Steven Spielberg selects favorite score frequent collaborator John Williams has composed for him

Often, the “Original Score” category is a little too niche for the average moviegoer to be invested in, but some scores are so iconic that they seep deeply into the cultural consciousness. Everybody recognizes the theme from Jaws, or Indiana Jones, or Star Wars, or Harry Potter, or Jurassic Park—and those are just a small sampling of 54-time Oscar nominee John Williams’ body of work. (If he wins on Sunday, Williams will become the oldest Oscar winner ever at 92.) Given the sheer volume of musical scores Williams has created, it might be difficult to choose a favorite, but for his frequent collaborator Steven Spielberg, the choice is easy.

“Schindler’s List is the greatest piece of scoring John has ever done for me,” the filmmaker declares in no uncertain terms in a new Variety profile of Williams. (The duo have worked on 29 movies together.) “I will never answer that question about what’s my favorite of my films. I think the best film I’ve made is Schindler’s List. But I can say my favorite score and the best score—both combined—that John has done for me is Schindler’s. It doesn’t just reach deeper into my soul—that score has reached the depths of so many others who know how important it was to the images that I was creating.”

Spielberg, unsurprisingly, had some say in the final result. The not-so-retired composer recalls that he wrote two themes for the Holocaust film, “the one that we know and another one which is called ‘Remembrances’—and we recorded both of them with Itzhak Perlman. ‘Remembrances’ was my preference, but I played both for Steven and he said, ‘No, no, no, it should be this one.’ I said, ‘Really? I like the other one better.’ He said, ‘No, there’s a spiritual aspect to this one.’”

In the director’s view, Williams’ uncanny ability to create a timeless, memorable main theme is a crucial aspect of his success and part of why he’s the Oscars’ most-nominated artist alive. (Second-most nominated artist ever, behind only Walt Disney.) “Every score he’s ever composed, and even the ones that might have the most complicated orchestrations, he always has a beautiful main theme,” says Spielberg, who is working on a documentary about Williams. “And I don’t hear themes being written for movies as much as they used to be by Jerry Goldsmith, Elmer Bernstein, Max Steiner, Dimitri Tiomkin and Bernard Herrmann. Film composition isn’t a lost art, but thematic scoring is becoming more and more a lost art. And the great thing about Johnny is, he’s still got it.”