Kick-ass Musical Scores for Epic Movies 1958-1962 Five great years for the epic

• "The Big Country" (1958) Jerome Moross
• "Ben Hur" (1959) Miklos Rozsa
• "Exodus" (1960) Ernest Gold
• "El Cid" (1961) Miklos Rozsa
• "Spartacus" (1962) Alex North
• "How The West Was Won" (1962) Alfred Newman
• "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962) Maurice Jarre

Miscellaneous prattle:

They don't make true epics anymore. CGI just doesn't cut it.

1961 was a bumper year for the epic - as well as "El Cid", we had "King of Kings", "Barabbas", "The Tartars". After "Cleopatra" (1963), the bottom fell out of the movie epic-market. Twentieth Century Fox was nearly bankrupted. Sword and sandal/biblical epics became uncool in the swinging 60's.
Special mention goes to mega-producer Samuel (nephew of Trotsky?!) Bronston (his last epic was 1964's "The Fall of the Roman Empire"). Hollywood gave the biblical epic one last go in 1965 with "The Greatest Story Ever Told". Dino de Laurentiis tried in 1966 with "The Bible...in the Beginning".