Bernard Herrmann

Alex Ross writes that "Over four decades, he revolutionized movie scoring by abandoning the illustrative musical techniques that dominated Hollywood in the 1930s and imposing his own peculiar harmonic and rhythmic vocabulary." As a conductor, he championed the music of lesser-known composers. This led him to write his first film score, for Welles's directorial debut Citizen Kane (1941). That year, he won the Academy Award for Best Original Score for The Devil and Daniel Webster. He worked with Welles on The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) and Jane Eyre (1943). He worked with Alfred Hitchcock on nine films, including The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956, where he makes a cameo appearance at the Royal Albert Hall), Vertigo (1958), North by Northwest (1959), Psycho (1960), The Birds (1963, as "sound consultant") and Marnie (1964). His other credits include Anna and the King of Siam (1946), The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), Cape Fear (1962), Fahrenheit 451 (1966) and Twisted Nerve (1968). He composed the scores for several fantasy films featuring the work of animator Ray Harryhausen and composed for television, including Have Gun – Will Travel and Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone. Towards the end of his career, Herrmann scored such Hitchcock-inspired films as François Truffaut's The Bride Wore Black (1968) and Brian De Palma's Sisters (1972) and Obsession (1976). His final score, recorded shortly before his death, was for Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976). His career is chronicled in Music for the Movies: Bernard Herrmann (1992).

Bernard Herrmann studied at New York University and DeWitt Clinton High School. The recorded working language is English. The field of work recorded is film score. Charles Ives, Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Percy Grainger are recorded as an influence. Places of work recorded in the authority are United States. Works named in the authority record are Vertigo, Psycho, Citizen Kane, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Taxi Driver and Wuthering Heights. Distinctions recorded are Academy Award for Best Original Dramatic Score, Grammy Awards and Arts and Letters Award in Music.

• Name — Bernard Herrmann • Birth Name — Maximillian Herman • Born — 29 June 1911 • Birthplace — New York City, U.S. • Died — 24 December 1975 • Place of death — Los Angeles, California, U.S. • Other Names — Bernard Maximillian Herrmann • Resting Place — Beth David Cemetery • Education — * Juilliard School • New York University • Occupation — * Composer • conductor • Years Active — 1934–1975 • Known for — Golden Age Film Composer • Children — 2 • Awards — 1941 Academy Award for

Herrmann was born on June 29, 1911, in New York City as Maximillian Herman, the son of a Jewish middle-class family of Russian origin. He was the son of Ida (née Gorenstein) and Abram Dardik, who was from Ukraine and had changed the family name. Herrmann attended DeWitt Clinton High School, an all-boys public school in New York. His father encouraged music activity, taking him to the opera, and encouraging him to learn the violin. At thirteen he discovered Hector Berlioz's Treatise on Instrumentation, which was an important influence. After winning a composition prize, he decided to concentrate on music, and went to New York University, where he studied with Percy Grainger and Philip James. He later studied at the Juilliard School, and at the age of 20, formed the New Chamber Orchestra of New York. He befriended composers Aaron Copland and George Gershwin.

Herrmann was hired as an assistant to Johnny Green, host of Music in the Modern Manner. He composed incidental music for Keats's "La Belle Dame sans Merci". He conducted rehearsals of musicians, including Benny Goodman. Within two years, he was appointed music director of the Columbia Workshop, an experimental radio drama series for which Herrmann composed or arranged music (one notable program was The Fall of the City). Within nine years, he had become chief conductor to the CBS Symphony Orchestra. He was responsible for introducing more new works to US audiences than any other conductor – he was a particular champion of Charles Ives, who was virtually unknown at that time. Herrmann's radio programs of concert music, which were broadcast under such titles as Invitation to Music and Exploring Music, were planned in an unconventional way and featured rarely heard music, old and new, which was not heard in public concert halls. Examples include Music of Famous Amateurs, including such royals as Frederick the Great, Henry VIII, Charles I of England, Louis XIII and writers like John Milton, Samuel Pepys and Friedrich Nietzsche. Herrmann's many US broadcast premieres during the 1940s included Nikolai Myaskovsky's 22nd Symphony, Gian Francesco Malipiero's 3rd Symphony, Richard Arnell's 1st Symphony, Edmund Rubbra's 3rd Symphony and Ives's 3rd Symphony. He performed the works of Hermann Goetz, Alexander Gretchaninov, Niels Gade and Franz Liszt and received many outstanding American musical awards and grants for his unusual programming and championship of little-known composers. In Dictators of the Baton, David Ewen wrote that Herrmann was "one of the most invigorating influences in the radio music of the past decade." Herrmann's own concert music was taken up and played by such celebrated maestri as Leopold Stokowski, Sir John Barbirolli, Sir Thomas Beecham and Eugene Ormandy. Barbirolli conducted the premiere of Herrmann's cantata Moby Dick, dedicated to Ives. He scored The March of Time, Lights Out and a radio adaptation of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.

