1970s and 1980s Zimmer began his career playing keyboards and synthesizers in the 1970s, with the band Krakatoa. He worked with
the Buggles, a
new wave band formed in London in 1977 with
Trevor Horn,
Geoff Downes and
Bruce Woolley. Zimmer can be seen briefly in the Buggles' music video for the 1979 song "
Video Killed the Radio Star". After working with the Buggles, he started to work for the Italian group
Krisma, a
new wave band formed in 1976 with
Maurizio Arcieri and Christina Moser. He was a featured synthesist for Krisma's third album,
Cathode Mamma. He has also worked with the band
Helden (with
Warren Cann from
Ultravox). In 1980, Zimmer co-produced a single, "
History of the World, Part 1", with, and for, UK punk band
The Damned, which was also included on their 1980 LP release,
The Black Album, and carried the description of his efforts as "Over-Produced by Hans Zimmer." While living in London, Zimmer wrote advertising jingles for Air-Edel Associates. In the 1980s, Zimmer partnered with
Stanley Myers, a prolific film composer who wrote the scores for over sixty films. Zimmer and Myers co–founded the London–based Lillie Yard recording studio. Together, Myers and Zimmer worked on fusing the traditional orchestral sound with electronic instruments. Some of the films on which Zimmer and Myers worked are
Moonlighting (1982),
Success Is the Best Revenge (1984),
Insignificance (1985), and
My Beautiful Laundrette (1985). Zimmer's first solo score was
Terminal Exposure for director
Nico Mastorakis in 1987, for which he also wrote the songs. Zimmer acted as score producer for the 1987 film
The Last Emperor, which won the
Academy Award for Best Original Score. A turning point in Zimmer's career occurred with the 1988 film
Rain Man. In the score, Zimmer uses synthesizers, mostly a
Fairlight CMI, mixed with
steel drums. Zimmer explained that "It was a
road movie, and road movies usually have jangly guitars or a bunch of strings. I kept thinking don't be bigger than the characters. Try to keep it contained. The Raymond character doesn't actually know where he is. The world is so different to him. He might as well be on Mars. So, why don't we just invent our own world music for a world that doesn't really exist?" Zimmer's score for
Rain Man was nominated for an
Academy Award in 1989, and the film won four Academy Awards including
Best Picture. A year after
Rain Man, Zimmer was asked to compose the score for
Bruce Beresford's
Driving Miss Daisy which, like
Rain Man, won an Academy Award for Best Picture.
Driving Miss Daisy's instrumentation consisted entirely of synthesizers and
samplers, played by Zimmer. According to an interview with
Sound on Sound magazine in 2002, the piano sounds heard within the score come from the
Roland MKS–20, a rackmount synthesizer. Zimmer joked: "It didn't sound anything like a piano, but it behaved like a piano."
1990s and 2000s The soundtrack to
Ridley Scott's 1991 film
Thelma & Louise by Zimmer featured the trademark
slide guitar performance by
Pete Haycock on the "Thunderbird" theme in the film. As a teenager, Zimmer was a fan of Haycock, and their collaboration on film scores includes
K2 and
Drop Zone. Zimmer wrote the theme for
Tony Scott's 1993 film
True Romance, which he based on
Carl Orff's
Gassenhauer.
