ARTISTAlexandre Desplat

Alexandre Desplat is a film-score composer whose orchestral writing reflects influences ranging from Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Georges Delerue, Bernard Herrmann and António Carlos Jobim to jazz and world music. Born in Paris in 1961, he began piano lessons at five, later switching to trumpet and then flute. By the age of 15, he had decided to pursue composing music for films. After making his film-scoring debut with Ki Lo Sa? in 1986, he worked in film, television and short films, building an extensive list of credits during the 1990s. His music for The Girl with the Pearl Earring (2003) earned a Golden Globe nomination and led to increasing work on English-language films distributed by Hollywood studios. He received his first Academy Award nomination for The Queen (2006), followed by a Grammy nomination for The King's Speech (2010), for which he won the award.

His film scores include Fantastic Mr. Fox, Moonrise Kingdom, Argo and The Grand Budapest Hotel. The latter brought him his first Academy Award and second Grammy Award. He won a second Oscar for The Shape of Water (2017). Desplat has worked repeatedly with Wes Anderson and Guillermo del Toro, composing for Isle of Dogs, The French Dispatch, Pinocchio, Asteroid City and Frankenstein (2025). Other titles in his filmography include Little Women, The Midnight Sky, The Danish Girl, The Secret Life of Pets and The Piano Lesson.