Lacquers cut at Abbey Road, home to many legendary soundtrack recordings

Hans Zimmer's score for Ridley Scott's Roman masterpiece, complete with Wagner-like anthems of war and accompanied by music evocative of Holst, was nominated for an Academy Award and won a Golden Globe for Best Original Score. Lisa Gerrard's haunting voice adds a timeless and atmospheric quality to the simple but stirring melody Zimmer uses throughout. Zimmer’s score was voted Number Four in the 2016 Classic FM Movie Hall of Fame.

Largely thanks to enduring themes of persecution, freedom, and heroism, Gladiator counts itself as one of the new millennium’s blockbuster movies. Yet Hans Zimmer and Lisa Gerrard’s score has as much to do with the film’s impact as the visuals or narrative. Initially, the collaboration between the veteran film composer (Zimmer) and pop singer (Gerrard) seemed an odd pairing. But as Dead Can Dance fans knew, Gerrard is not a typical pop vocalist. The resultant score sounds nothing like conventional Hollywood Roman extravaganzas, ala Spartacus or Ben Hur.