Hans Zimmer was born in Frankfurt on September 12, 1957.

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After moving to London as a teenager, he later wrote advertising jingles for Air-Edel Associates and in 1980 worked with the Buggles on their LP The Age of Plastic and the accompanying hit "Video Killed the Radio Star".

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A stint followed at Ultravox before Zimmer next appeared with the Italian avant-garde group Krisma; He then partnered with film composer Stanley Myers, and together they founded the London recording studio Lillie Yard.

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Zimmer and Myers' film work of the time, which included material for imagery such as Moonlighting, Success Is the Best Revenge, Insignificance, and the acclaimed My Beautiful Launderette, made significant advances in merging the traditional orchestral aesthetic of film composition with cutting-edge state-of-the-art electronics, and proved to be very influential on countless soundtracks to follow.

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He has been nominated eleven times for an Oscar, fourteen times for the Golden Globe Award and eleven times for the Grammy Award. He received his first Oscar nomination in 1989 for the film Rain Man.

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In 1995 he was awarded an Oscar for the film music for The Lion King. In 2010 he got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

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In 2011 a star followed on the Boulevard der Stars in Berlin.

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Zimmer was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit 1st Class in 2018.

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Hans Zimmer's soundtrack albums sold more than 25.4 million copies worldwide.

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To name just a few of his most famous film scores:

1988

• Burning Secret

• Rain Man

1989

• Black Rain

 

1994

• Driving Miss Daisy

• Death and Desire (Diamond Skulls)

• The Lion King

 

1995

• Nine Months

• Muppets – Muppet Treasure Island
   

1997

• Rangoon – Beyond Rangoon

• Crimson Tide – ICrimson Tide

 

2000

• Mission: Impossible II

• Gladiator (with Lisa Gerrard)

 

2001

• Black Hawk Down

• Pearl Harbor

• Hannibal

 

2002

• The Ring

• Spirit – Stallion of the Cimarron

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2003

• The Last Samurai

• Pirates of the Caribbean 

• Shark Tale

• King Arthur

• The Ring ​

 

2005​

• The little Icebar 2 

• Madagascar 

• Batman Begins 

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2006

• Pirates of the Caribbean  

• The Da Vinci Code – Sakrileg 

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2007

• The Simpsons Movie

• Pirates of the Caribbean  

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2008

• Kung Fu Panda 

• The Dark Knight 

• Madagascar 2

 

2009

• Illuminati (Angels and Demons)

• Inception
   

2011

• Pirates of the Caribbean - Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

• Kung Fu Panda 2 

• Sherlock Holmes:  A Game of Shadows

• Transformers – Revenge of the Fallen

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2012

• Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted)

• The Dark Knight Rises

 

2013

• Man of Steel

 

2014

• The Little Prince

 

2016

• Kung Fu Panda 3

• Inferno

 

2017

• Dunkirk

• Blade Runner 2049

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2018

• ​X-Men: Dark Phoenix (Dark Phoenix)

• Der König der Löwen (The Lion King)

 

2020

• SpongeBob 

 

2021

• Dune

• The Survivor