10 Best John Williams Themes

John Williams has written some of the best musical themes of all time. I personally believe his name should be synonymous with Mozart, Vivaldi, Beethoven...his art, his music making is that genius! Williams' music is timeless. His scores of the 70s and 80s don't feel like music of that age. It's like he knew it would be listened to and loved by people today. Ranking his 10 best themes is a hard thing to do. I'm not judging the soundtrack as a whole, but the theme(s) he created for that movie. Here goes:

10)  Superman- I understand he came up with this theme in just a couple days because he was taking over for Jerry Goldsmith. Wow! "Main Title March" and "The Flying Sequence" are favorite themes.

9)  Schindler's List- How do you create music for something as haunting as Schindler's List? Get John Williams to write the theme. Using Itzhak Perlman for the violin solos was brilliant. It saddens you just listening to it.

8) Harry Potter- "Hedwig's Theme." Take some of the most beloved books ever and try and turn them into great films--almost impossible. Throw in John Williams' genius--done.

7) Jurassic Park- "Welcome to Jurassic Park." A line from the movie and the title of it's best theme. Love it.

6)  Hook- This is my all time favorite Williams' soundtrack as a whole. I love the Pan theme, Hook, theme, Lost Boy theme...all of them wonderful.

5) Jaws- You only really remember the "Main Title" theme from Jaws (as well you should), but the soundtrack as a whole is SO good. Every October I read a book called School Spirits to my students and play "The Indianapolis Theme" while I read the scary parts. It has them jumping out of their seats!

4) Home Alone- I know, I know...I'm going with Home Alone for number 4, but I could listen to this music around the clock. "Somewhere In My Memory" and "Star of Bethlehem" were inspired by Christmas angels.

3) Raiders of the Lost Ark/Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom/Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade--I guess I could have just written Raiders Trilogy. That might have been better.- I don't know if it would be easier or harder to write music over a series of films. You create an absolutely brilliant set of themes for the first film: "Indy's Theme," "Marion's Theme," "The Well of Souls." And then you have to create something similar, but altogether different for the following films. If you think Raiders would be hard, look at my number 2!

2) Stars Wars Saga- "Main Title," "Princess Leia's Theme," "End Title," "The Imperial March," "Yoda's Theme," "Luke and Leia," "End Title" again, "Duel of the Fates" (the single best thing about the new trilogy), "Across the Stars," "Battle of the Heroes," and now he has signed on to compose music for J.J. Abrams new Star Wars movie. The themes speak for themselves. Absolutely unreal!

1) E.T.- "Over the Moon." "Toys." The story goes that John Williams wrote the music for "Escape/Chase/Saying Goodbye" from reading the script only. It didn't fit the first cut of the film. Most composers will now go in and fix it. Instead Spielberg kept the music as is, and went back and cut the film to fit. I don't know if that's Hollywood legend or truth, but it's pretty freaking awesome! I love the themes in E.T.