Two-time Oscar-winning composer Alexandre Desplat is one of the most respected film composers in the world. Desplat is noted for his collaborations with some of the world’s top filmmakers: Greta Gerwig, Wes Anderson, Guillermo del Toro, George Clooney, Kathryn Bigelow, Stephen Daldry, David Fincher, Stephen Frears, Tom Hooper, Ang Lee, Terrence Malick and Angelina Jolie. To date, he has received eleven Academy Award nominations and two Oscars.
Desplat first captivated American ears with The Girl With The Pearl Earring and Birth. The two-time Oscar and Golden Globe winner has since scored a range of acclaimed films, eleven of which have been Oscar- nominated: The Queen, The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, The Imitation Game, The King’s Speech, Argo, Philomena, The Painted Veil for which he received a Golden Globe and Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox, Isle of Dogs, and The Grand Budapest Hotel which won the 2015 Oscar for Best Original Score. Desplat’s thematic score to Guillermo Del Toro’s film, The Shape of Water won the 2018 Academy Award for Best Original Score and garnered a 2018 Golden Globe, a BAFTA award, and a 2019 Grammy nomination. Desplat scored Greta Gerwig’s Little Women which was nominated for a 2020 Golden Globe and an Academy Award for Best Original Score, George Clooney’s The Midnight Sky, which received a 2021 Golden Globe nomination for Best Score, and Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch, which earned a 2022 Golden Globe nomination for Best Score.
Desplat’s work includes Angelina Jolie’s Unbroken, his second collaboration with Tom Hooper The Danish Girl, Godzilla, directed by Gareth Edwards, Illumination Entertainment’s box office smash hit, The Secret Life Of Pets as well as the sequel The Secret Life of Pets 2, Florence Foster Jenkins starring Meryl Streep, Zero Dark Thirty directed by Kathryn Bigelow, Twilight Saga: New Moon, directed by Chris Weitz, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Pts. 1 & 2, Jacques Audiard’s Rust and Bone and The Sisters Brothers starring Joaquin Phoenix and Jake Gyllenhaal, George Clooney’s comedy crime feature, Suburbicon, and Graham Moore’s directorial debut The Outfit.
Most recently, Desplat scored Stephen Fears’ The Lost King, starring Steve Coogan and Sally Hawkins, as well as the Oscar-winning Netflix stop-motion animated musical feature Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, for which Desplat provided both the Original Score and all Original Songs. New for Desplat in 2023 are Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City and Ellen Kuras’ Lee starring Alexander Skarsgard and Kate Winslet.
Born to a Greek mother and French father, Desplat grew up in France with a budding love for Hollywood film music, and broke into the French film industry in the 1990s. “I was in a car with a friend who had offered me a double vinyl of Star Wars,” Desplat remembers. “It might have been ’78. He gave me this record, and I remember having said to him, “Hmm. ‘Music composed and conducted by John Williams.’ That’s what I want to do.” And that’s what I’m doing.” With a penchant for lyricism, elegant orchestrations, and precise dramatization, Desplat has quickly joined the pantheon of all-time greats.