• Illustration — Herrmann conducts the CBS Radio orchestra at a rehearsal of The Mercury Theatre on the Air directed by Orson Welles (1938) While at CBS, Herrmann met Orson Welles and went on to write and arrange scores for Welles's The Mercury Theatre on the Air and The Campbell Playhouse, which adapted literature and film to radio. He conducted the live performances, including Welles's famous adaptation of H.G. Wells's The War of the Worlds, broadcast on October 30, 1938, which consisted entirely of pre-existing music. When Welles gained his RKO Pictures contract, Herrmann worked for him. He wrote his first film score for Citizen Kane (1941) and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Score of a Dramatic Picture. The aria from the fictional opera Salammbô, which Kane's wife Susan Alexander (Dorothy Comingore) performs, was also composed by Herrmann. Welles wanted Herrmann to do a pastiche of real operas, writing in a telegram "Here is a chance for you to do something witty and amusing." Herrmann used techniques he had learned in radio: "The movies frequently overlook opportunities for musical cues which last only a few seconds-that is, from five to fifteen seconds at the most-the reason being that the eye usually covers the transition. On the other hand, in radio drama, every scene must be bridged by some sort of sound device, so that even five seconds of music becomes a vital instrument in telling the ear that the scene is shifting." On his use of leitmotifs in the score, he remarked: "I am not a great believer in the 'leitmotiv' as a device for motion picture music-but in this film its use was practically imperative, because of the story itself and the manner in which it is unfolded." Herrmann also scored Welles's The Magnificent Ambersons (1942); like the film, the music was heavily edited by RKO Pictures. When more than half of his score was removed from the soundtrack, Herrmann bitterly severed his ties with the film and promised legal action if his name were not removed from the credits. Herrmann was music director for The Orson Welles Show (1941–1942), which included the debut of his wife Lucille Fletcher's suspense classic The Hitch-Hiker; Ceiling Unlimited (1942), a program conceived to glorify the aviation industry and dramatize its role in World War II; and The Mercury Summer Theatre on the Air (1946). Welles told Peter Bogdanovich that "Benny Herrmann was an intimate member of the family". Between the films by Welles, he scored William Dieterle's The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941), for which he won his only Academy Award. He recalled layering four violin tracks on top of each other, and "another effect which we got from recording the sound of singing telephone wires at 4 a.m. It was always used whenever the devil (Walter Huston) appears." Herrmann used large sections of his score for The Campbell Playhouse adaptation of Rebecca for Robert Stevenson's Jane Eyre (1943), the third film in which Welles starred. Other notable scores of the decade include John Brahm's Hangover Square (1945) and John Cromwell's Anna and the King of Siam (1946). His score for Joseph L. Mankiewicz's The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947) was a personal favorite. Herrmann rebutted the charges Pauline Kael made in her 1971 essay "Raising Kane", which revived controversy over the authorship of the screenplay for Citizen Kane. He reworked music from the film in Orson Welles Raises Kane.

