John Williams

Known For

Sound

Born

Feb 08, 1932

Place of Birth

Queens, New York City, New York, USA

Credits

251 titles

John Williams

Biography

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.

Known For

Filmography

2026

Disclosure Day

Original Music Composer

Movie
2026

Star Wars: Maul - Shadow Lord

Music

Tv
2025

The Cinema of John Williams (Indiana Jones, E.T., Star Wars and more)

Original Music Composer

Movie
2025

Superman

Music

Movie
2025

Jurassic World Rebirth

Music

Movie
2025

Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story

Self

Movie
2025

OSN: Musiche dall'America con Gianna Fratta e Alessandro Taverna

Original Music Composer

Movie
2024

Jonas Kaufmann: The Sound of Movies

Compositor

Movie
2024

Henry Mancini: 100 at the Hollywood Bowl

Self

Movie
2024

Music by John Williams

Self - Composer

Movie
2024

LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy

Music

Tv
2024

John Williams: A Legacy In Sound

Self

Movie
2024

Disney Legends Awards Ceremony

Self

Movie
2024

Jurassic World: Chaos Theory

Main Title Theme Composer

Tv
2024

John Williams in Tokyo

Self

Movie
2023

Timeless Heroes: Indiana Jones and Harrison Ford

Self

Movie
2023

Eastwood Symphonic

Music

Movie
2023

The Making of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

Self

Movie
2023

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

Original Music Composer

Movie
2023

Anne-Sophie Mutter - Vivace

Self

Movie
2023

The Fabelmans: A Family in Film

Self

Movie
2022

Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous: Hidden Adventure

Main Title Theme Composer

Movie
2022

The Fabelmans

Original Music Composer

Movie
2022

Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi

Music

Tv
2022

If These Walls Could Sing

Self

Movie
2022

Piano Cinéma

Original Music Composer

Movie
2022

Jurassic World Dominion

Main Title Theme Composer

Movie
2022

Obi-Wan Kenobi

Main Title Theme Composer

Tv
2022

Fiddler's Journey to the Big Screen

self

Movie
2022

The Stories of West Side Story

Self

Movie
2022

Ennio

Self

Movie
2022

Anne-Sophie Mutter, John Williams & Friends: Beethoven and Williams

selbst

Movie
2022

Williams: Violin Concerto No. 2 & Selected Film Themes

Self - Conductor

Movie
2022

OSN: Il ballo al Cinema con John Axelrod

Original Music Composer

Movie
2021

The Book of Boba Fett

Music

Tv
2021

John Williams Live - Music from the Movies

Movie
2021

For the Empire

Music

Tv
2021

John Williams: The Berlin Concert

Self

Movie
2021

Star Wars: The Bad Batch

Music

Tv
2020

LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special

Music

Movie
2020

A World Without Beethoven?

Self

Movie
2020

John Williams: Live in Vienna

Self - Conductor

Movie
2020

Disney Gallery / Star Wars: The Mandalorian

Self - Composer (archive footage)

Tv
2020

The Skywalker Legacy

Self

Movie
2019

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

Oma Tres

Movie
2019

Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound

Self (archive footage)

Movie
2019

Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge - Adventure Awaits

Self

Movie
2019

Battle at Big Rock

Main Title Theme Composer

Movie
2018

Leonard Bernstein Centennial Celebration at Tanglewood

Self - Conductor

Movie
2017

The Post

Original Music Composer

Movie