John Williams’ masterful score to the original Star Wars has won Total Sci-Fi’s poll to find out the best sci-fi movie soundtrack of all time.

The score to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, composed by James Horner, came in second place, while third place was taken by Vangelis’ haunting synth soundtrack for Blade Runner.

John Williams won an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, a BAFTA Award and a Grammy for his work on Star Wars, and helped define the much-loved saga with scores for all six Star Wars movies between 1977 and 2005.

His score for Close Encounters of the Third Kind also made the Top 10, coming in at number 8, and the composer has been behind many other memorable SF scores including E.T., Jurassic Park and Superman.

Queen’s gloriously bombastic score for Flash Gordon also ranked highly, as did the classical soundtrack to 2001: A Space Odyssey. Perhaps surprisingly, the soundtrack to 1986’s Transformers: The Movie clocked in at number 10 ahead of more obvious choices, proving that Vince DiCola and Stan Bush have still got – to quote the soundtrack’s most famous song – “The Touch”.

Total Sci-Fi editor Matt McAllister comments: “With his score for Star Wars, John Williams created one of the most iconic and unforgettable soundtracks of all time. Most people could identify the movie from just a few bars of the main title music, and Williams’ work across all of the Star Wars movies really does create a palpable sense of intergalactic space battles and galaxy-spanning adventures. For many moviegoers, this is now the definitive sound of science fiction.”

Final Top Ten:

1) Star Wars (John Williams)

2) Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (James Horner)

3) Blade Runner (Vangelis)

4) Star Trek the Motion Picture (Jerry Goldsmith)

5) Flash Gordon (Queen)

6) 2001: A Space Odyssey (Richard and Johann Strauss, György Ligeti)

7) The Day the Earth Stood Still (Bernard Herrmann)

8) Close Encounters of the Third Kind (John Williams)

9) Aliens (James Horner)

10) Transformers the Movie (Vince DiCola / Stan Bush)