The Shrine

I'm not typically a fan of most movie soundtracks, since they usually involve your standard orchestra playing background music. That's not to say I haven't heard and bought some good ones, like Fifth Element, Solaris, Gattaca, American Beauty, Legend, Requiem for a Dream (used to like...), etc.

However, Hans' Sherlock Homes soundtrack is pretty damn good. I really like the variety of instruments used. (He actually bought and broke a pub piano to get the sound he wanted out of it.)

Is Hans stuff usually like this, or is this a standout soundtrack? Are there any other good and unusual movie soundtracks that I may be missing?

Not really familiar with Zimmer but Carter Burwell does a lot of good work for the Coen Brothers (particularly Blood Simple) and he did my favorite orchestral film soundtrack for Hamlet (the one released in 2000 with Ethan Hawke).

My favourite film composers are all dead; more accurate would be people who composed music put into films.

Richard Wagner, Carl Orff, and Basil Poledouris.

No music from a movie pumps me up more, watch Excalibur and Conan the Barbarian; I love it =)

Zimmer has not only done a crapload of stuff, he's Nolan's composer

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001877/

He's one of the better ones, up there with John Williams, Danny Elfman, Alan Silvestri, and James Horner