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What do I think? Well...kudos to WatchMojo for trying, I guess?
The list is really surprising and kinda random. It got off to a very good start with JNH's Atlantis, which I agree is a somewhat underrated score, at least by the general public (but then so is the film).
I guess I might as well reproduce the list here, with my comments.
10. Atlantis: The Lost Continent (James Newton Howard) -- This for me seriously rivals Dinosaur as his best animated score (I think it is more consistently great, after the opening few tracks, than Dinosaur). I think it's generally pretty beloved by film music fans, and certainly isn't "SERIOUSLY underrated" by them, but somewhat underrated, perhaps.
9. Thor (Patrick Doyle) -- WHAT? This belongs in the seriously OVERRATED category, probably because it's a Marvel score. Sure it has its highlights (none of which they included in the video, unlike Atlantis) but full of embarrassing temp-track lifts and generic Media Ventures/Remote Control action music. You want seriously underrated Patrick Doyle? Try INTO THE WEST.
8. The Mask of Zorro (James Horner) -- Now, I love this score, but "underrated"? I'd call it a fan favorite. It's not on the level of Titanic with the general populace, but the film was a hit and the music was beloved. I also disagree with their claim that it sounds just like other Horner scores. It had a freshness about it with the flamenco percussion and general hispanic flair, despite the familiar danger theme. But as for underrated Horner, it would have been more appropriate to pick the sequel score, THE LEGEND OF ZORRO. That film was terrible and people generally wrote off the sequel score as a retread, but I actually think it is more consistent and has stronger architecture overall than the original, brilliantly developing the action theme and love theme far beyond their treatment in the first score.
7. The Last Samurai (Hans Zimmer) -- Nonsense. I like the film a lot (well...not the cheesy ending) and I even like the score, though I wish Horner had written it for Zwick who was a regular collaborator on some of his best work (and the shakuhachi could have been wild!) But seriously underrated, this is not. In fact I think very little of Zimmer's output is underrated, him being one of the most popular film composers with the general public. I guess I'd suggest SPANGLISH to be one of his best and most underrated/overlooked scores.
6. Unbreakable (James Newton Howard) -- No. JNH's pre-Avatar Shyamalan output is some of his most beloved, both by critics and fans. This may in fact be my favorite Howard score, in the film -- it was haunting and gave me weird dreams for weeks. But "underrated" when it's rated so highly?
5. Taxi Driver (Bernard Herrmann) -- Considering the rest of the list, I'm shocked they included a title from before 1980. That said, I think this is one of Herrmann's most remembered scores, since the film itself is popular and the popular director is still working and in the public eye. I would've been impressed if they picked something like ON DANGEROUS GROUND.
4. Hook (John Williams) -- I guess I can see where they're coming from since the film is often dismissed, but I think it's still in the affectionate public consciousness to a degree. More appropriate picks would have been JANE EYRE or THE COWBOYS or DRACULA, but then again, those are OLD, right?
3. Oblivion (M83 & Joseph Trapanese) -- Mystifying. I guess it was better than expected, but top 10 seriously underrated of all time? Nonsense.
2. The Prince of Egypt (Hans Zimmer) -- BONKERS! This is one of his most beloved scores! Even people who generally HATE Zimmer often love this score! And sorry, but they are dumb for focusing on the songs in the video when he didn't write them. Plus, at the beginning of the video they stipulate that a film needs to not be song-heavy to be considered. This film has many songs which integrate with the score, so should have been disqualified on their own criteria.
1. Conan the Barbarian (Basil Poledouris) -- ...and they saved the most RIDICULOUS pick for last. This great work is seriously one of the most popular film scores of all time, with fans, with critics, and with the general public. People who love the film love the score. People who hate the film still like the score. Hell, I even recently discovered that people who don't like Basil Poledouris still like this score! This is like picking El Cid, or The Magnificent Seven, or The Pink Panther. Hell, it's almost like picking Titanic or Star Wars or The Nightmare Before Christmas! Conan the Barbarian underrated? Hah! Especially mystifying because there is a lot of Poledouris which IS seriously underrated (not by fans, but by the general public)...Les Miserables, It's My Party, Quigley Down Under, or heck, Flesh + Blood if they want something Conan-y.
