John Murphy (born 4 March 1965) is a British

film composer A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film. The score comprises a number of orchestral, instrumental, or choral pieces called cues, which are timed to begin and end at specific points during the film in order to ...

. He is a self-taught multi-instrumental musician who began his career in the 1980s, working with The Lotus Eaters, Thomas Lang, and

Claudia Brücken Claudia Brücken (born 7 December 1963) is a German singer and songwriter. She is best known as the lead vocalist of the synth-pop band Propaganda. In 1996, Brücken started working with Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark co-founder Paul Humphrey ...

. He has collaborated with directors

Danny Boyle Daniel Francis Boyle (born 20 October 1956) is an English director and producer. He is known for his work on films including '' Shallow Grave'', '' Trainspotting'' and its sequel '' T2 Trainspotting'', '' The Beach'', ''28 Days Later'', '' S ...

Guy Ritchie Guy Stuart Ritchie (born 10 September 1968) is an English film director, producer and screenwriter. His work includes British gangster films, and the '' Sherlock Holmes'' films starring Robert Downey Jr. Ritchie left school at age 15 and wo ...

Michael Mann Michael Kenneth Mann (born February 5, 1943) is an American film director, director, screenwriter, and Film producer, producer of film and television who is best known for his distinctive style of crime drama. His most acclaimed works include ...

Matthew Vaughn Matthew Allard de Vere Drummond (born Matthew Allard Robert Vaughn; 7 March 1971) is an English filmmaker. He has produced films including ''Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels'' (1998) and '' Snatch'' (2000), and directed ''Layer Cake'' (2004 ...

Stephen Frears Stephen Arthur Frears (born 20 June 1941) is an English director and producer of film and television often depicting real life stories as well as projects that explore social class through sharply drawn characters. He's received numerous accola ...

, and

James Gunn James Francis Gunn Jr. (born August 5, 1966) is an American filmmaker and executive. He began his career as a screenwriter in the mid-1990s, starting at Troma Entertainment with '' Tromeo and Juliet'' (1997). He then began working as a direct ...

. His awards include the Silver Award (1st Prize) at the Cannes Film Festival, a British D&AD Award, and a BMI Award. Murphy gained recognition in the film industry while working with

on his film ''

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels ''Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels'' is a 1998 British black comedy crime film written and directed by Guy Ritchie, produced by Matthew Vaughn and starring an ensemble cast featuring Jason Flemyng, Dexter Fletcher, Nick Moran, Steven Macki ...

'',

's ''

Miami Vice ''Miami Vice'' is an American crime drama television series created by Anthony Yerkovich and produced by Michael Mann for NBC. The series stars Don Johnson as James "Sonny" Crockett and Philip Michael Thomas as Ricardo "Rico" Tubbs, two Me ...

'',

's '' Kick-Ass'' and scoring various films by Danny Boyle. His instrumental tracks " In the House – In a Heartbeat" from ''

28 Days Later ''28 Days Later'' is a 2002 British post-apocalyptic horror film directed by Danny Boyle and written by Alex Garland. It stars Cillian Murphy as a bicycle courier who awakens from a coma to discover the accidental release of a highly conta ...

'' and " Adagio in D Minor" from ''Sunshine'' have been featured in a variety of TV shows, commercials and film trailers.

Background

Born in

Liverpool Liverpool is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the List of English districts by population, 10th largest English district by population and its E ...

, England, Murphy began composing music for films in the early 1990s and scored his first hit with '' Leon the Pig Farmer''. Together with former OMD member David Hughes, he worked on several successful British movies, enjoying particular success with the soundtrack to 1998's ''

''. Since 2000's '' Snatch'', Murphy has worked independently and has been based in Los Angeles. His successes include

's box-office success ''

'' and its sequel '' 28 Weeks Later''. He also collaborated with

Underworld The underworld, also known as the netherworld or hell, is the supernatural world of the dead in various religious traditions and myths, located below the world of the living. Chthonic is the technical adjective for things of the underworld ...

to score Danny Boyle's science fiction film ''

Sunshine Sunlight is a portion of the electromagnetic radiation given off by the Sun, in particular infrared, visible, and ultraviolet light. On Earth, sunlight is scattered and filtered through Earth's atmosphere, and is obvious as daylight when ...

''. In 2006, Murphy composed the score for

's ''

''. In 2009, he composed the music for the 2009 remake of the 1972 film '' The Last House on the Left'', followed by 2010's '' Kick-Ass'', based on the comic book of the same name. Other excerpts from his scores have been released for advertising, in particular " In the House – In a Heartbeat" from ''28 Days Later'', and "Adagio in D minor" from ''Sunshine''. In 2014, he released an album titled ''Anonymous Rejected Filmscore'' that had been, as the title suggests, composed for a film whose studio head had rejected for being too 'weird'.Alt URL
/ref> Murphy promised the director that he wouldn't name the film. The score was allowed to develop in directions unconstrained by the original film's narrative and the cover art is a photograph of Murphy's son, taken by his wife through her sunglasses. In 2019 he scored "Les Miserables" for the BBC, and in 2020, he composed the score for

's '' The Suicide Squad''.

Discography

Film

Documentaries

Television

Charting discography

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Murphy, John 1965 births 20th-century British composers 20th-century British male musicians 21st-century British composers 21st-century British male musicians British film score composers La-La Land Records artists Living people British male film score composers Musicians from Liverpool Varèse Sarabande Records artists