From Frankfurt to London to Hollywood:
Continuing the tradition of German film composers in Hollywood

Hans Florian Zimmer is not as well-known as his familiar film music. Few moviegoers are aware that it is this German-born film-music composer and record producer who created the scores for such Hollywood hits as Driving Miss Daisy, The Lion King, Gladiator, Pearl Harbor, Pirates of the Caribbean, Dunkirk, No Time to Die, Dune, and Top Gun: Maverick.

Hans Zimmer was born on 12 September 1957 in Frankfurt am Main, the son of Jewish parents Brigitte (Weil) and Hans Joachim Zimmer, who had founded the textile company, Zimmer AG. Hans grew up in Germany, but he moved to England as a young man, and later graduated from a boarding school in Dorking, Surrey. He began his career as a composer working on advertising jingles in London. He was a pioneer in the use of computers and digital synthesizers to produce film music with a punch. In his rock-music-band days in the 1970s, Zimmer was involved with the hit song “Video Killed the Radio Star” (composed by Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes) and produced an album for the music group The Buggles (“The Age of Plastic”). Although he learned to play piano as a young child, Zimmer never had any formal music instruction and is completely self-taught, learning his trade through collaboration and experimentation.

Hans Zimmer in 2018. PHOTO: Wikimedia Commons

In the 1980s, after touring in Europe with groups known as Krisma and Ultravox, Zimmer began to work on film music. His very first film score was for a 1982 British film starring Jeremy Irons. Moonlighting was about Nowak (Irons), a Polish worker leading a team working illegally in London at the time of the Polish Solidarity movement. Among his early successes was the score for the British box office hit My Beautiful Laundrette (1985). He also co-produced the soundtrack album for Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor (1987). Zimmer’s biggest break came when Hollywood took note of his music for a small-budget film about South Africa, A World Apart (1988). His next project was the Oscar-nominated score for the highly acclaimed Hollywood production Rain Man (1988). The following year he earned his first Grammy nomination for Driving Miss Daisy (1989).

Since then, Zimmer has been steadily at work on musical scores for many notable films, among them such Hollywood hits as Thelma & Louise (1991), The Lion King (1994), Crimson Tide (1995, Grammy Award), Gladiator (2000, Golden Globe Award), The Dark Knight (2008), No Time to Die (2021), and Dune (2021). It was Zimmer’s African-inspired score for The Lion King in 1994 that finally won him his first Academy Award. (Other Oscars went to the film’s songs by Elton John and Tim Rice.)

DUNE (2021) has an award-winning score by Hans Zimmer. The film garnered him his second Academy Award for Best Original Score. PHOTO: Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures

Hans Zimmer: Career Highlights

Hans Zimmer has created music for well over 150 feature films and other productions. He has earned 12 Oscar nominations, and two Academy Awards. Zimmer has received many other honors for his work, including Golden Globes and Grammy Awards. Below is a partial chronology of key events in Zimmer’s career as a film composer. See a more comprehensive filmography farther below.

• 1957 Hans Florian Zimmer is born on 12 September in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. He grows up in Germany, but as a young man he goes to London to live and attend boarding school.
• 1979 Collaborates in London on the hit song “Video Killed the Radio Star”
• 1982 First film score for the British film Moonlighting (not the American TV series)
• 1988 Oscar nomination for Rain Man, Zimmer’s first Academy nomination
• 1989 Grammy nomination for Driving Miss Daisy
• 1994 Wins an Academy Award for The Lion King score
• 1995 Golden Globe Award for The Lion King score
• 1995 Grammy Awards for The Lion King: 1. Best Instrumental Arrangement With Accompanying Vocals, 2. Best Musical Album For Children
• 2001 Golden Globe Award for Gladiator score
• 2010 In December Zimmer gets a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Later he also gets a star on the Boulevard der Stars in Berlin.
• 2014 In a May interview Zimmer acknowledges that he is Jewish and “proud of his people.” His Jewish mother was forced to flee Nazi Germany in 1939, moving to England during the war.
• 2021 Composes scores for Dune and the 007 spy film No Time to Die, and wins a Golden Globe and an Oscar for his Dune score in 2022.

