Our 10 favourite Canadian film scores of the last 20 years

Film scores serve a number of purposes: they can elevate the mood of a scene, they can help viewers connect to a feeling or emotion, or they can foreshadow what's to come. Scores can be big and epic like the works of John Williams; spine-chillingly eerie like Bernard Hermann's compositions; or they can be subtle and just as effective (think: Nicholas Brittell's score in She Said). Oftentimes, a film can become inextricably linked to its music, and a spellbinding score can ensure that a movie is unforgettable.

Below, CBC Music producers have selected 10 of their favourite film scores composed by Canadian musicians over the past 20 years. The picks below illustrate a vast range of film score compositions, highlighting some of the best music made for the big screen, both in Canadian and international movies.

Broken Social Scene, Half Nelson (2006)

Ryan Gosling earned an Oscar nomination for his performance as a teacher battling a cocaine addiction in Half Nelson, and although the film is synonymous with him, it's equally linked to the rockers in Broken Social Scene, who helmed the score. The quirky, troubled character of Dan Dunne (Gosling) was elevated as a result of the song choices, offering a glimpse into Dan's psyche. Several of the tracks are taken from the band's albums Feel Good Lost, Bee Hives and You Forgot it in People, each perfectly capturing Dan's literal highs and emotional lows. The fuzzy guitars in "Shampoo Suicide" are particularly memorable for their ability to amplify Dan's heartbreaking behaviour in a crushing scene where he buys drugs from his student in a motel. Half Nelson marked the first of the band's collaborations with director Ryan Fleck, as Broken Social Scene teamed up with him again on the 2010 movie It's Kind of a Funny Story. — Natalie Harmsen

Jonathan Goldsmith, Take This Waltz (2011)

Five years after Jonathan Goldsmith first worked with Sarah Polley on her poignant film Away From Her, the Canadian composer tackled the quirky Take This Waltz for his second project with the filmmaker. A gently unraveled story about the unexpected dissolution of a seemingly happy marriage, Take This Waltz stars Michelle Williams and Seth Rogen as the happy couple of Margot and Lou, and Luke Kirby as neighbour Daniel, whose presence turns out to be the distraction that Margot was waiting for. Goldsmith's score finds a hopeful balance in a movie that's ultimately ambiguous about how you should feel about its characters: wind instruments breathe life into the silence left by family when the married couple is left alone after a gathering; chimes add brightness to the building tension between Margot and Daniel as they tip closer to the will they/won't they ledge. Goldsmith's score fits easily between hit song placements, including Feist performing Ron Sexsmith's "Secret Heart" and Leonard Cohen performing the titular song, and there's enough space between them all for everything to shine. As each note progresses on Goldsmith's "Together" theme, it starts to matter less and less what the film's outcome is — life is long, and there will likely be multiple togethers. — Holly Gordon

Mychael Danna, Life of Pi (2012)

Toronto-based composer Mychael Danna earned a Golden Globe for this soaring score, which soundtracks the journey of teenager Pi as he fights to survive while adrift at sea with a Bengal tiger. With every scene in the jungle or the ocean, the score adds a rich layer of mysticism that propels the storytelling forward. Danna's work on Life of Pi can't be discussed without mentioning the film's sonic magnum opus, "Pi's Lullaby," which Danna wrote with singer Bombay Jayashri. The track's gentle percussion, lush instrumentation and delicate vocal stylings secured an Oscar nomination for best original song. 

Danna told CBC's Q that the film's music needed to "make it easy to sit there and enjoy it." He added: "There is so much challenging information and philosophy and visuals that the music had to have those ideas woven in a subtle way. But the overall impact of the music had to be seamless and reflect the emotion of the story." The film's colourful, otherworldly visuals required a score infused with a similar magic and intensity, and Danna's compositions bring that necessary vividness to the story. — NH

Lesley Barber, Manchester by the Sea (2016)

Manchester by the Sea is a heavy film that needed an equally emotionally weighty score to convey the dark shadows of grief that covered Kenneth Lonergan's movie. Composer Lesley Barber worked with an orchestra to craft a sweeping score that gives life to the movie's themes of mental illness and familial trauma: her use of haunting vocals and downcast instrumentals tie the film together.

