1990–2009 Desplat has composed extensively for
French cinema, Hollywood, and incidental music for over 100 films, including
Lapse of Memory (1992),
Family Express (1992),
Regarde Les Hommes Tomber (1994),
Les Péchés Mortels (1995), César-nominated
Un Héros Très Discret (1996),
Une Minute de Silence (1998),
Sweet Revenge (1998),
Le Château des Singes (1999), ''Reines d'un Jour
(2001), the César-nominated Sur mes lèvres (2002), Rire et Châtiment
(2003), Syriana (2005), the César-winner The Beat That My Heart Skipped (2005), The Queen (2006), Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 (2010), The Ghost Writer'' (2010),
Daniel Auteuil's remake of
La Fille du Puisatier (2011),
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 (2011) and
The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014). Desplat has composed individual songs that have been sung in films by such artists as
Akhenaton,
Kate Beckinsale,
Charlotte Gainsbourg,
Valérie Lemercier, Miosotis and
Catherine Ringer. He has also written music for the theatre, including pieces performed at the
Comédie Française. Desplat has conducted performances of his music played by the
London Symphony Orchestra, the
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the
Munich Symphony Orchestra. Desplat has also given
Master Classes at
La Sorbonne in Paris and the
Royal College of Music in London. In 2007, he composed the scores for
Philip Pullman's
Golden Compass;
Zach Helm's
BAFTA nominated directorial debut ''
Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium with American composer Aaron Zigman; and the Ang Lee movie Lust, Caution. Prior to these break-out works, he contributed scores for The Luzhin Defence, Girl with a Pearl Earring, Syriana, Birth, Hostage, Casanova and The Nest.'' For
The Painted Veil, he won the
Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score,
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Music, and the 2006 World Soundtrack Award. He won the 2007 BMI Film Music Award, 2007 World Soundtrack Award,
2007 European Film Award, and received his first
Academy Award nomination for
Best Original Score for
The Queen. He also won the Silver Berlin Bear at the
Berlin Film Festival for Best Film Music in
The Beat that My Heart Skipped. In 2008, Desplat received his second Oscar nomination for
David Fincher's
Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Desplat received his third Oscar nomination and a
BAFTA nomination for
Fantastic Mr. Fox in 2010, both of which were won by
Michael Giacchino for
Up. Desplat has composed music for
Largo Winch, based on the Belgian comic;
Afterwards a French-Canadian psychological thriller film directed by
Gilles Bourdos in English;
Anne Fontaine's
Coco avant Chanel, based on the life of designer
Coco Chanel;
Robert Guédiguian's ''
L'Armée du Crime; Cheri, reuniting him with director Stephen Frears, whom he collaborated with on The Queen
; Un Prophète reuniting with director Jacques Audiard; Julie & Julia directed by Nora Ephron; Fantastic Mr. Fox, directed by Wes Anderson and based on the novel by Roald Dahl; New Moon'', directed by
Chris Weitz;
Roman Polanski's
Ghost Writer;
Tamara Drewe;
The Special Relationship; and ''
The King's Speech'' which earned Desplat his fourth Oscar nomination.
2010–2019 In early 2011, Desplat began to write the music to
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2, which would earn him a nomination for
Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media at the
54th Annual Grammy Awards. He reunited with director
David Yates, who offered Desplat the opportunity to score the second part after his work on the
Part 1 soundtrack in 2010 "enchanted everyone in the control room". Desplat's soundtrack sequel to the 2008 film
Largo Winch was released in 2011 and was well received. Desplat's 2011 projects included
The Tree of Life, directed by
Terrence Malick (which he actually recorded in early 2010),
A Better Life,
La Fille du Puisatier, Roman Polanski's
Carnage,
George Clooney's
Ides of March, and the logo for the French film company
StudioCanal. Desplat started 2012 with
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, the Florent Emilio Siri-directed biopic
Cloclo, and DreamWorks Animation's
Rise of the Guardians. His other scores of 2013 included
Rust and Bone,
Zero Dark Thirty, and
Argo, the latter of which earned him Oscar, Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations. In June 2013, Desplat's first Concerto for Flute & Orchestra premiered in France with flautist Jean Ferrandis and the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire conducted by John Axelrod. His Trois Etudes for piano originally written for pianist
Lang Lang had its U.S. premiere in October 2013 played by pianist Gloria Cheng. He received a sixth Oscar nomination for his score to
Philomena, which marked his fourth collaboration with director
Stephen Frears. On 23 June 2014, it was announced that Desplat would head the jury at the
71st Venice International Film Festival. He wrote five major scores during 2014, with
The Grand Budapest Hotel winning him his first Academy Award. His score for
The Imitation Game was also nominated, and his win therefore marked the first time a composer had won against another of their own scores since John Williams won for
Star Wars (beating
Close Encounters of the Third Kind) in 1978, and only the seventh time overall (
Alfred Newman,
Bernard Herrmann,
Max Steiner,
Miklos Rozsa and
Johnny Green are the only other composers to achieve this). On 16 March 2015, It was announced that Desplat would be composing the first anthology film of the new Disney Star Wars films, called
Rogue One. In September 2016, he stepped down due to the reshoots of the film that left him unavailable, and was then replaced by
Michael Giacchino. In 2018, he won his second Academy Award for
The Shape of Water and premiered a new work for solo flute played by Emmanuel Pahud. == Personal life ==