And the #1 reason for disqualifying this list: no Jerry Goldsmith. Yes, he's beloved by film music geeks like us, but he's written SO MUCH film music that is underrated and overlooked by the general public. And they put a flash of Gremlins at the beginning of the video, so they clearly know he exists. So where was he???
I would also note, no John Scott, or Bruce Broughton, or Elmer Bernstein, or...
But they made room for two Zimmers and M83! Sigh.
Yavar
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I would put as the most underrated...
Twilight's Last Gleaming
Will Penny
My Favorite Year
Cat Ballou
The Devil's Brigade
The Bridge at Remagen
The Killer Elite
Cross of Iron
All the President's Men
Brubaker
Who's Minding the Mint
Posse - Jarre
The Russians are Coming
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Well, that's WatchMojo, they make lists, they use their criteria, their lists are no more "valid" than anybody elses... they do it to entertain, to get discussions, it is their opinion. There must bei hundreds of excellent film scores few people know so they could be considered "underrated".
I'd say the list is good though. Yeah, scores like UNBREAKABLE, LAST SAMURAI and CONAN are well known and beloved HERE, at film score boards... but we are in the know. The general public hardly knows film composers (perhaps aside from Zimmer, Williams, and Morricone), and even movie goers don't pay all that much attention to the music. So if you make a list with the "top" film scores, you'd have STAR WARS and JAWS and GODFATHER and THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY etc... but not UNBREAKABLE... so it's an ok list. But naturally, anybody is free to disagree or make up a different list.
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True. Still, I think a score like CONAN also has wide crossover appeal. I don't think I've ever encountered anyone -- neither film score fans nor other culturally aware people -- who didn't like this. It's probably the most, unanimously liked score of all time.
I agree, CONAN is actually more one of those beloved and noticed scores even by the more general movie going public.
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If by underrated, you mean there's not a lot of discussion about them here, then here are a few I might add to the list, in no particular order:
1. THE FOXES OF HARROW (1947) - credited to David Buttolph, though I've heard rumors Alfred Newman had a hand in it. Miraculously released by SAE, and still available, it's a really wonderful score for a considerably dated story. (River gambler Rex Harrison weds New Orleans belle Maureen O'Hara, with a lot of racist elements thrown in. I don't think we'll ever see a remake of this, especially that scene where O'Hara uses a bullwhip to threaten the black slaves to bring in the sugar crop during a storm.)
2. FAHRENHEIT 451 (1966) - Bernard Herrmann's great score, re-recorded by Morgan & Stromberg, which actually sounds better than the actual film soundtrack, as well as additional, unused music. Second only in my estimation to his GHOST AND MRS. MUIR, FAHRENHEIT musically describes a world without print, and that finale is one of my favorite music sequences ever written. Sublime.
3. MARIE WARD (1986) - Lovely Elmer Bernstein score that was at least released on CD, though the film seemed to have disappeared quickly.
4. MRS. WINTERBOURNE (1996) - Patrick Doyle wrote a lovely score for a kind of questionable rom-com. The movie occasionally turns up on cable, but the score is gorgeous, and deserves more attention. (Doyle has written so many beautiful scores that I could devote a whole list to a number of favorites that seem to have slipped under the radar.)
5. THE GIFT (2000) - Curious, occult-themed film, with a stellar cast, including Cate Blanchett and Keanu Reeves, no less, as a backwoods cracker, but with a kind of country-sounding music score, with plaintive strings, written by Christopher Young, certainly one of his best. (I once met him at a gathering, and told him this; he was grateful and friendly enough that he autographed my copy with a really nice salutation.)