Gassenhauer had previously been used in the 1973 film
Badlands, which had a similar story of a young man and a girl on the run following a violent crime. The catchy theme, played on nine
marimbas, contrasts starkly with the violence of the film. For the 1992 film
The Power of One, Zimmer travelled to Africa in order to use African choirs and drums in the recording of the score. On the strength of this work,
Walt Disney Animation Studios approached Zimmer to compose the score for the 1994 film
The Lion King. This was to be his first score for an animated film. Zimmer said that he had wanted to go to South Africa to record parts of the soundtrack, but was unable to visit the country as he had a police record there "for doing 'subversive' movies" after his work on
The Power of One. Disney studio bosses expressed fears that Zimmer would be killed if he went to South Africa, so the recording of the choirs was organised during a visit by
Lebo M. Zimmer won numerous awards for his work on
The Lion King, including an
Academy Award for
Best Original Score, a
Golden Globe, and two
Grammys. In 1997, the score was adapted into a
Broadway musical version which won the
Tony Award for Best Musical in 1998. , the musical version of
The Lion King is the highest grossing Broadway show of all time, having grossed $853.8 million. Zimmer's score for
Tony Scott's 1995 film
Crimson Tide won a Grammy Award for the main theme, which makes heavy use of synthesizers in place of traditional orchestral instruments. For
The Thin Red Line (1998), Zimmer said that the director
Terrence Malick wanted the music before he started filming, so he recorded six and a half hours of music. The piece has been used in numerous trailers and video games, and has earned the nickname "the forbidden cue" due to the tendency of film makers to use it as a
temp track for dramatic scenes. '' premiere in 2008 In the 2000s, Zimmer composed scores for Hollywood blockbuster films including three Ridley Scott films,
Gladiator (2000),
Black Hawk Down and
Hannibal (2001), followed by
The Last Samurai (2003),
Madagascar (2005),
The Da Vinci Code (2006),
The Simpsons Movie (2007),
Kung Fu Panda (2008), which he co-composed with
John Powell,
Angels & Demons (2009), and
Sherlock Holmes (2009). Other work in the 2000s included the Spanish language film
Casi Divas, and
The Burning Plain (2009). He composed the theme for the television boxing series
The Contender and worked with
Lorne Balfe on the music for
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which was his first video game project. Zimmer also collaborated with composers
Borislav Slavov and Tilman Sillescu to create the music score for the video game
Crysis 2. In October 2000, Zimmer performed live in concert for the first time with an orchestra and choir at the 27th Annual Flanders International Film Festival in
Ghent. While writing the score for
The Last Samurai, Zimmer felt that his knowledge of
Japanese music was extremely limited. He began doing extensive research, but the more he studied, the less he felt he knew. Zimmer took what he had written to Japan for feedback and was shocked when he was asked how he knew so much about Japanese music. Bruckheimer wanted Zimmer to rescore the film, but due to his commitments on
The Last Samurai, the task of composing and supervising music for
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl was given to
Klaus Badelt, one of Zimmer's colleagues at
Media Ventures. Zimmer provided some themes that were used in the film, although he is not credited on screen. Zimmer was hired as the composer for the three subsequent films in the series, ''
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006), Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007), and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011), collaborating with Rodrigo y Gabriela for the last. The scores for these films were disqualified from receiving Academy Award nominations for Best Original Score due to too many composers being listed on the cue sheet. Zimmer succeeded in reversing the decision not to nominate The Dark Knight
in December 2008, arguing that the process of creating a modern film score was collaborative and that it was important to credit a range of people who had played a part in its production. Zimmer explained his approach to scoring with other musicians in an interview with Soundtrack.net'' in 2006: For the 2009 film
Sherlock Holmes,
Daily Variety reported that Zimmer purchased an out-of-tune piano for 200 dollars and used it throughout the scoring process because of its "quirkiness". For the 2011 sequel,
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, Zimmer and director
Guy Ritchie incorporated authentic
Romani music, which they researched by visiting Slovakia, Italy, and France. The music in the film is played by Romani musicians.
2010s For the 2010 film
Inception, Zimmer used electronic manipulation of the song "
Non, je ne regrette rien". The horn sound in the score, described by Zimmer as "like huge foghorns over a city" became a popular feature in
film trailers. "It's funny how that sort of thing becomes part of the
zeitgeist", he said. "But I suppose that's exactly what trailers are looking for: something iconic, lasts less than a second, and shakes the seats in the theater." In 2012, Zimmer composed and produced the music for the
84th Academy Awards with
Pharrell Williams of
The Neptunes. He also composed a new version of the theme music for
ABC World News. Zimmer composed the score for
The Dark Knight Rises, the final instalment of Christopher Nolan's
The Dark Knight Trilogy. The film was released in July 2012. Zimmer described himself as "devastated" in the aftermath of the
2012 Aurora, Colorado shooting, which occurred at a screening of