"When you're beginning to write, it's like a real puzzle that you have to figure out, and you have to figure out and distil the meaning of what's going on in the script — but, also, when you start to see the actual film and take in the pace and tempo of the edits, the visual power of it, the decision-making starts to feel inevitable most of the time," she told the Film Stage. "In this case, it just felt right that there would be strings with vocals." Barber's work was nominated for a Satellite Award for best original score, and an ASCAP Composer's Choice Award for film score of the year in 2017. — NH

Alaska B, Through Black Spruce (2018) 

The music of Don McKellar's Through Black Spruce is subtle on purpose. Its composer, Alaska B, told CBC Music in 2018: "We wrote these complex motifs and buried them underneath a very dark and strange soundtrack — a lot of early '90s thriller elements." While the score doesn't jump out and grab you like a John Williams or Hans Zimmer composition, Alaska B succeeds at underlining the feeling of every scene of the film, which is about the disappearance of a young Cree woman and the impact on her Northern Ontario family. This score went on to win the 2019 Canadian Screen Award for best original score. — Melody Lau

Colin Stetson, Hereditary (2018)

Pitchfork called Hereditary "the most terrifying movie of the year" and credited much of that to Colin Stetson's score — but the Montreal-based saxophonist and composer's influence on the film started before Stetson was even involved. "[Filmmaker Ari Aster had] been writing [the script] to my solo music, and much of the inspiration for the film was coming from listening to the sounds I make," Stetson told Pitchfork in 2018. 

The two worked together early on in the film process, allowing Stetson to build a score that is inextricable from Hereditary's many creaks and sighs, a prolonged look underscored with the maximum amount of dread under the composer's expert direction. Stetson was determined not to have the score sound like any other horror film at the time, unconventionally processing his instruments — including his voice — to create the atmosphere. Stetson's film score catalogue grew significantly after Hereditary, including work on another horror film, 2022's Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and The Menu that same year — a whiplash mix of comedy and horror. — HG

Robbie Robertson, The Irishman (2019)

Robbie Robertson and Martin Scorsese's collaborative history goes all the way back to 1978's The Last Waltz, widely considered one of the best concert films of all time, which documents the final show of the Band. Robertson's post-Band career included solo releases and numerous scores for Scorsese films, including Raging Bull and The King of Comedy. The two reunited once again in 2019 for Scorsese's three-and-a-half-hour epic The Irishman, where Robertson created a tense, melancholic theme that's sparse and bluesy, using little more than drums, guitar, cello and a harmonica.

"It's a very strong mood, and I've never seen a gangster movie with this kind of tonality before," Robertson told the Hollywood Reporter in 2019. Instead of leaning into the tropes of a gangster movie score — the brassy horns of The Godfather; the boisterous rock of Mean Streets and The Departed — Robertson set the mood with a theme that was slow, contemplative and genuinely unsettling at times. — ML

Jay McCarrol, The Kid Detective (2020) 

Evan Morgan's The Kid Detective follows a once-celebrated young detective who, now at the age of 31, refuses to grow up and continues to solve small-town mysteries until a serious case lands on his lap. It's a film that blends comedy with mystery thriller elements, and Jay McCarrol's playful score captures both a childlike sense of wonder and a jazz-inspired film noir feel. It's a classic-sounding score, but done impeccably well, wonderfully setting the tone for the film at every turn. — ML 

Michelle Osis and Lowell, Bloodthirsty (2020)

The 2020 Canadian horror film Bloodthirsty had music involved at every stage: co-written by singer-songwriter Elizabeth Lowell Bolan (a.k.a. Lowell) with her mother, Wendy Hill-Tout, it's about an indie musician's transformation into a werewolf as she also suffers from a severe bout of writer's block. Lowell wrote the grunge-pop tracks that make up the film's EP, Bloodthirsty (Music From The Motion Picture), while Michelle Osis wrote the unnerving, string-laden score. Lowell, who has written songs for artists including Charli XCX, bülow and Tate McRae, was facing her own writer's block at the time, and you can hear that process working itself out in the film's music. The work from both Lowell and Osis twine perfectly in Bloodthirsty — nabbing two Canadian Screen Award nominations, for both original score and song. — HG

Andrew Yong Hoon Lee, Riceboy Sleeps (2022)

Anthony Shim's semi-autobiographical film Riceboy Sleeps was a big hit at the Toronto International Film Festival last year, earning a spot on TIFF's Canada's Top Ten year-end list. The film tells the story of So-Young, a Korean immigrant and single mother who moves to Canada to give her son, Dong-Hyun, a better life. The film's score, courtesy of Andrew Yong Hoon Lee (who also goes by the moniker Holy Hum), is airy, atmospheric and relies heavily on strings. The result creates a wistful feeling that permeates every scene of the film, exquisitely complementing Dong-Hyun's adult perspective as he reflects on his difficult upbringing, experiences with racism in his predominantly white school and his oftentimes turbulent relationship with his mom. Lee's work is subtle and beautiful, never overwhelming the film but hovering around it like an extra layer or character of its own. — ML