The Last Airbender (soundtrack)

The soundtrack for The Last Airbender, the fantasy adventure film directed by M. Night Shyamalan, features a score by James Newton Howard. Lakeshore Records released the album on June 29, 2010. While the film itself received near-universal negative reviews, the score was widely praised. Christian Clemmensen of Filmtracks.com awarded it a perfect five stars, and Jonathan Broxton of MovieMusicUK also gave it five stars, calling it one of the most satisfying musical experiences of summer 2010.

James Southall of Movie-Wave rated it four stars, and Tom Hoover of ScoreNotes gave it a 9.5 out of 10, calling it the best collaboration between Howard and Shyamalan. Some criticism targeted the commercial album’s non-chronological track order, which disrupted the narrative flow, and the reported removal of choral elements due to reuse fees. However, Broxton noted that after seeing the film, the missing choir was not especially missed on the CD, and the final track, “Flow Like Water,” sounded identical to its theatrical version.

The soundtrack earned two International Film Music Critics Association nominations in 2010: Best Original Score for a Fantasy/Science Fiction/Horror Film and Film Music Composition of the Year for “Flow Like Water.”