• Illustration — Herrmann conducting the London Symphony Orchestra in a scene from The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) Herrmann is most closely associated with his work with Alfred Hitchcock. He worked on the scores for nine Hitchcock films, from The Trouble with Harry (1955) to Marnie (1964). Hitchcock had wanted Herrmann to score Rear Window (1954), but he was unavailable; the film's unique diegetic music was instead provided by Franz Waxman. The score for The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) was composed by Herrmann, but two of the most significant pieces in the film – the song "Que Será, Será" and the Storm Clouds Cantata – were not (although he did re-orchestrate Arthur Benjamin's cantata from Hitchcock's 1934 original). The film gave Herrmann the opportunity for a cameo as the conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra in the Royal Albert Hall scene. Herrmann's The Wrong Man score (1956) is in a jazz style and makes heavy use of double bass; Emmanuel Balestrero (Henry Fonda), the wrong man of the title, is a jazz bassist. His score for Vertigo (1958) is considered by many to be his masterpiece. In many key scenes, Hitchcock let Herrmann's score take center stage. Frequently echoing Richard Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde, it dramatically conveys the protagonist's obsessive love for the image of a woman and underscores that Vertigo, like Tristan, is a story of love and death. Ross writes that Herrmann's homage to Wagner "is a matter of deliberation and subtlety. The main melodic contour is his own; the harmony is still his idiosyncratic construction. He is jogging the memory of those who know Tristan and the subconscious of those who don't. His veiled citations indicate in their own way the unstoppable recurrence of the past." According to Dan Auiler, Herrmann deeply regretted being unable to conduct his composition for Vertigo; a musicians' strike in the US meant that it was actually conducted in England and Austria by Muir Mathieson. Herrmann always conducted his own music where possible, and given that he considered the Vertigo score among his best work, he regarded it as a missed opportunity. Herrmann's most famous film music is from Hitchcock's Psycho (1960). The score uses only a string orchestra rather than a full orchestra. Hitchcock admitted at the time that Psycho heavily depended on the music for its tension and sense of pervading doom. David Thomson notes Herrmann's "sly borrowings from Beethoven's Eroica", a recording of which can be seen in the bedroom of Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins). Hitchcock initially wanted the film's famous shower scene to play without music; Herrmann suggested otherwise, and they screened the scene with and without music. Ultimately, Hitchcock decided to include the music. Steven Smith writes "Herrmann made Hitchcock fall in love with the project once again. Herrmann later said he wrote Psycho score for an all-strings orchestra to create 'a black-and-white sound' to complement the black-and-white photography." Herrmann recalled "The strange thing was the number of colleagues and informed members of the public who have written me letters asking what instruments I used. They couldn't recognise the sound of a string orchestra - the same kind of orchestra which plays the music of Mozart and Haydn." Herrmann was credited as "sound consultant" on The Birds (1963), which forewent a traditional score for electronically made bird sounds. In 1963, Herrmann began writing original music for the CBS-TV anthology series The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, which was in its eighth season. Hitchcock served only as advisor on the show, which he hosted, but Herrmann was again working with former Mercury Theatre actor Norman Lloyd, co-producer (with Joan Harrison) of the series. Herrmann scored 17 episodes (1963–1965), and like much of his work for CBS, the music frequently was reused for other programs. In a question-and-answer session at George Eastman House in October 1973, Herrmann stated that, unlike most film composers who did not have any creative input into the style and tone of the score, he insisted on creative control as a condition of accepting a scoring assignment: Herrmann stated that Hitchcock would invite him on to the production of a film and, depending on his decision about the length of the music, either expand or contract the scene. It was Hitchcock who asked Herrmann for the "recognition scene" near the end of Vertigo to be played with music. He recalled "he said when we came to the famous recognition scene, 'If we're going to have music, we won't have one word of dialogue; we'll just have the camera and you.'" Herrmann's relationship with Hitchcock came to an abrupt end when they disagreed over the score for Torn Curtain (1966). Reportedly pressured by Universal executives, Hitchcock wanted a score that was more jazz- and pop-influenced. Hitchcock's biographer Patrick McGilligan stated that Hitchcock was worried about becoming old-fashioned and felt that Herrmann's music had to change with the times as well. Herrmann initially accepted the offer, but then decided to score the film according to his own ideas. François Truffaut writes that "In Hollywood and elsewhere, it was the practice of the film industry to favor scores that would sell as popular records—the kind of film music that could be danced to in discotheques. In this sort of game, Herrmann, a disciple of Wagner and Stravinsky, was bound to be a loser." Truffaut writes that "Herrmann's removal is a flagrant injustice, since it is a matter of record that his contributions to The Man Who Knew Too Much, North by Northwest, and Psycho had greatly enhanced the success of these films." Hitchcock listened to only the prelude of the score, then confronted Herrmann about the pop score. Herrmann indignantly replied: "Look, Hitch, you can't outjump your own shadow. And you don't make pop pictures. What do you want with me? I don't write pop music." Hitchcock unrelentingly insisted that Herrmann change the score, violating Herrmann's general claim to the creative control he had always maintained in their previous works together. Herrmann then said "Hitch, what's the use of my doing more with you? I had a career before you, and I will afterwards." The score was rejected and replaced with one by John Addison. Hitchcock may have hoped to reconcile with Herrmann and have him score Topaz (1969). Wellesnet, the Orson Welles website, reported in April 2009: "Of course, once Herrmann felt he had been wronged, he was not going to say 'yes' to Hitchcock unless he was courted and it seems unlikely that Hitchcock would be willing to do that, although apparently Hitchcock did ask Herrmann back to score his last film Family Plot right before Herrmann died." In 2009, Norma Herrmann began to auction her husband's personal collection on Bonhams.com. While Herrmann had brought Hitchcock a copy of his classical work after the break-up, Hitchcock had given Herrmann a copy of his 1967 interview book with Truffaut, which he inscribed "To Benny with my fondest wishes, Hitch."

