John Powell Soundtracks & Film Scores

John Powell is an English composer known above all for his richly thematic scores for animated and action films. Born in London and trained as a violinist before studying at Trinity College of Music, he worked on commercials and as a scoring assistant in Britain before moving to Los Angeles in 1997, where he joined Hans Zimmer's Remote Control Productions and quickly established himself.

His first major Hollywood score was Face/Off (1997), followed by a run of animated features — several co-composed with Harry Gregson-Williams — including Antz, Chicken Run, and Shrek. Powell became a defining voice in animation with propulsive, emotionally expansive scores for the Ice Age, Rio, and Kung Fu Panda films, earning his first Academy Award nomination for How to Train Your Dragon (2010) and a second for Wicked (2024). In live action he is closely associated with directors Doug Liman and Paul Greengrass, scoring the first three Bourne films and United 93.

In 2018 Powell scored Solo: A Star Wars Story, sharing the project with John Williams, who contributed Han Solo's theme. Alongside his screen work he has composed concert music, including the oratorio A Prussian Requiem (2016). Powell is regarded as one of the most melodically inventive orchestral composers working in film today.