In 1997 Zimmer was nominated for his musical contribution to As Good As It Gets (Best Music, Original Musical or Comedy Score), but the Titanic tidal wave that year left him empty-handed. Two more Zimmer-scored films premiered in 1998: The Thin Red Line with Sean Penn, and an animated feature by DreamWorks SKG, The Prince of Egypt, featuring the voices of half of Hollywood. For his Prince of Egypt score, Zimmer (with songwriter Stephen Schwartz) received a Golden Globe (Hollywood Foreign Press Association) nomination.

On 18 October 2000, Zimmer took time off from his film work to open the 27th Flanders International Film Festival with a live concert along with the Flemish Radio Orchestra in Ghent, Belgium. In 2003 the composer branched out into another medium with the musical theme for the ABC/Touchstone television series “Threat Matrix.”

Hans Zimmer has five children: one daughter, Zoë, with his first wife Vicki Carolin; sons Jake and Max, and daughters Brigitte and Annabelle, with his second wife, Suzanne Zimmer. (Maxwell “Max” and Annabel are twins.) Suzanne and Hans divorced in April 2020. Zimmer sold his Malibu home in 2005 and now lives in Los Angeles, but works in nearby Santa Monica. At his large, sumptuous studio complex in an office tower in Santa Monica, Zimmer and his associates at Remote Control Productions have access to a huge suite of computers, musical keyboards, and other electronic gadgets that the German composer favors for the creation of his music. It has been a highly successful formula. Zimmer can now claim credit for work on numerous feature films, shorts, video games, and television productions.

Poster for Zimmer’s Stockholm live concert appearance. PHOTO: Hans Zimmer Live

Zimmer is well known for his synth and electronic composing. For his score for the 2010 sci-fi film Inception, Zimmer manipulated parts of the French song “Non, je ne regrette rien” (“No, I regret nothing” – music by Charles Dumont, lyrics by Michel Vaucaire). According to Zimmer, the resulting horn sound is “like huge foghorns over a city.” It was prominently featured in the film’s trailers. Zimmer adds, “It’s funny how that sort of thing becomes part of the zeitgeist. But I suppose that’s exactly what trailers are looking for: something iconic, lasts less than a second, and shakes the seats in the theater.” The film’s main theme is also derived from a slowed down version of the French song, made most popular by Edith Piaf in 1960.

Dune and No Time to Die

Hans Zimmer has long worked with director Christopher Nolan, scoring many of his films ever since Batman Begins in 2005. They have been a highly visible team, most recently for Inception (2010) and Dunkirk (2017). So it was quite unexpected when Zimmer felt forced to turn down developing the music for Nolan’s Tenet. The reason was a single word: Dune.

Josh Brolin (as Gurney Halleck) and Timothée Chalamet (as Paul Atreides) in DUNE. PHOTO: Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures

Zimmer is a big fan of Frank Herbert’s Dune books, a passion that goes back to his youth. “The thing that really pulled me back into the movies was Denis [Villeneuve], just by saying that word ‘Dune.’ As I said, I was back to being 13, and I was back to before my career started… all of these ideas were rushing through my head.” Zimmer had been taking a break from creating new film music, while he was enjoying his live shows on the road, performing his past hits and other music. But Villeneuve’s Dune offer was too alluring to pass up.

Zimmer had worked with Canadian-born Villeneuve before, on Blade Runner 2049 (2017), as co-composer with Benjamin Wallfisch. Since both Dune and Tenet were being filmed and scheduled for release around the same time, Zimmer had to opt for just one of the two. (The Covid pandemic would end up delaying the release of both films.) Zimmer also wanted to work from the novel as his source material for the music. He had never seen David Lynch’s 1984 controversial film adaptation, and did not want to. Zimmer saw his book approach as a way to keep the music fresh and original, devoid of any influence from the 1984 movie. And the composer seems to have been correct. In January 2022, his music for Dune won a Golden Globe for Best Score. It is Zimmer’s third Golden Globe. Dune and its director (Villeneuve) also received Golden Globe nominations for best picture (drama) and best director respectively. Later in 2022 the composer won his second Oscar for Best Original Score, for Dune.

