Max Aruj

Aruj was born and raised in Los Angeles, California.^[1][3] He began playing classical and jazz piano at age six and started composing music in high school, including scoring a student film titled Black Martini.^[4] He earned a Bachelor of Music in composition from the USC Thornton School of Music between 2007 and 2012, along with a minor in business administration from USC Marshall School of Business.^[5]

Aruj began his professional career with an internship at Hans Zimmer's Remote Control Productions during his studies at USC, where he later worked extensively with composers Lorne Balfe and Rupert Gregson-Williams.^[4][3] His early contributions included additional music and arrangements for projects such as Top Gun: Maverick (2022), Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018), Black Widow (2021), The Crown, and His Dark Materials.^[1][3]

As a lead composer, Aruj scored the horror film Crawl (2019), the crime drama Lansky (2021), and action thriller The Ice Road (2021) starring Liam Neeson.^[1][6] He composed for the video game expansion Assassin's Creed Valhalla: Wrath of the Druids (2021) and the Netflix animated series Mech Cadets (2023).^[1][2]

Other notable scores include The Tank (2023), the documentary MoviePass, MovieCrash (2024), and Betrayal (2024).^[7] In 2025, he composed the score for Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning in collaboration with Alfie Godfrey.^[1][8]

Beyond screen media, Aruj co-produced the orchestral album Gravity Deluxe by electronic music artist Gryffin.^[3][2]