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Posted: |
Feb 18, 2025 - 12:03 PM
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By: |
Thor
(Member)
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Yeah, there are probably a gazillion of these top 10 Goldsmith threads, but I'm too lazy to search right now.
As for the qualifications, I don't OWN 100 Goldsmith scores (last count was 71), but I obviously KNOW more than 100. Many have left my collection over the years, or I've sampled them in other ways. So if that qualifies, here is my list:
1. THE MUMMY
2. Medicine Man
3. First Knight
4. First Blood
5. The Last Run
6. Under Fire
7. Lionheart
8. Gremlins 2
9. The Final Conflict
10. The Edge
Or something. This changes all the time, and I wish there were more calm Goldsmiths to choose from, as that's my go-to these days over all the rambunctious action scores that I loved as a kid (and that still haunt the list). Also, this is mostly about soundtrack albums. If the question had been about in-film scores, it would have been different. ALIEN is nowhere to be seen here, for example, but it might just top the list in that case.
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1. Capricorn One
2. The Boys From Brazil
3. CaboBlanco
4. Islands In The Stream
5. Masada
6. The Wind And The Lion
7. Night Crossing
8. Papillon
9. The Final Conflict
10. Star Trek - The Motion Picture
Rio Lobo
QB VII
Under Fire
Chinatown
Poltergeist
The Last Run
The Sand Pebbles
The Chairman
The Blue Max
The Omen
Magic, Alien, Twilight Zone - The Movie, The Swarm, Raggedy Man......
Planet Of The Apes, Patton, In Harm's Way, Logan's Run, The Other......
SCOTT, who could easily list 100 more, including 100 Rifles.
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There are your favorites and there are the ones which are universally accepted as the best.
I think what really speaks to how great *and* prolific Goldsmith was, is that you can ask this question to 10 Goldsmith fans and they can each give you a very different top 10 with very little overlap! With Goldsmith unlike most composers, there *isn't* a universally accepted "best" list.
Here are my favorites, which may not be everyone's but they are each undeniably great... only my top 3 are really "set in stone" at this point:
1. The Artist Who Did Not Want to Paint
2. Lonely Are the Brave
3. QBVII (I think this is "objectively" his magnum opus if anything is)
4. Papillon
5. Planet of the Apes
6. Contract on Cherry Street
7. Lionheart
8. The Shadow
9. Seconds
10. The 'Burbs
And yeah, it blows my mind that I had to leave off Star Treks 1 & 5, the Rambo and Omen trilogies, Poltergeist, Legend, Night Crossing, Masada (would have made it if he'd been able to finish the second half), Magic, The Swarm, Islands in the Stream, The Wind and the Lion, 100 Rifles, Tora! Tora! Tora!, The Chairman, Shock Treatment, The Blue Max, The Mummy, Medicine Man, The Edge, and even High Velocity (such an overlooked and underrated score).
Yavar
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QB VII (I would give Star Trek TMP his magnum opus title Yavar, but I do see where you’re coming from.)
For me TMP is somewhat hampered by the fact that a full dozen cues of the score weren't written by Goldsmith. No offense intended towards fans of Fred Steiner who was a solid TV composer, but apart from maybe one cue of his, his music just isn't inspired on the level of Goldsmith's. If Goldsmith had scored the entire thing himself (or at least everything except the two brief Alexander Courage Captain's Log cues), I agree it would rival QBVII as his magnum opus, even though QBVII has more variety and range displayed.
This is part of why I actually consider Star Trek V: The Final Frontier the superior Trek score, in complete form.