As chance would have it, Zimmer’s work on Dune also made him more receptive to a blockbuster film project that he might otherwise have not wanted to take on: No Time to Die, Daniel Craig’s last appearance as James Bond in the 007 spy film franchise. After composer Dan Romer left over “creative differences” at the last minute, Zimmer was offered the task. He was able to do the 007 film and then have time to resume his live appearances in 2022. He was soon starting work on the music for Dune: Part Two, now in post-production and set for release in 2023.

Hans Zimmer Filmography

A selected list of films and TV shows with music by Hans Zimmer. For a full awards list, see Hans Zimmer: List of awards and nominations (Wikipedia).

• Moonlighting (1982, UK) Score, electronic effects
• Success is the Best Revenge (1984, UK) Score
• My Beautiful Laundrette (1985, UK) Music
• Burning Secret (1988) Score
• A World Apart (1988) Score
• Rain Man (1988) Score – Oscar nomination
• Black Rain (1989) Score composer, song composer
• Driving Miss Daisy (1989) Score – Grammy nomination
• Bird On a Wire (1990) Score
• Days of Thunder (1990) Score, song composer
• Green Card (1990) Score
• The Neverending Story II: The Next Chapter (1990) Score
• Backdraft (1991) Score
• Thelma & Louise (1991) Score composer > BUY the 20th Anniversary Blu-ray (also Prime, DVD)
• A League of Their Own (1992) Score
• Radio Flyer (1992) Music
• Toys (1992) Music
• Aspen Extreme (1993) Song composer
• Cool Runnings (1993) Music
• The House of the Spirits (1993) Music
• Point of No Return (1993) Music
• Drop Zone (1994) Music
• I’ll Do Anything (1994) Music
• The Lion King (1994) Music, music supervisor, song arranger, song producer
  Academy Award for Best Original Score, Golden Globe, American Music Award, Tony, and two Grammy Awards – Amazon.com: BUY the Blu-ray (3D and 2D, also Prime, 4K, DVD)
• Renaissance Man (1994) Score
• Something to Talk About (1995) Score
• Nine Months (1995) Score
• Crimson Tide (1995) Music – Grammy Award
• The Rock (1996) Music, two themes
• The Preacher’s Wife (1996) Oscar nomination for Best Musical or Comedy Score
• Smilla’s Sense of Snow (1997) Fräulein Smillas Gespür für Schnee by Danish director Bille August
• The Peacemaker (1997)
• As Good As It Gets (1997) Starring Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt. Academy Award nomination (Best Musical or Comedy Score)
• The Thin Red Line (1998) Score
• Prince of Egypt (1998) Animated reworking of “The Ten Commandments” by DreamWorks SKG, featuring the voices of Val Kilmer (Moses), Sandra Bullock (Miriam), Ralph Fiennes (Ramses), and other star voices. Golden Globe nomination (with songwriter Stephen Schwartz)
• The Road to El Dorado (1999) Animated feature
• Gladiator (2000) Score > BUY the Blu-ray (also Prime, 4K, DVD)
• Mission Impossible 2 (2000) Score > BUY the Blu-ray (also Prime, 4K, DVD)
• The Pledge (2001) Score
• Hannibal (2001) Score
• Pearl Harbor (2001) Score
• Riding in Cars with Boys (2001) Score
• Black Hawk Down (2002) Score
• Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (2002) Score. Animated feature
• The Ring (2002) Score
• Tears of the Sun (2003) Score. Stars Bruce Willis.
• Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) Music editor, music programmer, score producer, soundtrack producer; with music composed by Klaus Badelt
• “Threat Matrix” (2003, TV series, ABC/Touchstone) Theme music
• Matchstick Men (2003) with Nicolas Cage. Score
• The Last Samurai (2003) Score, musical producer
• Something’s Gotta Give (2003) Score
• King Arthur (2004) Score
• Shark Tale (2004) Score
• Madagascar (2005) Score
• Batman Begins (2005) Score
• The Da Vinci Code (2006) Score