From the late 1950s to the mid-1960s, Herrmann scored a series of science fiction and fantasy films, including Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959) and the Ray Harryhausen Dynamation epics The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958), Mysterious Island (1961) and Jason and the Argonauts (1963). Herrmann turned his talents to writing for television. He wrote for Have Gun – Will Travel and Twilight Zone, including the lesser known theme used during the series' first season. He scored several episodes, including "Where Is Everybody?", "Walking Distance", "The Lonely", "Eye of the Beholder" and "Little Girl Lost". In the mid-1960s, he composed the highly regarded music score for François Truffaut's Fahrenheit 451. Scored for strings, two harps, vibraphone, xylophone and glockenspiel, Herrmann's score created a driving, neurotic mood that recalled Herrmann's scores for Truffaut's favorite director, Alfred Hitchcock. He scored Truffaut's Hitchcock homage The Bride Wore Black (1968). He scored Brian De Palma's Sisters (1972) and Obsession (1976), variations on the themes of Psycho and Vertigo. De Palma suggested that Herrmann score Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976). Herrmann agreed to score the film after seeing the scene where Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) pours schnapps on his cereal. Thomas Hobbs writes of Herrmann's "smoky, airborne jazz notes which are so vivid you can picture pollution smog rising through the cracks of Manhattan's sewers." His last score marks his first extended use of jazz, recalling his score for The Wrong Man, which was a major influence on the film.

In 1934, Herrmann met a young CBS secretary and aspiring writer, Lucille Fletcher. She was impressed with Herrmann's work, and the two began a five-year courtship. Marriage was delayed by the objections of Fletcher's parents, who disliked the fact that Herrmann was a Jew and were put off by what they viewed as his abrasive personality. The couple finally married on October 2, 1939. They had two daughters: Dorothy (born 1941) and Wendy (born 1945). Fletcher was to become a noted radio scriptwriter, and she and Herrmann collaborated on several projects throughout their career. Fletcher helped to write the libretto for his opera, Wuthering Heights, based on Emily Brontë's novel of the same name. The couple divorced in 1948. The next year, he married Lucille's cousin Lucy (Kathy Lucille) Anderson. That marriage lasted until 1964. By 1967, Herrmann worked almost exclusively in England. In November 1967, the 56-year-old composer married 27-year-old journalist Norma Shepherd, his third wife. In August 1971, the Herrmanns made London their permanent home.

