Hailed as one of the most successful young British composers, David Arnold began his film career making short films with fellow enthusiast Danny Cannon, teaching himself to write, orchestrate and compose the scores for their films. In 1993 he scored Cannon's feature film debut The Young Americans, combining lush orchestration with Bjork's vocals for the title song Play Dead, which earned critical and commercial success. This led to the offer to score Stargate, Roland Emmerich's sci-fi film which enjoyed box office success and earned Arnold his first BMI Award®.

Since then David Arnold has been recognized by the film industry as a talented and diverse composer, arranger and producer, whose scores includes Shaft, Changing Lane, 2 Fast 2 Furious and The Stepford Wives and, most recently, Venus, directed by Roger Michell, Hot Fuzz, directed by Edgar Wright and the last four James Bond Adventures, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World is Not Enough, Die Another Day and Casino Royale.

Winner of seven BMI Awards for his music for Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough, Die Another Day, Stargate, Independence Day, Godzilla, and 2 Fast 2 Furious, he also won a Grammy® for Independence Day and recently won the Royal Television Society Award for the title music of the UK comedy series Little Britain. In addition, he won the Ivor Novello Award® for the music for The World Is Not Enough.

Away from the film world, Arnold maintains a career as a successful record producer and song writer, working with a wide range of contemporary artists including kd lang, Pulp, Chrissie Hynde, Iggy Pop, Garbage, David McAlmont, Martina Topley-Bird, Natasha Bedingfield, Aimee Mann, George Michael and Damien Rice.

An avid James Bond fan, in 1997 David Arnold produced Shaken and Stirred, an album of James Bond film title songs which reached number 11 in the UK album chart.