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Now that the summer is as done and dusted as a whole bunch of Targaryen bastards in front of a dragon, it’s time to update our list of the best television scores of 2024. We’re doing this in line with the IndieWire Craft team’s best television cinematography of 2024 list, as well, and making sure we keep track of the music that helps TV shows bridge time and space, pull off stunning reveals, and soar to new emotional heights, We’ve already seen (and heard!) music that has amped up the emotion of their stories far beyond the small screen.
There are several expected culprits in the mix, of course — it seems like Jeff Russo and his team are as consistent as the United States Postal Service, delivering at least one straight-up musical banger every six months come rain or snow; Ramin Djawadi is already responsible for not one but three intricately fantastic worlds made more relatable through his music. And Siddhartha Khosla makes his triumphant return with just a little bit of an L.A. vibe for “Only Murders in the Building” Season 4.
Still, even among TV score stalwarts, there are plenty of wonderful and well-earned surprises this year. We’ve had great, fresh twists on existing sounds from second seasons and remakes alike; we’ve had gleefully twisted takes on classical sounds that help create a sense of playfulness in what might otherwise be quite stuffy settings; and we’ve had some genuinely tender, haunting music that helps the drama of their series have true staying power.
Read on for our favorite television scores of 2024.
Television shows are listed in alphabetical order. This article also features contributions by Jim Hemphill.
‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ — Takeshi Furukawa
We had to consult the ancient sages (the IndieWire deputy editors) to make sure that Takeshi Furukawa’s work on Netflix’s live-action remake of the beloved animated series counts — in part because Furukawa so judiciously selects and expands upon the original series’ most iconic musical themes composed by Jeremy Zuckerman. But Furukawa’s original work on the series is a beautiful synthesis of all the elements of musical composition. This “Avatar: The Last Airbender” score has a sense of fullness in its sound, a sense of scope, that creates the kind of richness and beauty to the world of the Four Nations that is a match for the original animation, and then some. —SS
‘Bridgerton’ — Kris Bowers
There’s probably a separate entry we could write just on the string quartet covers in the ballroom sequences — and a few steamy scenes besides — every season on “Bridgerton.” But Kris Bowers’ original score work for the Netflix series is equally worthy of your regard, dear reader. There’s just enough fidelity to period instruments, just enough attention paid to classical and neoclassical forms, but Bowers finds freedom in incorporating a more modern approach to rhythm, tempo, and harmony. The result is a sound that puts the viewer inside the mind and emotions of the characters dancing around each other, while still sounding fancy AF. In other words, the music of “Bridgerton” goes a long way towards transporting the viewer into the wish-fulfillment of finding one’s true Regency love. — SS
‘House of the Dragon’ — Ramin Djawadi
There’s a lot we can say about how the music on “House of the Dragon” helps the show feel as epic as it ought, giving the world of Westeros almost its own acting beats in the moments of highest emotion and grandest scope. Djawadi’s marathon work on the dragon duel at the Battle of Rook’s Rest really is something else, creating a sense of unstoppable momentum and then equally unstoppable terror. But the small moments of discord, of musical ideas wanting to come together but just not quite managing it, are laced throughout the season and help the show sell the tragedy of a civil war so many people want to prevent but that no one can stop. It also feels like a small feat that the “House of the Dragon” score keeps finding musical gear shifts and new emotional notes to hit; it’s not just two seasons but, if we count “Game of Thrones” — and the “GoT” main theme is still the opening credits so it seems like we should — 10 seasons into Djawadi’s tenure as composer. He truly is a maester. —SS
‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’ — Bear McCreary
We’re so back, Istari. “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” Season 2 picks up right where Season 1 left off, and so does Bear McCreary’s score. The music is often the truest of travel companions for this show, making us feel like we’re really in Middle Earth with themes that provide a sense of place and personality and rhythms that feel like the distant kindred of Howard Shore’s work on the Peter Jackson film trilogy, but never copies. McCreary does this with choirs and big orchestras and almost an operatic sensibility beyond even what we expect with the biggest film soundtracks. The music feels as huge as the armies of evil and as powerful as the small hope of good inside the heart of a Harfoot. But the benefit of television is time, and there’s equal pleasure in seeing McCreary develop and vary his already established themes. The heroes in “Rings of Power” need to choose good again and again, and McCreary’s music makes those choices feel earned when they succeed and heartbreaking when they fail. —SS
‘Only Murders in the Building’ — Siddhartha Khosla
Siddhartha Khosla’s work on Season 4 of Hulu’s “Only Murders in the Building” is, like the rest of us, clearly having fun at this point. Which is exactly what it should be doing, after all the work that went into the Broadway musical numbers last season. There’s maybe a little bit more drama on the keys and some more insistent strings around Charles’ (Steve Martin) secrets in his past if you listen hard — which feels like the right fit for the Hollywood adaptation of the “Only Murders” podcast that’s on the make this season. But Khosla’s work is a great example of music that sets mood and creates a sense of momentum without drawing attention away from the bullet casings and snipers’ nests our crew is out to investigate. It comes in at the exact moment it needs to, just like the perfect clue. —SS
‘Pachinko’ — Nico Muhly