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006) Score
• Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (2007) Score
• Iron Man (2008) Executive music producer
• The Dark Knight (2008) Score
• Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (2008) Score
• Monsters vs. Aliens (2009) Executive music producer
• Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009) Additional music
• Angels & Demons (2009) Score
• The Pacific (2010, TV mini-series) Score
• Despicable Me (2010) Score producer
• Inception (2010) Score, synthesizer programmer > BUY the Blu-ray (also 4K, DVD, digital)
• Rango (2011) Score
• Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011) Theme music; score producer
• Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011) Score
• “The 84th Annual Academy Awards” (2012) TV special; music consultant
• Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted (2012) Score
• The Dark Knight Rises (2012) Score, synth programming
• The Lone Ranger (2013) Score
• Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013) Executive music producer
• 12 Years a Slave (2013) Score
• Winter’s Tale (2014) Score
• Divergent (2014) Executive music producer
• Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014) Additional music
• The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) Score
• Interstellar (2014) Score
• Kung Fu Panda 3 (2015) Score
• Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) Score
• Genius (TV, “Einstein” 2017, 10 episodes) Composer
• The Boss Baby (2017) Score
• Dunkirk (2017) Score
• Blade Runner 2049 (2017) Score > BUY the Blu-ray (also 4K, DVD, Prime)
• Widows (2018) Score
• X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019) Score
• The Lion King (2019) Score – Amazon.com: BUY the Blu-ray (3D and 2D, also Prime, 4K, DVD)
• The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run (2020) Score, with Steve Mazzaro
• Wonder Woman 1984 (2020) Score > BUY the Blu-ray (also 4K, Prime, digital)
• Dune (2021) Score (Golden Globe Award, Best Score; Academy Award, Best Score) > Buy the Original Soundtrack (DUNE) (streaming, MP3, vinyl) > BUY the Blu-ray (also 4K, DVD, Prime)
• No Time to Die (2021) Score; title song by Billie Eilish with orchestral arrangements by Hans Zimmer and Matt Dunkley. > Buy the Original Soundtrack (NO TIME TO DIE) (streaming, MP3, vinyl) > BUY the Blu-ray (also 4K, DVD, digital)
• Around the World in 80 Days (TV series, 2021) theme music, score
• Army of Thieves (2021) Score, with Steve Mazzaro
• The Unforgivable (2021) Score
• Top Gun: Maverick (2022) Score > BUY 4K UHD (also Blu-ray, DVD, Prime)
• The Son (2022) Score
• Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret (2023) Score – post-production
• Dune: Part Two (2023) Score – post-production

More | Germans (and Others) in Hollywood

Related Pages
AT THE GERMAN WAY

• Max Steiner was a noted Hollywood film music composer from Austria. Some of his film scores: Casablanca, Gone With the Wind, and King Kong
• Germans (and Others) in Hollywood – About the three main waves of Germanic immigration to Hollywood
• Featured Biographies – More detailed bios of notable people from the German-speaking world
• Mini Bios A-Z – Brief biographies of people from the German-speaking world
• Notable Women from Austria, Germany, Switzerland
• Famous Graves in Germany – Where are they buried?

ON THE WEB

• Hans Zimmer Live – In 2017 Zimmer began doing live music tours in the USA and Europe.
• Hans Zimmer – Facebook
• Hans Zimmer @Twitter
• How Hans Zimmer Became a Rock Star – by David Sims at The Atlantic
• Hans Zimmer – IMDb
• Hans-Zimmer.com (unofficial fan site)

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