Justin Hurwitz

Justin Hurwitz is an American film composer best known for his longtime creative partnership with director Damien Chazelle, whom he met while studying at Harvard University, where the two played together in a band. That collaboration would go on to define his career, beginning with Chazelle's early feature Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench and continuing through Whiplash, La La Land, First Man, and Babylon.

Hurwitz's breakthrough came with Whiplash, which earned him a Grammy nomination, but it was La La Land that established him as one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary film scoring. Blending jazz idioms with sweeping, classic-Hollywood-style orchestration, songs like «City of Stars» and the film's instrumental themes won him an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, and widespread critical acclaim, capturing the bittersweet romanticism of the film's story.

His work consistently draws on a deep grounding in jazz piano, which he began studying as a child, combined with a gift for melodic, emotionally direct themes that recur and evolve across a film's runtime. Beyond his scores for Chazelle, Hurwitz has continued to compose for film and television, remaining one of the defining musical voices of modern American cinema's return to melodic, orchestral storytelling.