I occasionally see misguided comments like this one on Bluesky the other day:

“Folks have a lot of pet peeves with movies these days, but my biggest one is probably that an absurd number of score composers are afraid of melody. I should be walking out of a theater humming your lietmotifs, you cowards, not feeling vaguely unsettled by ambient atonal strings…”

While everyone is entitled to their opinion, the crucial part they get wrong is that it’s not due to the composer. It’s a choice by the director.
They direct an approach, style, aesthetic for the score. As with all departments, nothing goes into a film without their sign off. If a director wants iconic melodies, they work with a composer who can deliver those…

So rather than making some grand claim about “an absurd number of composers…” they are complaining about watching a film with a score exactly as the director intended it to be heard. If you don’t like it, go watch a different film.

But I think their issue would be better served by asking for what they want.
For example, rather than making absurd claims, ask “Please recommend me recent films with an iconic melodic score?”

With access to IMDB they can answer their own question.
So if you are a complainer, name a film that you loved the ‘grand melodic score’.
Now go to IMDB, check who the composer is.
Now check the composers IMDB. Have you seen all of their films?

It is a personal taste issue, rather than some universal issue.
Everyone has their own taste. I for one, grow tired of epic melodic scores within about 30 seconds. But I do still appreciate melody, so I seek out the work of more subtle film composers, who’s past work I adore. For me that might be Carter Burwell, or Ryuichi Sakamoto or Thomas Newman or etc…

You do you.