Alan Silvestri or James Newton Howard?

[WampaRat 1,867]

Just for fun!
Two titans of the film-scoring world. They've tackled just about every genre under the sun. They can handle gigantic action, swooning romantic comedies, tense thrillers, and heartfelt dramas with equal skill. They've tackled just about every genre under the sun. 

 

Who's work do you prefer overall?
 

[Dr. Know 445]

Very difficult choice -- love them both equally.

[WampaRat 1,867]

I've recently gone through a Silvestri kick. And it struck me how distinct his voice is. You can always tell pretty quickly you're listening to a Silvestri score. In fact, I think his musical voice has probably changed the least out of all his contemporaries still working today over the past 40ish years. And it's impossible to deny the cultural impact his work has left with just the Back to the Future and The Avengers scores 

And yet...I vote for James Newton Howard. He's a lot more versatile than Silvestri I think. A bit more chameleonic. Its a shame he doesn't really have a score that's embedded itself in pop culture the way Williams (Star Wars), Elfman (Batman), Goldsmith (Star Trek), Horner (Titanic), and Silvestri (BTTF) have. 

Maybe the "Flying" theme from Peter Pan? But I wouldn't say most people would know that's what it's from. And I guess Prince of Tides was big for a bit. But mostly due to Streisand. 

(side note: I think his score to Signs is a true five-star masterpiece that does a TON of heavy lifting for that film.)

[tomsmoviemadness 4,526]

I couldn't pick between these two. They'e such different composers with different styles that it's hard to put them next to each other.

 

I think both have their weaknesses and their absolute strength. But in their own way I thing they are equals. Their music is just very different a lot of the time.

[Stark 803]

As a whole... I have to choose JNH. Silvestri has serious same-voice, which is not a bad thing but does render his unique body of music much smaller. 

[GerateWohl 6,254]

Not surprisingly for me it's JNH. Even in Silvestri's greatest scores I am content with a 15 minutes summary of each.

 

If I had to put it on one point, I would say: James Newton Howard is a musical storyteller and Silvestri is more a musical illustrator. And they are both quite good at how they do it. 

And on album to me Silvestri's score run out of breath pretty quickly. Not the case with my favourite JNH scores.

 

Still for both I just really like about 30% of their scores really much.

 

And JNH's first six Shyamalan scores belong to my very favourite group of scores ever.

[Naïve Old Fart 12,301]

THE ABYSS, and CONTACT, are my equal favourite Silvestri scores, but... GRAND CANYON is in my top-10 favourite scores of all time, so... sorry, Mr. S., but there's a bunch of flowers heading your way.

[Jurassic Shark 15,671]

17 minutes ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

sorry, Mr. S

 

That's okay.

[crocodile 9,417]

It's a hard one to answer. Howard is more adventurous stylistically but some of Silvestri's reliable, if predictable, output is hard to beat in terms of memorability. They are roughly on the same level for me but I will have to with Silvestri for pure nostalgia reasons.

 

Karol

[FBC Director 10,375]

Silvestri is bolder and more exciting.

[Thor 9,327]

Traditionally, it's been Silvestri out of the two (THE ABYSS is one of the three scores that got me into film music). But in recent years, it's turned around a bit. Silvestri is now slightly off my top 10, and JNH still clings on 10th place. Still very high for both of them, and that is due only to their strong past.

 

They share kind of a similar history in the last two decades. I've not been thrilled with their work after THE POLAR EXPRESS (2004) and THE VILLAGE (2004), respectively. Sure, there have been fine, individual tracks, but rarely the score as a whole. Too caught up in various contemporary trends, or simply not very interesting, melodically and texturally.

 

But then both have also had ONE massive favourite in that period. JNH with A HIDDEN LIFE, and Silvestri with HERE. Both among their best work.

 

The reason JNH is 10th and Silvestri is off the list, is that I'm loving harder on JNH's 80s and 90s stuff than I do Silvestri's 80s and 90s stuff these days.

 

Ah....film music as a sporting event. Funny, innit?

[Richard P 5,007]

Silvestri has limited range for me - you can pretty much immediately tell it's him - and I found his Avengers scores didn't have that consistent draw that I look for in a major score. I am enjoying The Electric State, however.

 

JNH also has his limitations - I think he downright sucks when doing his modern thriller stuff, although his willingness to provide basically anything the director wants is no doubt why he has worked so much. But his best projects I think are absolute stunners and he's got more of those than Silvestri.

[GerateWohl 6,254]

16 minutes ago, Thor said:

I've not been thrilled with their work after THE POLAR EXPRESS (2004) and THE VILLAGE (2004), respectively.

No love for The Happening?

[Thor 9,327]

24 minutes ago, GerateWohl said:

No love for The Happening?

 

No, not really, sorry to say.

