Film Music Essentials: Jerry Goldsmith

Thought I'd start this up as a weekly or bi-weekly thread, highlighting essential film scores and their composers.

First off the bat is Jerry Goldsmith (1929-2004). Feel free to offer a list of his greatest scores and/or any commentary you have regarding his work.

My top ten Goldsmith scores.

- PATTON
- PLANET OF THE APES
- CHINATOWN
- ALIEN
- UNDER FIRE
- PAPILLON
- BASIC INSTINCT
- CAPRICORN ONE
- THE LONELY ARE THE BRAVE
- THE OMEN III: THE FINAL CONFLICT

More to come later, including commentary, documentaries and articles.

Its difficult with Goldsmith, so many great scores but also so varied in style and mood, the top ten rattles around as your own mood changes. He's probably my all time favourite film composer so picking just 10 is tough -

Star Trek - The Motion Picture
Alien
Planet of the Apes
Damien Omen II
Chinatown
Poltergiest
The Omen
Our Man Flint
Air Force One
First Blood

My local video store actually has THE LAST RUN on DVD. I hear it sucks, but I plan to rent it anyway because the score is cool.

As for a favorite? Sorry to bring up Trek, but I love his score for THE MOTION PICTURE. One of my personal favorite film scores. It's just got so much to offer.

Ranking his Trek scores...

1. THE MOTION PICTURE
2. THE FINAL FRONTIER
3. INSURRECTION
4. FIRST CONTACT
5. NEMESIS

I call the movie NEMESHIT, but certainly not his score. It's a slighter effort, but still good. INSURRECTION is better fleshed for me than FIRST CONTACT. FINAL FRONTIER is terrific, but not as iconic as TMP.

Now I'll be a complete asshole and bring up a superhero. I enjoy his Supergirl theme

I like his First Blood theme, the Rambo theme I guess it is overall (The Long Road), all his Trek scores, Patton, Planet of the Apes, Logan's Run, Air Force One and the snippets I've heard of things like Hoosiers and Rudy.

even some TV stuff like the bits he did for Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea that mysteriously were only used in two episodes of Season 2.



didn't twig he did Kingdom of the Spiders.