Happy 80th Birthday, John Williams

INDIANAPOLIS (LIN) - He's written some of the world's most famous movie music. He's been nominated for 47 Oscars, winning five. He's been honored by the president.

And now, the one and only John Williams is celebrating his 80th birthday on Feb. 8, 2012.

Here is a look at five of his must-listen movie score moments and some of his reflections on writing them.

Jaws (1975) - "When I played the score on the piano for [director Steven] Spielberg, we just laughed about it, wondering if such a simple device could be effective. The force it can generate is not unlike the shark’s power. It has an unstoppable, primeval, simple but tremendously strong energy." -- bloomberg.com

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) - "One of the ideas of the film was that since we couldn’t speak to them in our language, we didn’t think we could speak to them with [a] changing light board…or maybe we could communicate with them with a kind of a musical Morse code. Fanciful idea. And the script called for, and Steven insisted that it should be five notes." -- www.thirteen.org

Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) - "My involvement with Star Wars began actually with Steven Spielberg, who was, in the '70s when these films were made, and still is, a very close friend of George Lucas's. I had done two or three scores for Steven Spielberg before I met George Lucas, Jaws being the principal one among them. I think it was that George Lucas, when he was making Star Wars, asked his friend Steven Spielberg who should write the music, where will he find a composer? The best knowledge I have is that Steven recommended me to George Lucas as a composer for the film, and I met him under those circumstances, and that's how it all began." -- filmscoremonthly.com

Schindler's List (1993) - "One of those rare occasions where you can run the whole film, stop it anywhere and find something quite beautiful in it." -- guardian.co.uk

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001) - "I wanted to capture the world of weightlessness and flight and sleight of hand and happy surprise. This caused the music to be a little more theatrical than most film scores would be. It sounds like music that you would hear in the theater rather than the film." -- mania.com

So Happy Birthday, John Williams, and here's to hoping for many more memorable moments to come.

And perhaps no fan showcases it better than Corey Vidal, whose lip-syncing tribute "John Williams Is the Man" shows just how influential music from the movies can be.