Hans Zimmer

These excellent instrumental soundtracks will set the perfect tone for your writing session.

Welcome to the dystopian future.

After retiring from superhero movies, composer Hans Zimmer is back to score ‘Wonder Woman 2.’

Johann Johannsson and Denis Villeneuve are one of those rare director-composer powerhouses that, until a few months ago, seemed inseparable. Johannsson scored Prisoners, Sicario, and Arrival, and also signed on to provide a soundtrack to Blade Runner 2049. About a month ago, it was announced that Hans Zimmer and his cohort Benjamin Wallfisch would be joining the soundtrack crew, with Johannsson perhaps taking a backseat. As it turns out, Johannsson has exited the vehicle completely.

Here’s an anecdote about Hans Zimmer for you. When I was in grad school, through several months of trial and error, I learned that I could write to one soundtrack and one soundtrack only: Zimmer’s score for Interstellar. I would listen to the entire album on repeat - minus the final track with the Dylan Thomas poem, of course - and crank out hour after hour of academic writing. I’ve often joked that Zimmer is the reason I finished my degree, but if we’re being honest with each other, it may be closer to the truth than I’m comfortable admitting.

Hans Zimmer has become kind of the rockstar of movie soundtracks (I mean, he did literally play a set at Coachella this year). Zimmer’s been scoring Christopher Nolan’s movies ever since Batman Begins, so it’s no surprise that he’s back for Nolan’s World War II thriller Dunkirk, and man, is he back. WaterTower Music just released the fourth track off the score, titled “Supermarine,” and it’s intense.

Cinephiles have film festivals, and audiophiles have music festivals, and never the twain shall meet. At least that was the case until Hans Zimmer took the Coachella Music Festival by storm twice in the last month. Just about a week ago, we shared the first video released by Coachella, a live performance of Zimmer’s soundtrack from Interstellar. And now the festival has followed up with a second performance, this time of Zimmer’s score for The Dark Knight (via Heroic Hollywood). If you’ve ever wanted to watch one of your favorite film composers shred like a rock star, well, here’s your chance (at least until John Williams decides to shock us all with his Mad Max: Fury Road-esque guitar gimp suit).

This past weekend saw the Coachella Music Festival descend on the deserts of Indio, California for a multi-day celebration of artistic expression, obscenely expensive designer drugs, and that thing where white women dress up in traditional Native American garb. Among such Top 40 stalwarts and tastemaker-blog darlings as Kendrick Lamar, Radiohead and Lady Gaga, an unexpected name claimed the mainstage: German composer of film scores Hans Zimmer, bringing his touring act to new highs for the festival attendees. Above, you’ll find the most complete, cleanly-recorded account of Zimmer’s massive live show to date, in which the multiple Academy Award-winner shreds with the best of them.

Hans Zimmer has composed the scores for all three of Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies, Man of Steel, Amazing Spider-Man 2 and now Batman vs. Superman, but the Oscar winner now says after his most recent superhero movie will officially be his last...

In just one week we’ll finally get to see who will win in the fight between the Dark Knight and the Man of Steel, when Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice hits theaters. But you don’t have to wait that long to get a new look at Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman, which you can gaze upon while you listen to Hans Zimmer and Junkie XL’s complete score for Zack Snyder’s DC superhero epic.