The Dark Knight Rises: "I just feel so incredibly sad for these people." He recorded a track entitled "Aurora", a choral arrangement of a theme from the
Dark Knight Rises soundtrack, to raise money for the victims of the shooting. Zimmer co-composed the music for the television series
The Bible, which was broadcast in March 2013, with
Lorne Balfe and
Lisa Gerrard, and the score for
12 Years a Slave, which won the
Academy Award for Best Picture in March 2014. Zimmer composed the
Tomorrowland Hymn for the
Tomorrowland festival to celebrate its tenth anniversary in July 2014. Zimmer composed the music for the 2014 film
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 alongside "The Magnificent Six", which consisted of
Pharrell Williams,
Johnny Marr,
Michael Einziger,
Junkie XL, Andrew Kawczynski, and Steve Mazzaro. Zimmer composed the music for Christopher Nolan's 2014 film
Interstellar, which earned him another Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score. He collaborated with Junkie XL to compose the music for the 2016 film
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. In an interview with BBC News in March 2016, Zimmer said that he was retiring from composing the music for
superhero films, saying of
Batman v Superman: "This one was very hard for me to do, to try to find new language". Zimmer composed the main theme for the 2016 BBC nature documentary
Planet Earth II, presented by
David Attenborough. He later composed the score for the 2017 BBC nature documentary
Blue Planet II alongside Jacob Shea and David Fleming, also presented by David Attenborough. In an interview with
Kirsty Wark on BBC Radio, Zimmer said in October 2022: "I think the only work that I've done that's worth anything is working for Sir David Attenborough on those programmes, because it's the only thing that actually means something to this world and ultimately might have an impact on how we approach this world." Zimmer composed the main theme for the 2016
Netflix production
The Crown. Also in 2016 Zimmer released an online course teaching the basics of film scoring. He next composed the score for Christopher Nolan's 2017 film
Dunkirk, basing part of the score on a recording of a ticking watch that he had been given by Nolan. Zimmer also worked on the score for
Denis Villeneuve's
Blade Runner 2049. Hans Zimmer and co-composer
Benjamin Wallfisch took over scoring duties after
Jóhann Jóhannsson left the project. In 2018, Zimmer composed the score for the new
FIFA Anthem, called "Living Football" in reference to the new motto of FIFA, "Living Football" was also used as television intro theme for the
2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia. Also in 2018, Zimmer remixed the
UEFA Champions League Anthem with rapper
Vince Staples for EA Sports'
FIFA video game
FIFA 19, with it also featuring in the game's reveal trailer. Zimmer composed the score for
Dark Phoenix, directed by
Simon Kinberg, contrary to his 2016 statements of not scoring another superhero film following his experience working on
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. In 2019, he scored the
photorealistic animated remake of Disney's
The Lion King, directed by
Jon Favreau. In August 2018, Zimmer was announced as the composer for
Wonder Woman 1984. In March 2019, it was announced that Zimmer would be scoring
Denis Villeneuve's
Dune. In June 2019, Zimmer was hired to create sounds for
BMW's concept vehicle, the
Vision M Next. He produced and composed
warning sounds for the electric car line. These sounds are both for those on the interior and on the exterior, and could help warn pedestrians that an electric car is approaching.
2020s at the
Royal Albert Hall in London in October 2022 during
The Sound of 007 in Concert On 6 January 2020, Zimmer took over as composer for the
James Bond film
No Time to Die after previous composer
Dan Romer left the project. Speaking on scoring for
No Time to Die, Zimmer told
The Hindu, "Having done the three
Batman movies—which are three movies to you but are 12 years of my life to me—I really understand where
Daniel [Craig] was with this; he dedicated 16 years of his life to Bond... I wanted to not only do a good score but dig a little deeper and honour the man, the work and all the people who've been working on this for so long". On 26 February 2020,
Major League Soccer released an anthem for its
25th season, which was composed by Zimmer. In March 2020, Zimmer composed the score for
Hillbilly Elegy. In 2022, he collaborated with
Camila Cabello on the song "Take Me Back Home" for the documentary series
Frozen Planet II.
Aurora also worked with Zimmer, contributing vocals to the series' soundtrack and performing "Take Me Back Home" alongside Zimmer at the
Royal Albert Hall during the BBC's Earth Proms. Zimmer worked on the 2022 film
Top Gun: Maverick, contributing to the main title credits and other tracks. Zimmer composed the score for the film
Dune (2021), which earned him his second
Academy Award for Best Original Score. The
film's music was released in several different volumes. He composed the score for the
sequel, released in 2024. Both films heavily featured the use of the
Armenian duduk. , Zimmer has begun writing music for a
third Dune film while Villeneuve has started on the film's script. In 2025, Zimmer scored
F1, a sports film starring
Brad Pitt and directed by
Joseph Kosinski. In 2025, Zimmer was announced as one of three composers for
Zack Snyder's upcoming film
The Last Photograph, collaborating with Omer Benyamin and Steven Doar on the project's score. Zimmer said that he had turned down multiple offers to compose for films in the
Marvel Cinematic Universe, explaining that he was "looking for other things" and that scheduling played a role in his decision. == Personal life ==