The very best?

I'm shocked by the lack of posts. He's an amazing composer, and I'm glad he's going out on a high note with The Hateful Eight and now a retirement tour. He's been making music all his life, and here he is at 90. His music is timeless and Quentin picked the perfect composer.

One of the best.

He was one of the most modern and innovative of film composers, but, perhaps counterintuitively, also one of the most melodic and tuneful. I think the only reason he is consider a lesser composer than John Williams is because his greatest success came in European films not familiar to North American audiences. Another factor may be that although he wrote more great scores (due to his prolificacy) than any one else, he also a not insignificant number of poor ones (accompanied by even poorer films). Some of the poorest ones may have hurt his reputation a bit. In my opinion, he is in the elite top five film composers (Williams, Goldsmith, Herrmann, Morricone and Barry).