James Horner

James Roy Horner (August 14, 1953–June 22, 2015) was an American film composer and conductor who worked on more than 160 film and television productions between 1978 and 2015. He was recognized for his integration of choral and electronic elements with traditional orchestral arrangements, as well as for his frequent use of motifs inspired by Celtic music.

Horner won two Academy Awards for his musical composition for James Cameron's *Titanic* (1997), which became the best-selling orchestral film soundtrack in history. He also composed the score for Cameron's *Avatar* (2009), the highest-grossing film of all time. Other Oscar-nominated scores included *Aliens* (1986), *An American Tail* (1986), *Field of Dreams* (1989), *Apollo 13* (1995), *Braveheart* (1995), *A Beautiful Mind* (2001), and *House of Sand and Fog* (2003). Among his other notable scores were *Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan* (1982), *Willow* (1988), *The Land Before Time* (1988), *Glory* (1989), *The Rocketeer* (1991), *Legends of the Fall* (1994), *Jumanji* (1995), *Casper* (1995), *Balto* (1995), *The Mask of Zorro* (1998), *Deep Impact* (1998), *The Perfect Storm* (2000), *How the Grinch Stole Christmas* (2000), *Troy* (2004), *The New World* (2005), *The Legend of Zorro* (2005), *Apocalypto* (2006), *The Karate Kid* (2010), and *The Amazing Spider-Man* (2012).

Horner collaborated with directors such as James Cameron, Don Bluth, Ron Howard, Joe Johnston, Edward Zwick, Walter Hill, Mel Gibson, Vadim Perelman, Jean-Jacques Annaud, Nicholas Meyer, Wolfgang Petersen, Martin Campbell, Phil Nibbelink, and Simon Wells; producers including Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, David Kirschner, Brian Grazer, Jon Landau, and Lawrence Gordon; and songwriters such as Will Jennings, Barry Mann, and Cynthia Weil. In addition to his two Academy Awards, Horner won six Grammy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards, and was nominated for three BAFTA Awards.

An avid pilot, Horner died in a single-fatality plane crash while flying his Short Tucano turboprop aircraft. He was 61 years old. The scores for his final three films—*Southpaw* (2015), *The 33* (2015), and *The Magnificent Seven* (2016)—were completed and released posthumously.