The Film Scorer

Here we are, season 6, episode 2, things are in motion, momentum is building, and I'm joined by one of my favorite composers: Cristobal Tapia de Veer (The White Lotus, Smile)! Cristo's latest project is the 2026 BBC adaptation of Lord of the Flies, featuring some incredible child actor performances and an increasingly psychedelic and psychotic score. We focus our conversation around that score, but inevitably veer off into different directions, also covering some of his past works with Lord of the Flies director and his longtime collaborator Marc Munden as well as Smile director Parker Finn, our shared interest in metal, the inspiration and magic of the unknown, and plenty more. I even ask point-blank about what happened in The White Lotus. How does he answer?

Cristo's score for Lord of the Flies, and much of his other music, is available on all major platforms while the show itself is available on Netflix.

After a long wait and seemingly unending anticipation, Season 6 of The Film Scorer Podcast is here! To kick off the new season, I'm joined by the very rare repeat guest, the great Colin Stetson! Colin and I talked several years back (much longer ago than it feels), right around when The Texas Chainsaw Massacre came out, really digging into the weirdness of his score. This time, our focus is technically on his score for the new show Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen, but we get off track almost immediately and seemingly never recover, talking about the show as well as his series of improv/collaboration releases, Chainsaw, playing on audience expectations, and trying to imbue projects with real and honest human experience. Frankly, it ended up pretty wide-ranging.

Colin's score for Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen, and much of his other music, is available on all major platforms while the show itself is available on Netflix.

And if you haven't yet, be sure to check out our prior conversation here: https://thefilmscorer.com/colin-stetson-on-scoring-texas-chainsaw-massacre/

Season Six of The Film Scorer Podcast is almost here! The new season launches on Sunday, May 31st, with new episodes continuing every other Sunday after that (more or less). Season five had some huge interviews, like Oscar winner Daniel Blumberg, Max Richter, Oneohtrix Point Never, Thomas Newman, and even the noise rock band Chat Pile, so you never who will show up this time around. But I'll give you a taste of what's to come - Season six kicks off with Colin Stetson and Cristobal Tapia de Veer, and it only goes from there.

So subscribe on your favorite podcast platform, follow The Film Scorer on Instagram, Twitter, Threads, and Bluesky, and keep those ears open!

Although we're now a couple months into 2026, I finally present you with the "best" film scores of 2025. As usual, there are some very mainstream scores in here that most observers would agree with and there are a few left field choices. If you're a longtime listener, that shouldn't surprise you. As with all of these lists, although I say they're the "best", what I really mean is these are my favorites. Who's to say what's really the best? Surely not me.

This was a much harder list for me to put together than in recent years - there were a few scores that I immediately knew were going to make it, but a number of others where it took a lot more consideration, noticing that the passage of time had changed how I'd viewed a score (for better or worse); ultimately these lists are just a snapshot in time, but some decisions were made based on how I felt now while others were made based on how I felt in the past. It's a good reminder as to the subjectivity of each of these lists, at how you felt when seeing the film impacts your memory of it (and its score) forever on. But all things considered, I'm happy to say that 2025 was another solid year, with a deep set of great scores that stretch far beyond the same handful that received most attention during the year-end awards and recaps.

If you can't control yourself, look below to see what scores I picked, though you'll miss out on the why of it all (and given some of the choices, the why is pretty important).

Baby Invasion – Burial

Sinners – Ludwig Göransson

Anemone – Bobby Krlic

28 Years Later - Young Fathers

Eddington – Bobby Krlic and Daniel Pemberton

Marty Supreme – Daniel Lopatin

Fantastic Four: First Steps - Michael Giacchino

The Accountant 2 - Bryce Dessner

F1 - Hans Zimmer

The Shrouds - Howard Shore

Awards season is nearing its end, with the BAFTAs later today, February 22, and the Oscars coming on March 15. I'll always say that, although I'm by no means a massive fan (or detractor) of film awards, I'm always happy that it's the one time of year where film music gets to be widely celebrated. The nominee slates also provide great peaks into the state of modern, mainstream film music, and this year's selections are a great cross-section of style and approach. And of course, it gives me an excuse to talk about them a little bit, so read below then listen on.

Of the nominees, I interviewed Max Richter for Hamnet and also interviewed Jerskin Fendrix near the end of 2023 for Poor Things (which I would have swore was not that long ago...).

This year, the nominees for both sets of awards are the same:

Bugonia – Jerskin Fendrix (Interview)

Frankenstein – Alexandre Desplat

Hamnet – Max Richter (Interview)

One Battle After Another – Jonny Greenwood

Sinners – Ludwig Göransson