6. LITTLE BUDDHA (1993) - Ryuichi Sakamoto seems really underrated around here. I was first aware of his work on THE LAST EMPEROR, for which he shared an Oscar, but LITTLE BUDDHA, the next film Bertolucci made after that, is a haunting tale about a blond American boy who may be the reincarnation of a Tibetan monk. The score is wonderful, particularly that final elegy. The movie, and the CD, disappeared almost immediately upon release. I saw the film several times, and I still cherish the score. (I try to get every score of Sakamoto's; later ones haven't seemed as profound, but I still get them.)
7. CHARLOTTE GRAY (2002) - Another Cate Blanchett film, with her playing a Resistance agent in WWII France, with a great score by Stephen Warbeck, who is himself an underrated composer. (Well, maybe not all that underrated; he did win an Oscar for his score for SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE, which I also love, but nobody here talks about that much either...)
8. HERCULES (1958) - Essentially the sword-and-sandal film that started a trend, this picture was made on the cheap in Italy, then marketed all over the planet by Joseph E. Levine. Though the score was finally released, on a 2-CD set with HERCULES UNCHAINED, which is also good, hardly anyone ever talks about it, and the composer, as far as I can tell, Enzo Massetti, isn't known for anything else. But a gorgeous score nonetheless.
9. CARRINGTON (1995) - Plaintive, yearning score by Michael Nyman for a biographical film about the British intellectual set pre-WWI, with marvelous performances by Emma Thompson and Jonathan Pryce. Nyman also wrote a great score for the remake of THE END OF THE AFFAIR, which I also love, but he certainly isn't much discussed, let alone admired, in these parts.
10. THE TIME MACHINE (2002) - Klaus Badelt wrote a very good score for this not-so-great remake, which apparently became entangled in references to the World Trade Center, specifically a sequence involving pieces of the broken Moon hurtling to Earth, destroying it, had to be removed after 9/11. The film works well up until the hero encounters the Eloi in the future. Wonderful score, though; made me want to get all of Badelt's releases since then, which have not reached the same level.
I can name more, as I think of them. There are plenty of great scores over the years that have slipped under the radar on these boards. (And, I must admit, though I do love a number of Goldsmith's scores, I am not a Goldsmith completist, and have even let go of a lot of the ones I've accumulated over the years. Can't really include anything of his here, since all of it seems to be discussed here ad infinitum nauseamque. The major composers seem to get a lot of attention for practically everything they've written. Even my inclusion of the Herrmann FAHRENHEIT may be questionable, since it's hardly been unnoticed, unlike a lot of others I've mentioned.)
More later.
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1. Conan the Barbarian (Basil Poledouris) -- ...and they saved the most RIDICULOUS pick for last. This great work is seriously one of the most popular film scores of all time, with fans, with critics, and with the general public. People who love the film love the score. People who hate the film still like the score. Hell, I even recently discovered that people who don't like Basil Poledouris still like this score! This is like picking El Cid, or The Magnificent Seven, or The Pink Panther. Hell, it's almost like picking Titanic or Star Wars or The Nightmare Before Christmas! Conan the Barbarian underrated? Hah! Especially mystifying because there is a lot of Poledouris which IS seriously underrated (not by fans, but by the general public)...Les Miserables, It's My Party, Quigley Down Under, or heck, Flesh + Blood if they want something Conan-y.
I remember back in the 90's there was a documentary on film scores. It's been a long time, but I know it featured Williams and Goldsmith. I'm not sure who else would have been the "obvious" choices. (Horner?) But it featured Poledouris. And he was billed as "Composer of Conan the Barbarian". The people watching it with me giggled and said things like "Wow, how did THIS guy get in here?" I then had to list off everything ELSE he had done that they had no idea about.
So maybe by those lights Conan is underrated.
Otherwise? Pretty much everything you said.
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I think of underrated as being underappreciated, not paid attention to as much as most for a wide variety of possible reasons, but wonderful gems nonetheless and worthy of more focus, admiration, discussion and recognition. For many of the ones I listed earlier in this thread, they are overshadowed by more famous or popular works by their respective composers.
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