Immediately after finishing the recording of the Taxi Driver score on December 23, 1975, Herrmann viewed the rough cut of what was to be his next film assignment, Larry Cohen's God Told Me To, and dined with Cohen. He returned to his hotel and died from an apparent heart attack in his sleep the next day. Scorsese and Cohen both dedicated their respective films to his memory. Herrmann was interred in Beth David Cemetery in Elmont, New York.

As well as his many film scores, Herrmann wrote several concert pieces, including his Symphony in 1941; the opera Wuthering Heights; the cantata Moby Dick (1938), dedicated to Charles Ives; and For the Fallen, a tribute to the soldiers who died in battle in World War II. He recorded all these compositions, and several others, for the Unicorn label during his last years in London. A work written late in his life, Souvenir de Voyages, showed his ability to write non-programmatic pieces.

Herrmann recalled "The film with the most experimental, avant-garde techniques was the picture I did for Robert Wise, The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951). At that time, we had no electronic sound, but the score had many electronic features which haven't become antiquated at all: electric violin, electric bass, two high and low electric theremins, four pianos, four harps and a very strange section of about 30-odd brass. Alfred Newman said the only thing we needed was an electric hot water bottle, which he supplied." Robert B. Sexton has noted that this score involved the use of treble and bass theremins (played by Dr. Samuel Hoffmann and Paul Shure), electric strings, bass, prepared piano, and guitar together with various pianos and harps, electronic organs, brass, and percussion, and that Herrmann treated the theremins as a truly orchestral section. Herrmann was a "sound consultant" on The Birds, which made extensive use of an electronic instrument called the Mixtur-Trautonium, performed by Oskar Sala. Herrmann used several electronic instruments on his score of It's Alive, as well as a Moog synthesizer for the main themes in Endless Night and Sisters.

• Featured (music and as a character) in"The Lovesong of Alfred J. Hitchcock" by David Rudkin (BBC Radio, 1993) • "Marnie", adapted as a song from the theme for the film Marnie, Michael Poss on his 2000 album Silver Screen Serenades • "The Whistle Song" from Twisted Nerve was used as an opening theme for the Quentin Tarantino film Kill Bill: Volume 1. • Part of Herrmann's score for The Trouble with Harry was used in a 2010 American television commercial for the Volkswagen CC. • Music from the Vertigo soundtrack was used in BBC Four's Spitfire Women documentary, aired in the UK in September 2010. • A 2011 TV commercial titled "Snowpocalypse" for Dodge all-wheel drive vehicles uses Herrmann's main title theme for Cape Fear. • "Gimme Some More" by Busta Rhymes is based on a sample from Herrmann's score from Psycho. • The prologue to Lady Gaga's 2011 video for the song Born This Way features Herrmann's Vertigo prelude. • The 2011 FX series American Horror Story used cues from Twisted Nerve, Psycho, and Vertigo for episode scores. • The 2011 film The Artist used a soundtrack recording of the love theme from Vertigo. Film actress Kim Novak later voiced her concern about the use of the music, saying that her work "had been violated by The Artist". • Paul Schackman portrayed Herrmann in the 2012 biopic Hitchcock. • Herrmann's scores from many Hitchcock films are prominently featured in the New York City immersive theatrical production Sleep No More; particular standouts include the prelude from The Man Who Knew Too Much as audience members wind through the dark portal-like maze at the start of the experience, leading them back in time to the 1930s; moments from Psycho being used to underscore the Macbeth elements of the story; and the characters' hour-long loops restarting to the opening suite from Vertigo. • Matthew Bourne's 2016 dance theatre work The Red Shoes, based on the 1948 film, uses music from several Herrmann film scores. • Benny & Hitch – "a brand new radio drama – with live orchestral music – about the extraordinary and explosive relationship between director Alfred Hitchcock and composer Bernard Herrmann", written by Andrew McCaldon. It was performed/recorded live on October 16, 2022, at the Alexandra Palace theatre in London with BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by Ben Palmer. Acting as Hitchcock and Herrmann respectively, Toby Jones (who also portrayed Hitchcock in the BBC/HBO co-production The Girl (2012)) and Tim McInnerny. Also featuring Joanna Monro as Alma Hitchcock, Tara Ward as Lucy Anderson (and Tippi Hedren) and Jonathan Forbes as Lew Wasserman (and briefly as Paul Newman). Broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on December 25, 2022.