 

After THE VILLAGE, these are the JNHs I've "deemed worthy" of my collection:

 

KING KONG -- whittled down 55 minutes

THE WATER HORSE

DEFIANCE

MALEFICENT -- whittled down to 56 minutes

MUSIC FROM THE HUNGER GAMES SAGA -- compilation

THE NUTCRACKER -- whittled down to 42 minutes

A HIDDEN LIFE -- classical pieces removed

NEWS OF THE WORLD -- whittled down to 36 minutes

JUNGLE CRUISE -- whittled down to 42 minutes

RAYA -- whittled down to 47 minutes

NIGHT AFTER NIGHT -- compilation

 

And for Silvestri, post-THE POLAR EXPRESS:

 

A CHRISTMAS CAROL -- whittled down to 46 minutes

THE CROODS -- whittled down to 57 minutes

COSMOS -- all four volumes whittled down to 77 minutes

READY PLAYER ONE -- whittled down to 40 minutes

HERE

THE ELECTRIC STATE -- whittled down to 35 minutes

[GerateWohl 6,254]

Ah, for a short period of time recently, I was confused by the feeling of stumbling across common of our musical tastes.

But now, back to normal.  

 

From your JNH list on mine are just:

KING KONG

MUSIC FROM THE HUNGER GAMES SAGA -- compilation

NIGHT AFTER NIGHT

 

Even though I remember liking JUNGLE CRUISE in context. But not enough to add it to my collection.

 

And NIGHT AFTER NIGHT contains some beautiful tracks from The Happening.  

 

[Davis 3,953]

JNH doesn’t have a legendary score like BACK TO THE FUTURE, or iconic scores such as Predator, The Abyss and The Mummy Returns, so in terms of their overall legacies, I’ll go with Silvestri. But Howard has many excellent scores too, so in my book he is a close second to AS, and in recent years I’ve been listening to his scores more than Silvestri’s.

[Thor 9,327]

2 hours ago, GerateWohl said:

And NIGHT AFTER NIGHT contains some beautiful tracks from The Happening.  

 

Absolutely. Unlike everybody else and their grandmother, I've never been a huge fan of the Shyamalan collaborations (with the aforementioned exception of THE VILLAGE), but that album provides JUST the perfect selection of that work.

[filmmusic 2,786]

I really can't vote.

I searched for their scores to see which ones I know and love from each composer (so that I may be able to answer), but I found 9 scores from each!

I thought it would be more of a 4 to 9 or something that would help me decide...

Now, if I count the quality of the scores, I may be inclined just a tad more on JNH, but I won't vote because it's not enough..

[Bespin Copilot 10,201]

One word: Back to the Future.

[FBC Director 10,375]

That's five words.

[tomsmoviemadness 4,526]

3 hours ago, Thor said:

 

COSMOS -- all four volumes whittled down to 77 minutes

Are you able to share that? I've been looking for a shorter playlist of the volumes for a while.

[Thor 9,327]

Absolutely!

 

 

[crocodile 9,417]

4 hours ago, Thor said:

A CHRISTMAS CAROL -- whittled down to 46 minutes

 

Wait, A Christmas Carol album is under 46 minutes long. 😆

 

Karol

[WampaRat 1,867]

1 hour ago, Thor said:

Absolutely!

 

 

Oh this is perfect! I've been meaning to relisten to those albums. But as I recall there wasn't really a super clear musical narrative worth exploring over all the albums. I assume this compilation helps that shine a bit more?

@ThorI gotta ask, what are Excalibur/Excalibur 2? I assume its not the Trevor Jones score?

[Thor 9,327]

1 hour ago, crocodile said:

Wait, A Christmas Carol album is under 46 minutes long. 😆

 

Karol

 

Oops, a bit too quick there. It is, of course, unwhittled.

 

10 minutes ago, WampaRat said:

Oh this is perfect! I've been meaning to relisten to those albums. But as I recall there wasn't really a super clear musical narrative worth exploring over all the albums. I assume this compilation helps that shine a bit more?

 

No clear narrative, no, but I wanted the highlight bits, and also a fair amount of the electronic bits, which I loved. Everyone has their own preferences here, of course, but this was mine. I think it also works better, structurally, now.

 

10 minutes ago, WampaRat said:

I gotta ask, what are Excalibur/Excalibur 2? I assume its not the Trevor Jones score?

 

No, it's prog rock musicals by Alain Simon.  

[WampaRat 1,867]

Speaking of shortening releases, I made a custom edit of JNH/Xander's Willow series. Some bits and pieces have been moved around/ combined. What was three albums is now 90 minutes of very solid JNH fantasy writing that riffs on James Horner's classic. Trimmed some of the harsher electronic moments and material I found less interesting. It tells a great narrative now. And the Horner quotes shine bright when they do appear. I can appreciate it as a decent successor score-wise to Horner's work. 
 

 

[Bayesian 1,565]

This one’s easy for me—JNH all the way. 
 

I want to like Silvestri, I really do, but very little of his work does anything for me.

[NewBlueEyes 120]

 

[Ollie 1,356]

I’d go with Silvestri as I haven’t been wowed by anything from Howard since King Kong.

[Bespin Copilot 10,201]

Fuck, marry, kill.

 

Silvestri, Howard, Z... woops 

[Xander Harris 8,696]

I don’t even know how this is neck and neck. Silvestri all the way. 

