Last updated: June 12, 2026
*NEW* Review by Jason LeBlanc
Spoiler-free thoughts on the score as heard in the film:
The score is very effective in the movie, which comes as no surprise. Many scenes are elevated by having well-written, engaging music accompanying them. Many scenes late in the movie play with these wonderful, long-lined, classic Williams melodies. It’s just strange these ideas don’t exist in the score more like usual, IE introduced smaller then building to big payoffs. They just kind all show up at the end.
The exception is the Listen theme, which makes a big impact in one of the film’s first scenes and forms strong connection with the audience of what it represents. But then it doesn’t go beyond those basic uses until the full concert arrangement that only plays in the end credits. Huh. Explains why the theme is not on the album much!
One thing that really stood out to me about the score in the movie is that its reactive instead of proactive. The music will be playing in a scene, then something big or important will happen, there will be a second to react to that, and then the music will change to accompany the new stakes. The music doesn’t really build up to these moments, in other words. And interesting choice.
There’s a decent amount of action music, but there should have been more. Some thrilling sequences that play with no score would have been improved by being underscored.
Overall a good score used well in the film. No major highlights missing, and not much music on the album that isn’t in the movie at all.
The end credits is:
-about a minute of Reprise (the Memory theme section that begins about a minute into the track, might be different takes)
-all or most of Listen
-some of Celestial
-maybe something else?
-a vocal version of the Listen theme similar to the one at the end of In Vivo but different
*NEW* Review by ‘Coco314’
Saw the movie yesterday, What a privilege to live through discovering in a packed theatre a new and so beautiful score from the maestro. As noted by others, the first part of the score reminded me of “Minority Report”, the second more toward “AI Artificial Intelligence”, and all with a more subdued & poetic approach. While seemingly not reaching the operatic heights of those two (I for one thought the few action bits – especially the train scene – were crying out for a push from the music), the music was definitely a highlight – especially in the latest parts of the movie – and cannot wait to hear the album.
The movie however, definitely never reached any highlight of Spielberg’s career. From story & script to characterization to lensing, I hate to say, as a huge fan of the director, I found it shockingly lacking and uninvolving :(
Well, at least we have the music!
*NEW* Review by Damien F
Just out of the screening. Some random thoughts. I haven’t listened to the OST aside from the listen track so can’t compare the album vs movie yet.
The first third of the movie has about 3 or 4 very short cues, as in about less than 10 seconds each.
There is a key moment in the middle of the movie featuring Blunt’s character where the music really shines. I suspect it is this moment that has mostly led to the score being praised in reviews. This moment is not the “listen” track or the cues in the scoring sessions video.
While watching, I was thinking how differently this movie would have been scored had it been made 20 years ago around the time of Minority Report. There are transitional scenes and action that are unscored that absolutely would have had score earlier in Spielberg’s career.
The reason why the track is called listen… is obvious when you see the movie.
There was a short cool synth heavy cue in the film. It stood out because it was tonally and stylistically different to the rest of the score. It has a heist or caper feel to it. I read the spoiler thread and it is mentioned there too but it appears to be unreleased sadly.
The movie: it’s a little strange. Maybe I was expecting something different (and I’m not sure what) thanks to the marketing. I can see general audiences feeling like this was a bait & switch, because I wouldn’t describe the film as a UFO or alien movie. It’s much closer to those reactions describing it as an X-Files or Twilight Zone episode. Spielberg’s description of the film as fast paced with lots of forward momentum is questionable; it’s exposition heavy (lots of Koepp-isms) and hits you over the head with some of its ruminations about God and religion. Spielberg’s such an excellent visualist, not sure why he felt compelled to spell out these themes with such heavy-handed exposition.
The mystical/extraterrestrial aspects aren’t fleshed out too much either. I kept waiting for the “ah hah!” moment in Act 3 that would unify the narrative but it never really arrives. The film spins its wheels in the middle and feels at least 10 minutes too long, especially after cutting back to Domingo for the 5th time to have the same scene over and over again.
But there’s a lot to like! Blunt’s sensational with a very demanding role. The cinematography is gorgeous; Spielberg’s technical mastery is on full display. There’s several shots I have no idea how he achieved them. Some CGI animals aside, the VFX are excellent. The film is at its best when it slows down and has quieter, intimate character moments accompanied by the delicate score, and the moments of fast-paced pursuit which evoke the likes of Minority Report, Sugarland and AI.
As for the score, it fits the film like a glove. The first half underpins the drama with restraint, but escalates as required to support the drama. You definitely notice the visuals triggering the music (a contrast to their previous collaborations, where the music traditionally builds in anticipation of the visual reveal).
But the second half… wow! It really kicks into gear from the chase sequence onwards and holds your attention. There’s some astonishingly youthful, modern and energetic writing here, with a level of refinement and confidence in its restraint that is instantly recognizable as Williams. He doesn’t compete for your attention through volume, rather an elegant restraint that perfectly melds with the visuals. I can’t imagine the film working half as well without Williams’ music.