Herrmann's work for television includes scores for such westerns as Cimarron Strip, Gunsmoke, Rawhide, Have Gun – Will Travel, as well as the 1968 suspense TV movie Companions in Nightmare. For The Twilight Zone: • Opening and closing themes (used only during the 1959–1960 season) • Where Is Everybody? (first aired October 2, 1959) • Walking Distance (first aired October 30, 1959) • The Lonely (first aired November 13, 1959) • Eye of the Beholder (first aired November 11, 1960) • Little Girl Lost (first aired March 16, 1962) • Living Doll (first aired November 1, 1963) For the Alfred Hitchcock Hour: • A Home Away from Home (first aired September 27, 1963) • Terror at Northfield (first aired October 11, 1963) • You'll Be the Death of Me (first aired October 18, 1963) • Nothing Ever Happens in Linvale (first aired November 8, 1963) • The Jar (first aired February 14, 1964) • Behind the Locked Door (first aired March 27, 1964 • Body in the Barn (first aired July 3, 1964) • Change of Address (first aired October 12, 1964) • Water's Edge (first aired October 19, 1964) • The Life Work of Juan Diaz (first aired October 26, 1964) • The McGregor Affair (first aired November 23, 1964) • Misadventure (first aired December 7, 1964) • Consider Her Ways (first aired December 28, 1964) • Where the Woodbine Twineth (first aired January 11, 1965) • An Unlocked Window (first aired February 15, 1965) • Wally the Beard (first aired March 1, 1965) • Death Scene (first aired March 8, 1965)

These works are for narrator and full orchestra, intended to be broadcast over the radio (since a human voice would not be able to be heard over the full volume of an orchestra). In a 1938 broadcast of the Columbia Workshop, Herrmann distinguished "melodrama" from "melodram" and explained that these works are not part of the former, but the latter. The 1935 works were composed before June 1935. • La Belle Dame sans merci (September 1934) • The City of Brass (December 1934) • Annabel Lee (1934–1935) • Poem Cycle (1935): • "The Willow Leaf" • "Weep No More, Sad Fountains" • "Something Tells" • A Shropshire Lad (1935) • Cynara (June 1935)

See also Columbia Workshop for programs in which Herrmann participated but did not write original music. • Palmolive Beauty Box (c. 1935) (2 existing cues) • Dauber (October 1936) • Rhythm of the Jute Mill (December 1936) • The Gods of the Mountain (1936) • The Happy Prince (December 1941) • A Christmas Carol (1954, a CBS-TV special, after Dickens) • A Child Is Born (1955, a TV special hosted by Ronald Reagan with singers Nadine Conner and Theodor Uppman) • Brave New World (1956)

• Wuthering Heights: Opera (1951) • The King of Schnorrers (1968) Musical comedy

• The Forest, tone poem for large orchestra (1929) • November Dusk, tone poem for large orchestra (1929) • Tempest and Storm: Furies Shrieking!, for piano (1929) • The Dancing Faun and The Bells, two songs for medium voice and small Chamber orchestra (1929) • Requiescat, violin and piano (1929) • Twilight, violin and piano (1929) • March Militaire (1932), ballet music for Americana Revue (1932) • Aria for Flute and Harp (1932) • Variations on "Deep River" and "Water Boy" (1933) • Prelude to Anathema, for fifteen instruments (1933) • Silent Noon, for fourteen instruments (1933) • The Body Beautiful (1935), music from the Broadway play • Nocturne and Scherzo (1935) • Sinfonietta for Strings (1935) • Currier and Ives, suite (1935) • Violin Concerto, unfinished (1937) • Moby Dick, cantata (1937) • Johnny Appleseed, unfinished cantata (1940) • Symphony No. 1 (1941) • The Fantasticks (1942) • The Devil and Daniel Webster, suite (1942) • For the Fallen (1943) • Welles Raises Kane (1943) • Echoes, string quartet (1965) • Souvenirs de Voyage (1967)

Works recorded as notable number 7: Vertigo, Psycho, Citizen Kane, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Taxi Driver, Wuthering Heights and The Devil and Daniel Webster.

