The 10 Best Film Scores of 2024 (So Far)

In line with the IndieWire Craft team’s best film cinematography list of 2024, we’re going to keep track of film scores that strike us as exceptional over the course of this year. We’ve already seen (and heard!) a number of really good soundtracks that complement their stories, add momentum and pathos, and even spike dramatic moments with a bit of musical humor. Some of the biggest action blockbusters of the year have delivered instrumental bangers that are far from, in the words of Immortan Joe, mediocre. But some of the smallest, weirdest films of the year also have music that is perfectly placed in order to help us feel our way through the lonely forest home of cryptids and the absurd maze of the U.S. immigration system alike. Animation, too, utilizes music in a way where a great score can almost operate like a dance partner, backing up the action on screen in a way that sounds wholly emotionally relatable, even when we’re willing our heroes to dodge the Mind Cops.

If any criteria has guided our score choices so far this year, it probably is weirdness. Music is the most immediate route into emotion, and the scores we’ve chosen guide us seamlessly through some truly wild premises and fraught emotional tangles. Whether composers are leaning on big orchestra swells or mashing together weird, re-purposed bits of metal or engineering electronic pathos, a great soundtrack can make the moments that seem most disconnected from our day-to-day lives feel like the closest and most relatable revelations. Rigorously mapped-out character leitmotifs and subtle melodies are great, don’t get us wrong. But it’s also great when music is loud and weird and fun — the “Challengers” soundtrack will never stop never stopping, and we can’t help but admire it for that.

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Read on for our favorite scores of 2024.

Films are listed in alphabetical order. This article also features contributions by Jim Hemphill.

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