Basil Poledouris (August 21, 1945 – November 8, 2006) was an American composer of Greek descent.
He was noted for producing scores for some of the most popular movies of the late 20th century, including Red Dawn (1984), Conan the Barbarian (1982), Free Willy, Starship Troopers and The Hunt for Red October. Known for his epic, symphonic scores, he is frequently regarded as one of the best film composers of all time. Many of his work is famous in its own right, with his scores for Conan and RoboCop (which featured men banging on anvils) being particularly noteworthy.
He also had a very small number of acting credits, most notably as a Klingon, a Redshirt, and an Ekosian trooper on various episodes of Star Trek (the original series).
List of scores composed by Basil Poledouris include:
- Big Wednesday (1978)
- The Blue Lagoon and its sequel (1980, 1991)
- Conan the Barbarian (1982) and Conan the Destroyer (1984)
- Red Dawn - this was the very first soundtrack album to be released by Intradanote .
- Flesh+Blood (1985)
- Iron Eagle (1986)
- RoboCop and RoboCop 3 (1987, 1993)
- Cherry 2000 (1987) - this was the first CD Club release from Varèse Sarabande (later reissued in expanded form by Prometheus and twinned with Poledouris's No Man's Land).
- Lonesome Dove (1989)
- The Hunt for Red October (1990)
- Quigley Down Under (1990)
- Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man (1991)
- Free Willy and its first sequel (1993, 1995)
- Hot Shots! Part Deux (1993)
- On Deadly Ground (1994)
- Serial Mom (1994)
- The Jungle Book (1994)
- Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (1995)
- Breakdown (1997)
- Starship Troopers (1997)
- Les Miserables (1998)
- For Love Of The Game (1999)
- Cecil B. Demented (2000) with his daughter Zoe Poledouris
- Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles (2001)
- The Touch (2002)
- The Legend Of Butch And Sundance (2004) - Made-for-TV Movie and pilot for an unsold series; his final score.note
