Hans Zimmer (and other movie musicians)

[SineSwiper]

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?

[Shrinweck]

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).

[Julius Seeker]

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 =)

[Zeus]

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