The score for “Pachinko” Season 2 is, somehow, even deeper and bolder than the work Nico Muhly did on the first season of the generation-spanning Apple TV+ family drama. There’s an embrace of dissonance and occasionally of nervous percussion that never overwhelms but just thrums underneath the plaintive strings and piano work. The changes aren’t that drastic, really, the score doesn’t sound radically different. But it especially matches the Baek family’s experience of World War II, feeling as emotionally close to them as the coats on their backs. Muhly has always found beautiful and extremely elegant musical connections between the characters, but he adds this almost imperceptible sense of fracture in how his compositions build, repeat, dissipate, and, finally, crescendo; in Season 2 more than ever, the “Pachinko” score makes us feel time — that the time between the characters is as poignant as the choices they make. —SS
‘Palm Royale’ — Jeff Toyne
Jeff Toyne’s score is flawless in a way the characters on the show will never, ever get to be — and therein lies the irony that helps make the Apple TV+ show so funny. This score kind of gets to have it all. There’s a blend of sweeping strings with a fuller, brassier sound underneath, more delicate, mysterious chimes, and, of course, a hell of a lot of jazz that’s a hell of a lot of fun. The versatility allows the “Palm Royale” score to swing fully into the mode of one character or another or pull back and have perspective on all of their shenanigans. The liveliness — and life — in the music matches the strength of the emotions; however petty those might be, the music is anything but. —SS
‘The Regime’ — Alexandre Desplat and Alex Heffes
Comedy is a hard thing to score because, as composer Alexandre Desplat will tell you, music isn’t funny. But the music of “The Regime,” composed by both Desplat and Alex Heffes, is able to create a sense of off-kilter absurdity that makes what’s happening onscreen very funny indeed. One of the great pleasures of this score is how it develops over the show’s run of six episodes, getting darker, knottier, less orchestral, and more militaristic as the titular regime of Kate Winslet’s dictator, Elena Varnham, totters on the brink of collapse. Desplat and Heffes find sneaky instrument pairings and rhythmic choices to trip up the listener and keep us guessing at Elena’s true state of mind. When the musical moment of honesty does come, it’s after one hell of a ride. — SS
‘Ripley’ — Jeff Russo
Ah, Italy. Jeff Russo’s score for “Ripley” is, of course, suitably brooding and mysterious when it needs to be. But it also features some of the darkest, richest, most delicious guitar picking on either side of the Adriatic. There’s a real old-school pleasure to the instrumental and compositional choices here that nonetheless avoid feeling generic in any way. Russo also displays a patience and a restraint on the music, letting thematic statements settle like smoke and honing in on variations of key themes that, when they reappear ever so slightly changed, have an even bigger impact than before. Maybe it’s down to composing music for pictures that are so lushly black and white, but the “Ripley” score just feels classic. —SS
‘Shogun’ — Atticus Ross, Leopold Ross, Nick Chuba
The music of “Shogun” is as strategic and as powerful as Toranaga’s (Hiroyuki Sanada) master plan to take over Japan. There isn’t a wall-to-wall score here, as one might expect a period or fantasy epic to employ, and the sounds that Atticus Ross, Leopold Ross, and Nick Chuba focus on are also a little eclectic. Electric, growling melodies mesh with Japanese instruments and the combination creates a sense of profound and alluring strangeness. Like a well-placed retainer, though, the score for “Shogun” only appears when the time is right, amping up the momentum of a sequence or cementing our view of a character so that the choice they’re making feels inevitable. That’s where the epicness comes from, really: a sound that echoes out and offers no sense of escape. —SS
‘Tokyo Vice’ — Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans
Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans’ score for “Tokyo Vice” avoids the obvious clichés in favor of a timeless, haunting quality that completely immerses the viewer in the richly detailed world journalist Jake Adelstein enters when he begins covering the Tokyo crime beat. While the composers employ a variety of Japanese instruments, they do it with a subtlety that keeps the score from veering into stereotypes; they also avoid leaning into the period setting in favor of a more modern sound that paradoxically makes the music more convincing; it gives the show an immediacy and visceral impact that a more period-specific style might have diluted. Weaving distinct character themes in and out of the series alongside consistently propulsive synth sounds that anchor the show’s intense action sequences, Bensi and Jurriaans create one of the most varied and hypnotic scores on television. —Jim Hemphill
‘The Veil’ — Max Richter and Jon Opstad
There’s a reason that “On The Nature of Daylight” is the go-to temp music for any emotional sequence in any television show ever (and put to very good use in Episode 3 of “The Last of Us,” among others). No one does strings like Max Richter. He adds some worthy cues into his repertoire with the core themes for “The Veil,” which is devious, moody, and mysterious — much like the spies that the FX series follows. But also much like the show, this score is a true double-act, with Jon Opstad filling out the music in spikey, electric cues that reinforce the danger behind every sideways look and glance. The combination of Opstad and Richter’s work here is enough to keep the suspense taut for the whole of “The Veil.” —SS
‘We Were the Lucky Ones’ — Rachel Portman and Jon Ehrlich
A gorgeously elegant and elegiac Rachel Portman theme would’ve been enough to be thankful for. But Portman’s collaboration with Jon Ehrlich on the “We Were the Lucky Ones” score goes well beyond one emotional note. The music here is wise enough not to try to be more intense than the events that the Kurc family goes through over the course of the Hulu limited series. Instead, the score is often a quiet, insistent source of strength and emotional catharsis that the characters cannot allow themselves to show but that we get to feel. Portman and Ehrlich’s work transitions from being as wistful and painful as memories to being as relentless as whatever inner fortitude helps the characters survive — and back again. The result is a musical experience that matches the poignancy of the series. —SS
