John Powell

John Powell is an English composer best known for film scores that combine orchestral writing, electronic textures, and sharply characterized themes. Born in London on 18 September 1963, he studied at Trinity College of Music before beginning professional work in commercials and television. In the 1990s he co-founded the London-based music house Independently Thinking with Gavin Greenaway, and he later moved into Hollywood scoring assignments. His early American feature credits included Face/Off (1997), and the score helped establish his reputation for forceful action music. Powell subsequently wrote the music for The Bourne Identity (2002), The Bourne Supremacy (2004), and The Bourne Ultimatum (2007). Across that series, the percussive cue “Bim Bam Smash” became particularly associated with the franchise’s escalating pursuit sequences. He returned to that musical world for Jason Bourne (2016). Animation became another major part of Powell’s career. He scored DreamWorks’ Shrek (2001), then created scores for Chicken Run (2000), co-written with Harry Gregson-Williams, and Antz (1998), co-written with Gregson-Williams. His work on Blue Sky Studios’ Rio (2011) and Rio 2 (2014) incorporated Brazilian settings and songs alongside his instrumental material. His best-known animated collaboration is with director Dean DeBlois on How to Train Your Dragon (2010), How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014), and How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019). Powell used a large orchestra, choral writing, and recurring motifs for Hiccup, Toothless, and the Viking world; the first film’s score earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score. He also wrote scores for Kung Fu Panda (2008), Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006), Happy Feet (2006), and Ferdinand (2017). His live-action credits include Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005), United 93 (2006), Hancock (2008), Green Zone (2010), and X-Men: The Last Stand (2006). In 2018, he composed the score for Solo: A Star Wars Story, developing material from themes written by John Williams, including a Han Solo theme Williams had supplied for the film. His collaborations with director Paul Greengrass include United 93, The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum, and Green Zone. Powell also continued scoring animation with The Bad Guys (2022) and Migration (2023). In 2025, he composed the score for the live-action How to Train Your Dragon adaptation. That film brought him back to the setting of DeBlois’s original film trilogy, whose musical identity had been built across three successive theatrical releases over nearly a decade from 2010 through 2019 in animated cinema and film scoring.