Bernard Herrmann is recorded as having received Academy Award for Best Original Dramatic Score, Grammy Awards and Arts and Letters Award in Music.

In 2005 the American Film Institute respectively ranked Herrmann's scores for Psycho and Vertigo No. 4 and No. 12 on its list of the 25 greatest film scores. His scores for the following films were also nominated for the list: • Citizen Kane (1941) • The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941) • Jane Eyre (1944) • The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947) • The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) • North by Northwest (1959) • Taxi Driver (1976)

• 1976: Winner, British Academy Film Award, Best Film Music, Taxi Driver

• Year — Title — Director — Notes • 1941 — Citizen Kane — Orson Welles — Oscar nominee • The Devil and Daniel Webster also known as All That Money Can Buy — William Dieterle — Oscar winner • 1942 — The Magnificent Ambersons — Orson Welles — Uncredited (at own request); additional cues composed by Roy Webb • 1943 — Jane Eyre — Robert Stevenson • 1945 — Hangover Square — John Brahm • 1946 — Anna and the King of Siam — John Cromwell — Oscar nominee • 1947 — The Ghost and Mrs. Muir — Joseph L. Mankiewicz • 1948 — Portrait of Jennie — William Dieterle — Theme • 1951 — The Day the Earth Stood Still — Robert Wise — Golden Globe nominee • On Dangerous Ground — Nicholas Ray • 1952 — 5 Fingers — Joseph L. Mankiewicz • The Snows of Kilimanjaro — Henry King • 1953 — White Witch Doctor — Henry Hathaway • Beneath the 12-Mile Reef — Robert Webb • King of the Khyber Rifles — Henry King • 1954 — Garden of Evil — Henry Hathaway • The Egyptian — Michael Curtiz — Co-composer: Alfred Newman • 1955 — Prince of Players — Philip Dunne • The Trouble with Harry — Alfred Hitchcock • The Kentuckian — Burt Lancaster • 1956 — The Man Who Knew Too Much — Alfred Hitchcock — (cameo – Conductor / Himself), Uncredited • The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit — Nunnally Johnson • The Wrong Man — Alfred Hitchcock • 1957 — Williamsburg: The Story of a Patriot — George Seaton — Short subject • A Hatful of Rain — Fred Zinnemann • 1958 — Vertigo — Alfred Hitchcock • The Naked and the Dead — Raoul Walsh • The 7th Voyage of Sinbad — Nathan H. Juran • 1959 — North by Northwest — Alfred Hitchcock • Blue Denim — Philip Dunne • Journey to the Center of the Earth — Henry Levin • 1960 — Psycho — Alfred Hitchcock • The 3 Worlds of Gulliver — Jack Sher • 1961 — Mysterious Island — Cy Endfield • 1962 — Tender Is the Night — Henry King • Cape Fear — J. Lee Thompson • 1963 — Jason and the Argonauts — Don Chaffey • The Birds — Alfred Hitchcock — sound consultant • 1964 — Marnie — Alfred Hitchcock • 1965 — Joy in the Morning — Alex Segal • 1966 — Torn Curtain — Alfred Hitchcock — unused score • Fahrenheit 451 — François Truffaut • 1968 — The Bride Wore Black — François Truffaut • Twisted Nerve — Roy Boulting — main theme featured in Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003) • 1969 — Battle of Neretva — Veljko Bulajić • 1971 — The Night Digger — Alastair Reid • 1972 — Endless Night — Sidney Gilliat • Sisters — Brian De Palma • 1974 — It's Alive — Larry Cohen • 1976 — Obsession — Brian De Palma — Oscar nominee; Posthumous release • Taxi Driver — Martin Scorsese — Oscar and Grammy nominee; BAFTA winner; Final film scoring; Posthumous release • 1978 — It Lives Again — Larry Cohen — Original themes from It's Alive; arranged and conducted by Laurie Johnson