[Jfallon 103]

Love both but looking at my playlists I listen to a lot more Silvestri. Alan it is.

[NewBlueEyes 120]

 

[NewBlueEyes 120]

 

[FBC Director 10,375]

On 14/07/2025 at 8:19 AM, Xander Harris said:

I don’t even know how this is neck and neck. Silvestri all the way. 

 

JNH won. A forum of children!

[NewBlueEyes 120]

 

[NewBlueEyes 120]

 

[Xander Harris 8,696]

On 20/10/2025 at 11:43 AM, Lady Dimitrescu said:

 

JNH won. A forum of children!

I’ve never cared much for JNH stuff. Different strokes.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 11,381]

Silvestri, without a shadow of a doubt 

[Jurassic Shark 15,671]

On 25/10/2025 at 8:07 PM, Xander Harris said:

I’ve never cared much for JNH stuff. Different strokes.

 

He did one great score.

[SilasGupta 48]

I love both of them very much, as most people here do.
But when it comes to Silvestri’s style, I also find it more limited than Howard’s. I recently made a supercut of all his action cues from the past few years… and it sounds like one continuous piece. Funny enough, The A-Team, The Avengers, and even Stuart Little are in there
Silvestri keeps returning to his old harmonic tricks. I’m sure he’s capable of more, but ultimately, that signature sound is exactly what directors want from him.

 

I miss the kind of films that gave him the opportunity to write those bittersweet themes—love themes or “sweet themes”—like in Grumpy Old Men or Mouse Hunt. The ’90s were full of that kind of music. And majestic, fun scores like Siegfried & Roy – The Magic Box still delight me to this day!

 

For me, Howard would win this poll—partly because he was my first real influence. Dinosaur was the first score I ever discovered, and his other Disney works are also incredibly beautiful in terms of instrumentation and orchestration. Vertical Limit, Hidalgo… those scores offer more variety to me than most of Silvestri’s work. All of this, of course, is purely subjective.

 

Still, film music—even from these two gentlemen—has become a service industry rather than an art form, where they can no longer freely let their own inspiration shine through. It’s nice that you can still hear them in some of their more recent scores—but in my opinion, that’s become quite rare.

---

[GerateWohl 6,254]

Apart from how little I was impressed with most of JNH's recent works and my preference for his older orchestral works, I find this one a really cool funky score. Made me want to watch the movie.

 

https://spotify.link/Ep2saIksRXb

 

 

 

 

[HanFiredFirst 101]

I was going to vote for JNH, but it just feels wrong, somehow, ranking two superb composers in a time when they're the exception to the rule. 

 

JNH has - IMO - a wider palette and his music affects me much more than AS's but I can't discount or overlook just how brilliant Silvestri's 80s music is - especially in this 40th anniversary year of Back to the Future.

[Yavar Moradi 4,012]

For me it's always been JNH over Silvestri, so I'm pleased to see him winning the poll. I like some Silvestri scores very much (as diverse as Predator, Mouse Hunt, Contact) but I find he's more limited than JNH and repeats himself a lot more. His action music is less interesting and so is his thematic development. When listening to a complete Silvestri score, I much more often feel like hitting the "skip" button for certain cues.

 

JNH is sometimes uninspired, to say the least, and he can end up sounding generic (especially lately), just like Silvestri, or Doyle, or Wallfisch, or dozens of other talented composers who have to dumb their style down and ape temp tracks for modern Hollywood producer tastes. Howard doesn't quite have Goldsmith's ability to always turn out a superb score for a terrible film (though Lady in the Water and The Last Airbender are great examples of that). But I do frequently find his scores have more variety and less repetition in them than Silvestri's.

 

Yavar

[HanFiredFirst 101]

JNH is often found scoring films that will never trouble the Oscars - some more like to hit the Razzies - strange how it happens. Perhaps Goldsmith just got more practice with truly awful films  

 

JNH's score for Snow Falling on Cedars is spectacular - seeing Tarawa live at the RAH a few years ago was truly spine-tingling - and I don't think he gets sufficient credit for his contribution to the first two Nolan Batmans - they would have sounded very, very different if HZ had been in sole charge, and I rate The Dark Knight as one of the finest scores of the last 20 years.

[Paul M. Grenon 82]

I have to say Silvestri, mainly because I know more of his stuff. I love the BTTF films, both Grumpy Old Men films, Mousehunt, Night at the Museum, Polar Express, and even Here.

 

I don’t really know much JNH, mainly because I tend to not listen to scores to films I haven’t seen yet. The stuff I do know I enjoy. Jungle Cruise: Catchy main theme that gets stuck in my head sometimes. Dave: Once again, catchy main theme that sticks in my head, especially the opening of the main titles. The Sixth Sense: Perfection! RV: Not my typical listen, but within context of the film, works well, enjoy the melodies that show up multiple times. Main theme to ER: My dad watches the show, but man is that theme good, especially the extended version with the saxophone for some reason.

[NewBlueEyes 120]