He Scores!

Ask any movie lover who's into film scores, and they'll surely name John Williams as one of their favorite composers of movie music. He's been nominated for a staggering 54 Oscars, and countless other awards besides, yet it still feels like he can't be praised highly enough. A new documentary streaming on Disney+ delves into exactly why that is: the cheekily titled Music by John Williams.

I will readily confess that this is far from the most insightful documentary you could watch. It isn't here to expose a version of the man you don't know, and isn't here to tell you much new information. It's here to celebrate the man's accomplishments -- his music. And in this endeavor, it excels.

Even a fan of John Williams could be hard-pressed to name just how many amazing scores he's created. He's done what for any other composer could be called "career best" work perhaps a dozen times, and this documentary helps you appreciate the breadth of that as it presents one achievement after another in dizzying procession from Williams' long career.

I have always responded most enthusiastically to movies that make me feel the most emotions, and this documentary shows -- again and again -- how no one is better at doing that than John Williams. Not even, I would say, director Steven Spielberg, who (as Williams' long-time collaborator) is featured heavily in this documentary; Spielberg is enthusiastic to celebrate just how much of the success of his own career can be credited directly to the work of John Williams.

What I found truly remarkable about watching Music by John Williams is just how much I was caught up in the emotions of these great films all over again. Pieces are played that I've heard, probably literally, a hundred times. They're not even played in their entirely. Sometimes they're accompanied by clips of the movies they were created for, and sometimes not. But as Jaws crashes into Star Wars, and into Close Encounters of the Third Kind, into Superman, into Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T., Jurassic Park, Schindler's List (and many, many, many more), I felt myself swept up in sheer awe of the genius who created it all.

Is this documentary kind of just a "puff piece?" Sure, probably. But few subjects would be as worthy, I think. Though the documentary doesn't seem to aspire to be any more than a fan-style gushing about John Williams, in the pursuit of that simple goal, it does illuminate just why movies can evoke these kinds of feelings, and what it is about Williams in particular that does it.

So no, maybe this isn't profound, but it made me feel all of the things in the way the movies I enjoy most always do. So I find myself giving Music by John Williams an A-. Put simply, I enjoyed it more than nearly every other movie I watched in 2024, and thus I think it earned that high mark. And I think any fan of film music (even casually), would enjoy it too.