchestral ensembles and solo instruments. He served as the Boston Pops' principal conductor from 1980 to 1993 and is its laureate conductor. Other works by Williams include theme music for the 1984 Summer Olympic Games; NBC Sunday Night Football; "The Mission" theme (used by NBC News and Seven News in Australia); and the television series Lost in Space, Land of the Giants and Amazing Stories. Among other accolades, he has received the Kennedy Center Honor in 2004, the National Medal of the Arts in 2009 and the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2016. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1998, the Hollywood Bowl's Hall of Fame in 2000 and the American Classical Music Hall of Fame in 2004. He has composed the score for nine of the top 25 highest-grossing films at the U.S. box office. In 2022, Williams was appointed an Honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) by Queen Elizabeth II, "for services to film music". In 2005, the American Film Institute placed Williams's score to Star Wars first on its list AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores; his scores for Jaws and E.T. also made the list. The Library of Congress entered the Star Wars soundtrack into the National Recording Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Description above from the Wikipedia article John Williams, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Signature style

The recognisable elements are visual style, rewatchability, originality. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same eye, re-tuned for different registers. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is staged.

Legacy

Williams set terms other filmmakers now work against: the structures, the pacing and the refusal to explain. Awards bodies have often been slower than the work, which is usually the sign of a career built on choices rather than campaigns.

Best known for

Catalogue work still being written up by our editors.

From the library

Complete credits

Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.

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Frequent collaborators

Canonical people credited alongside this name across multiple titles.

Recognition

Awards

4 wins

Academy Awards

4 wins · latest 1994

  • WinnerBest Original Score1994

    Schindler's List · as Composer

  • WinnerBest Original Score1983

    E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial · as Composer

  • WinnerBest Original Score1978

    Star Wars · as Composer

  • WinnerBest Original Score1976

    Jaws · as Composer

Genre profile

  • Drama33
  • Adventure33
  • Action22
  • Science Fiction19
  • History16
  • Thriller11
  • Comedy9
  • Documentary9

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Reference

Quick facts

Born
8 February 1932
Age
94
Active
1964–present
Scores composed
0
In the Nutevio catalogue
Known for
Composer
scored score
6.6
Nutevio editorial metric
Collection appearances
0
Across the library
Films rated 8+
0