I was pretty disappointed with both the film and the music, to be honest. WIll keep comments here to the score (almost):
I think a lot of the music felt out of place, especially in the first half of the movie. I heard a lot of oboe solo (low key) cues, which reminded me more of 70’s Star Wars movies more than anything else. I couldn’t hear 100% what was going on, but in my opinion it wasn’t even a servicable score in these parts, if was a detraction/distraction.
The same thing with a lot of the action music: It was in SW/Indy/(“Minority Report”) style, complete with piccolo+xylofone accebts etc. Also the synth elements were very basic and not really up to what you expect from a movie from 2026. It sounded ancient and primitive.
Several action sequences were not scored – and this is Spielberg’s choice, I know – but that was also a problem: the scenes came off as tame and overly staged – they could really have used some tension creating music, maybe more in Powell mode than Williams mode.
The last part of the movie was where Williams (and Spielberg) worked best. More poetic music (and movie) going on here, and that worked pretty well, even if it was only half as good as the music from A.I. that it (in some ways) reminded me of.
Let’s see when the score comes out, but I think we have already heard the best part (“Listen…”). But I hope there is some good music in there that didn’t do too well in the movie or wasn’t in it at all.
But throughout the movie I couldn’t help feeling I wanted a different score for this – that Williams wasn’t the right composer and that he seems to have lost something over the recent years. Of course it is still Spielberg’s decision to go with an old fashioned score that sounds like something from the 80’s/90’s, alas without the magic/spiritual/ethereal feeling of “Close Encounters”.
Just got back from the cinema – a pretty new cinema with great sound! And I must have been expecting something different, because there was a lot more score in the movie than I thought there would be. I felt like the score was present pretty much all the way throughout. From the second scene onwards there was never a long stretch without score – and I really liked what I could hear. Sometimes melodic, sometimes atmospheric, sometimes rhythmic, sometimes electronic! Some great action music also.
Obviously just my first impression. Can’t wait to see it again.
Things I noticed about the score (going in cold): The first cue is subdued tension scoring (coming in with the double basses), but it does some seriously heavy lifting in setting the tone for the film’s opening section.
Overall, the score struck me as somewhat harmonically unusual for a Williams film score. As if he’s now finally a concert composer who has written a film score, tweaking his concert sound into a style that fits the film.
The first part of the car chase music was interesting – scoring the tension rather than the chase, until it switched into action mode after a while.
The lengthy, subdued finale… works. So much so that it gave the film an emotional impact that it had hardly earned.
Besides some “bad guys doing bad stuff” drones, the music sounded fresh ! As advertized, it’s pretty low key during most of the movie, and only becomes much more present during the final act, which concentrates most of highlights. One or two musical bits reminded me strongly of AI. Otherwise I thought it was pretty much its own thing. I’ll see how it holds up in album form.
I regret there wasn’t any scene where I felt completely carried away by the music (but then I was a bit disappointed by the movie itself).
It’s so strange and wonderful to think that, nearly 50 years after Close Encounters of the Third Kind, John Williams is once again scoring shadowy organizations moving around with big trucks to deal with aliens !
I’m gonna try to be vague but this is a really low-key score and kind of a surprisingly low-key movie. I actually am not entirely sure what Spielberg was talking about saying that this moves extremely fast, I found this a pretty slow burn that occasionally spikes with some incident then comes back down. Really takes its sweet time in some good ways but also ways I got kinda impatient with.
Williams’s score opens up more as it goes along but yeah “listen…” is end credits and it never gets that big in the film. The two pieces from that unofficial YouTube leak are in the movie, though, and definitely film highlights for me. There’s a cool cue I noticed when Emily Blunt is driving through a security area, it either had some synth doubling or just some weird orchestration in the melody….I thought it was tuba at first but no, idk what. Also the big car chase from the trailer starts off unscored but then the rest of it has some pretty aggressive John Williams, kinda War of the Worlds-y. Need a better listen to that, I wouldn’t call this a scary movie but there’s a pretty anxiety-inducing part in that chase that got a reaction out of me. The train sequence is unscored. I wanna listen to the whole finale again too, the music doesn’t draw attention to itself but it is Williams running all the way through, there’s stuff going on in there.
The mysterious theme that played at the premiere and opens the score featurette….I don’t think that version is 100% in the movie. It starts the credits but then transitions to “listen…” Unless I spaced out I don’t think the melody ever hits the high strings like that in the film or credits. So hopefully it’s on the soundtrack. The music for the crop circle shot is correct, yeah.
It’s hard to really think of a Spielberg movie or score to directly compare this to, I don’t agree at all with Arnaud saying it’s like Ready Player One. It’s kind of like a PG-13 Children of Men. Parts of the movie and score also kinda made me think if Spielberg/Williams did something like Michael Clayton lol, a very muted thriller. Maybe I’m off base with this but it made me think of James Newton Howard or John Powell in that mode.
