François de Roubaix Francis Lai Serge Gainsbourg Georges Garvarentz Michel Magne Pierre Jansen Georges Delerue Philippe Sarde Éric Demarsan Claude Bolling
Obviously it would help if more complete soundtracks were released... Jarre could be on the list too, but I would rather put him in a list of US/English movie composers.
François de Roubaix Francis Lai Serge Gainsbourg George Garvarentz Michel Magne Pierre Jansen Georges Delerue Philippe Sarde Éric Demarsan Claude Bolling
Obviously it would help that more complete soundtracks were released...
Great list! And its high time for a release of Daughters of Darkness (Les lêvres rouges).
My list is probably all the obvious choices, more or less in order of preference:
1. Maurice Jarre 2. Georges Delerue 3. Alexandre Desplat 4. Phillipe Sarde 5. Michel Legrand 6. Maurice Jaubert 7. Paul Misraki 8. Francois de Roubaix 9. Georges Auric 10. Bruno Coulais
Georges Delerue Maurice Jarre Frederic Talgorn Gabriel Yared Michel Legrand Alexandre Desplat Michel Magne Philippe Rombi Jean Claude Petit Gérard Calvi
Michel Colombier Claude Bolling Michel Legrand Vladimir Cosma Michel Magne Eric Demarsan Philippe Sarde Francois Roubaix Jean-Michel Bernard Martial Solal
I'm not going to pretend I know enough of the works of all the rival composers in this category.
All I'll say is Delerue is my favourite of the ones I know and, yes, Rombi is worthy name. His Swimming Pool score won me over big style. I play it much and often.
I would like to know more about them but there are hardly any available french "Golden Age" soundtracks. Paul Misraki is the only one for which I can characterize the style and I like him very much as well.
Michel Legrand is perhaps the one I am the most uneasy with in the major (film) composers.
1. Charles Koechlin 2. Andre Jolivet 3. Andre Caplet 4. Jean Prodromides 5. Pierre Jansen 6. Edgard Varese 7. Henri Dutilleux 8. Olivier Messiaen 9. Florent Schmitt 10. Antoine Duhamel