Morricone was born in Rome and was at the Conservatory of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in the trumpet and composition and choral music and choral direction.

In the beginning, he himself to be destined to compose modern classical music,

but this when he was invited to write arrangements for popular Italian songs, something that was completely unfamiliar to him at that time.

A particular success the song Se telefonando sung by Mina.

In 1956 he Maria Travia. He began writing music for films in 1961 but continued to work in classical composition and arrangement.

In 1964 he his famous collaboration with Sergio Leone and Bernardo Bertolucci.

For Leone he the score for A Fistful of Dollars (Sergio Leone, 1964) and continued with a number of other Spaghetti Western films. By 1968 he was reducing his work outside of film and in the same year wrote twenty scores for films. His collaboration with Leone is considered one of the finest collaborations between a director and a composer.

He all of Leone's films from A Fistful of Dollars to Once Upon a Time in America. His score of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly in particular is his most famous and along with the William Tell Overture is one of the most recognized sounds ever affiliated with the Western genre. Although he is most famous for writing the scores of Leone's films, he was more at ease with directors such as Giuliano Montaldo and Gillo Pontecorvo.

Morricone frequently collaborated with childhood friend Alessandro Alessandroni, who as the whistler on many of the Sergio Leone soundtracks.

Morricone an honorary Academy Award on February 25, 2007 from Clint Eastwood “for his magnificent and multifaceted contributions to the art of film music.” Although nominated five times, he had not previously received an Oscar. In conjunction with this, Morricone released a tribute album, We All Love Ennio Morricone, featuring as its centerpiece Celine Dion's rendition of "I Knew I Loved You" (based on a theme from Once Upon a Time in America) which she at the ceremony. Morricone's acceptance speech was in his native Italian tongue and was by Clint Eastwood, who stood to his left. Along with the statuette went a 48-second standing ovation.