But there also aren’t very long stretches without any music, I don’t think. I think the score is longer than the album’s 64 minutes. Williams starts in the second scene with ominous low strings and brass and he keeps showing up with little things. Some nice oboe and horn solos. He kind of has a scoring strategy in the first act where he’ll come in low at the end of a scene and crescendo into the cut to another character. I felt like there was a little much of that lol.
I didn’t notice potential source cues, and the tracklist seems out of chronological order.
The main theme listen… the released track is heard just thrice in the film per my count. Brief hummed versions essentially. I won’t tell you the context but 3 times for similar things. Like maybe 15-30 seconds duration. Sounded like that Hunger Games whistling motif thing. Rue’s theme or whatever.
The listen track is the end credits piece.
The josh o connor piece in the field is in the film almost exactly the same. I think it actually opens the end credits before listen… starts.
There are two major symphonic music highlights but they are not the listen theme.
My favorite moment the most striking one is an extended like piano like motif that is similar to the attraction theme in Queer. Not similar just trying to give you a sense of how it sounds. This piece was mixed very well.
The other one is to do with key scenes with Emily Blunt. I think that was the third piece in the end credits after listen played in full.
I think there is a villain theme or bad guy theme or texture or motif. Mainly associated with Firth. He’s the “bad guy” that’s not a spoiler.
There are suspenseful cues and action cues. All a little bit subdued. But well done.
The score is of course well done. It is the score of a mature man, a 94 year old man. I definitely fell if the Williams of the 70s or 80s or 90s or even the 00s were scoring he would have scored much more rambunctiously.
I definitely want to see the film again to appreciate the score more. The film is kiiiiinda demanding in the sense a lot happens and there’s a lot going on, so you are trying to just follow along. So second viewings might reveal the score more fullsomely.
The listen theme first appears 19 minutes in.
Overall obviously a wonderful score.
Without getting into spoilers, I thought the film was excellent – genuinely big-screen Spielberg. There’s a lot going on, and I already know I need a second viewing to fully process it all. Someone wrote somewhere that the film lacks humor. I honestly have no idea what they were talking about. And when it comes to action, Spielberg still knows exactly how to stage a chase.
As for the score, there is quite a lot of music in the film. Early on it tends to appear in shorter passages, while the second half features more extended musical sequences. That said, this is not a score-driven film in the way Star Wars, Harry Potter or even some of Spielberg’s earlier collaborations with Williams are. Williams is a little more in the background here than some people may expect – but I absolutely do not mean that as criticism.
There are two or three action moments in classic Williams fashion, but don’t go in expecting anything on the scale of “Anderton’s Great Escape”. That’s simply not what this score is about. Still, in a few places Williams reminds us that he hasn’t forgotten how to get the pulse racing.
What struck me most was the thematic material. There is a beautiful horn theme – though not in an obvious, immediately attention-grabbing way – that becomes more prominent later in the film, and I’m very curious to hear how it develops on the album. There is also a lighter scherzo-like idea that caught my attention immediately. I found myself wondering whether it receives a more substantial development on the soundtrack release.
The score also features some delicate choral writing that occasionally brought A.I. to mind. Not huge, operatic choral statements, but something much more intimate and ethereal. Pure Williams.
Another thing I noticed was a theme that, at least to my ears, had a certain “Cinque’s Theme” quality to it, accompanied by a female vocalise. I’d be very curious to revisit those passages on album, because they made quite an impression in the context of the film.
There is also one particularly emotional cue before the finale, strongly centered around the piano, that absolutely floored me. One of those moments where the emotional impact of the music becomes almost overwhelming.
“listen…” appears during the end credits, but what really stayed with me was what follows afterwards, when that beautiful A.I.-like theme returns in all its glory, enriched by a delicate chorus. It was one of the musical highlights of the entire experience.
As for the finale itself, I wouldn’t compare it to Close Encounters or E.T. in terms of musical spectacle. However, there were moments when I became so immersed in what was happening on screen that I almost stopped consciously listening to the score, while at the same time feeling that the music was doing exactly what it needed to do. Had it done more, some people might well have accused Williams of pushing the music too hard in moments that didn’t require it.
Right now, the only thing I’m thinking about is going back to the cinema on Wednesday or Thursday – partly to hear the score again before Friday’s soundtrack release, but also because I simply want to experience the film one more time on the big screen.
And I absolutely cannot wait for the album. I’m convinced it will reveal even more than the film does and that there is still a great deal left to discover.
Review by ‘wikerman’ (from the Paris Premiere)
As for the score, it is rather beautiful and even mellow at times. Honestly, most of action sequences (car chase, train scene) are either not scored or music appears just for a brief moment. Don’t expect Indiana Jones type of action score here. It is the third act, the last 30 mins of the movie, when the music truly shines and paints beautiful landscapes for some amazing storytelling. I can say, you can clearly hear influences from CEOATK and E.T. in this score. And it totally makes sense after watching the film. Some absolutely beautiful melodies and I found the last part of the movie really touching – it honestly left me speechless.
Btw, our Maestro got huge applause when “Music by John Williams” appeared during end credits. Surreal to think they both have been creating magic together for 52 years…