James Horner

The Profile

James Horner (1953–2015) was an American film composer renowned for sweeping, emotive scores. He won two Academy Awards for Titanic and scored landmark films including Braveheart, Apollo 13, Aliens, and Avatar.

Academy Award–winning American composer; frequent collaborator with James Cameron and Ron Howard; composed scores for over 100 film and television projects; died in 2015 in a plane crash in California.

One intensely poetic review celebrates James Horner’s Titanic score, praising its sweeping orchestration and emotional power. The piece highlights brass, strings, and rhythmic tension, and nods to Celine Dion’s song as impactful yet secondary. Publicly, Horner is known as an American, Oscar-winning film composer behind major scores like Braveheart and Apollo 13.