Yavar
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I think it is worth revisiting every decade
Ok then I agree Henry  , so to keep things interesting I'll break it down into decades more aligned with his ~50 year career (which also appropriately allows me to pick 50 scores total...and it's somehow STILL INCREDIBLY DIFFICULT!):
DECADE 1 — 1954-1963:
1. Lonely Are the Brave
2. "1489 Words" (CBS Radio Workshop)
3. Studs Lonigan
4. "The Bar Mitzvah of Major Orlovsky" (General Electric Theater)
5. Black Patch
6. "Incident in the Middle of Nowhere" (Rawhide)
7. Face of a Fugitive
8. "The Big Tall Wish" (The Twilight Zone)
9. "God Grante That She Lye Stille" (Thriller)
10. The Spiral Road
Bummed I had to leave off The Prize, City of Fear, "The Case of the Blushing Pearls" (Perry Mason), "A Head of Hair" (Have Gun — Will Travel), "Nervous Man in a $4 Room" (The Twilight Zone), "Late Date" (Thriller), "Hay-Fork and Bill-Hook" (Thriller), The List of Adrian Messenger, The Stripper, "A Killing at Sundial" (The Chrysler Theater), pretty much everything he wrote for Dr. Kildare, and the two-part Cain's Hundred pilot!
DECADE 2 — 1964-1973:
1. The Artist Who Did Not Want to Paint
2. Papillon
3. Planet of the Apes
4. Seconds
5. The Chairman
6. 100 Rifles
7. Tora! Tora! Tora!
8. Crawlspace
9. The Red Pony
10. The Last Run
I guess this would be my favorite Goldsmith decade since it has four of my top ten!
Very bummed I had to leave off The Other, In Harm's Way, Hour of the Gun, The Blue Max, Rio Conchos, The Sand Pebbles, A Patch of Blue, Justine, Shock Treatment, Our Man Flint, Patton, Shamus, One Little Indian, The Ballad of Cable Hogue (incredibly perfect in the wonderful film even if not as great as an album listen), The Brotherhood of the Bell, Rio Lobo, "The Whispering Tree" (Gunsmoke), "Requiem for a Son" (Barnaby Jones), and all of Goldsmith's gorgeous work on The Waltons, especially "The Ceremony".
DECADE 3 — 1974-1983:
1. QBVII
2. Contract on Cherry Street
3. Star Trek: The Motion Picture (see above; would be higher if Goldsmith had written all of it)
4. Poltergeist
5. High Velocity
6. Masada
7. First Blood
8. Islands in the Stream
9. Magic
10. Night Crossing
SUPER bummed I somehow still had to leave off Under Fire, Twilight Zone: The Movie, The Wind and the Lion, Alien, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Breakout, The Swarm, The Salamander, The Great Train Robbery, Chinatown, Capricorn One, Inchon, Raggedy Man, The Challenge, Damnation Alley, The Boys from Brazil, Coma, The Secret of NIMH, The Omen trilogy (what??), Ransom, The Reincarnation of Peter Proud, Take a Hard Ride, and... SPYS (deal with it, haters! ).
DECADE 4 — 1984-1993:
1. Lionheart
2. The 'Burbs
3. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
4. Rambo: First Blood Part II
5. Rambo III
6. Legend
7. Medicine Man
8. Matinee
9. Explorers
10. Warlock
Bummed to leave off Basic Instinct, Rudy, The Russia House, Forever Young, Link, Love Field, Leviathan, Hoosiers, Innerspace, and the delightful/underrated Dennis the Menace and Mom and Dad Save the World.
DECADE 5 — 1994-2003:
1. The Shadow
2. The Mummy
3. The Edge
4. First Knight
5. Looney Tunes: Back in Action
6. Small Soldiers
7. Bad Girls
8. Congo
9. Timeline
10. City Hall
Shout out to Soarin' Over California which I considered just a little bit too short to place despite being wonderful. Another shout out to The Sum of All Fears, which had one of the greatest main title cues of his entire career. Also bummed I had to leave off Mulan, Chain Reaction, The 13th Warrior, The Haunting, Fierce Creatures, Hollow Man, The Ghost and the Darkness, and Star Trek: Insurrection (the best of his TNG scores despite the other two arguably having greater highlights)
Yavar
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I've been listening to Goldsmith since the mid-sixties, so here goes:
1) The Blue Max
2) Chinatown
3) Under Fire
4) The Wind and the Lion
5) The Great Train Robbery
6) The Last Run
7) The Sand Pebbles
8) Star Trek: TMP
9) In Like Flint
10) Justine
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