The International Film Music Critics Association (IFMCA) today announced the winners of the 2023 IFMCA Awards for excellence in musical scoring.

The award for Score of the Year goes to American composer John Williams, for his score for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, the fifth film in the series. The score also won the award for its genre, being named Best Score for an Action/Adventure film.

This is John Williams’s fifth Score of the Year victory, having previously won for Memoirs of a Geisha in 2005, War Horse in 2011, Star Wars: The Force Awakens in 2015, and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker in 2019. These wins also take Williams’s all-time IFMCA win tally to 21, not including those for archival releases of his older scores, making him the most-awarded composer in IFMCA history.

IFMCA member James Southall praised Dial of Destiny as “a nostalgic throwback to those great times of the past – a set of meticulously-composed new music by one of the greatest film composers we’ve ever had – an exhibition in skill and technique with the orchestra which is guaranteed to go beyond almost any other film music we hear this year.” IFMCA member Christian Clemmensen said that the score was “an especially gratifying treat and an immense pleasure to hear in the 2020’s… it continues to espouse the uniquely superior aspects of Williams’s writing from decades past”. Similarly, IFMCA member Anton Smit said the score was “a fantastic listening experience from start to finish… a masterpiece… one of the highlights of this final phase of John Williams’ career.”

American composer Christopher Young is named Composer of the Year, and also wins two awards for his score for The Piper, a music-themed horror film. This is Young’s first win for Composer of the Year; he was previously nominated in 2000 and 2009.

This year, the IFMCA presented the Kyle Renick Special Award to Young and his new score for the classic 1922 German expressionist horror film Nosferatu: Eine Symphonie Des Grauens directed by F. W. Murnau. Young was commissioned to write a new score by the Europäische FilmPhilharmonie to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the film, and it had its world premiere performance in February 2023 at the Tonhalle in Zürich, Switzerland, conducted by Frank Strobel.

The various other genre awards are won by: Ludwig Göransson for the critically acclaimed biopic drama Oppenheimer, Laura Karpman for the satirical comedy American Fiction, Naoki Sato for the Japanese monster fantasy-sci-fi epic Godzilla Minus One, Joe Hisaishi for the beautiful Japanese animated film The Boy and the Heron, George Fenton for the BBC nature documentary Wild Isles, James Newton Howard for the WWII-set period television series All the Light We Cannot See, and Pinar Toprak and Neal Acree for the video game Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, based on the James Cameron movies.

The winners are:

SCORE OF THE YEAR

• INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY, music by John Williams

COMPOSER OF THE YEAR

• CHRISTOPHER YOUNG

BREAKTHROUGH COMPOSER OF THE YEAR

• PAWEŁ LUCEWICZ

COMPOSITION OF THE YEAR

• “Concerto for Flute and Orchestra, Movement 2” from THE PIPER, music by Christopher Young

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE FOR A DRAMA FILM

• OPPENHEIMER, music by Ludwig Göransson

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE FOR A COMEDY FILM

• AMERICAN FICTION, music by Laura Karpman

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE FOR AN ACTION/ADVENTURE FILM

• INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY, music by John Williams

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE FOR A FANTASY/SCIENCE FICTION FILM

• GOJIRA-1.0/GODZILLA MINUS ONE, music by Naoki Sato

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE FOR A HORROR/THRILLER FILM

• THE PIPER, music by Christopher Young

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE FOR AN ANIMATED FILM

• KIMITACHI WA DŌ IKIRU/THE BOY AND THE HERON, music by Joe Hisaishi

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE FOR A DOCUMENTARY

• WILD ISLES, music by George Fenton

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE FOR TELEVISION

• ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE, music by James Newton Howard

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE FOR A VIDEO GAME OR INTERACTIVE MEDIA

• AVATAR: FRONTIERS OF PANDORA, music by Pinar Toprak and Neal Acree

BEST ARCHIVAL RELEASE

• THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH/ON DANGEROUS GROUND, music by Bernard Herrmann; the Royal Scottish National Orchestra conducted by William Stromberg, album produced by Douglass Fake, liner notes by Steven Smith, album art direction by Stéphane Coëdel and Kay Marshall (Intrada)

FILM MUSIC RECORD LABEL OF THE YEAR

• INTRADA RECORDS, Douglass Fake, Roger Feigelson

ROBERTO ASCHIERI SPECIAL AWARD FOR CONTRIBUTION TO FILM MUSIC

• JON BURLINGAME

KYLE RENICK SPECIAL AWARD

• NOSFERATU: EINE SYMPHONIE DES GRAUENS, music by Christopher Young

[Based on a press release. Thanks to Steve Vertlieb for the story.]