Film Comment's 101 Film Score Milestones
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This Essential List of 101 Great Film Score Milestones (in chronological order) from 1933-2001 was compiled by John Caps in the November-December 2003 issue of Film Comment magazine in an article titled "Soundtracks 101 – Essential Movie Music: A Listener's Guide." The article also provided a brief history of film music in the introduction and further details on each of the choices.
Facts and Commentary About the List:
•The list was created to mark the 70th anniversary of the film score in 2003.
• The list consisted of composed instrumental film scores (whether symphonic or electronic, classical or pop in style), not film musicals or song scores, from American and British films (English-language films).
•These were films from the talkie era onwards (and recognizing that silent films were never silent).
•The quality of a film often has nothing to do with the rating of its film score, e.g., Taras Bulba (1962, Waxman).
•According to the author, the list was "representative rather than exhaustive; all of the scores in the list "contribute something memorable, something personal, to their films - and communicate one step further to us as music."
•Predictably, one-fourth of the list was taken by the six giants of the Golden Age (Steiner, Waxman, Korngold, Newman, Rozsa, Herrmann). Yet the author also recognized some of the great, but seemingly forgotten, figures of the recent past: Laurence Rosenthal, Richard Rodney Bennett, Dave Grusin, David Shire, and Basil Poledouris.
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7 new
Gone with the Wind
1939, in 31 top lists Check -
52 new
Lawrence of Arabia
1962, in 40 top lists Check -
49 new
Ben-Hur
1959, in 22 top lists Check -
59 new
It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World
1963, in 6 top lists Check -
84 new
Tess
1979, in 5 top lists Check -
63 new
Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo
1966 — a.k.a. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, in 28 top lists Check -
56 new
The Cardinal
1963, in 1 top list Check -
21 new
The Best Years of Our Lives
1946, in 30 top lists Check -
100 new
The Horse Whisperer
1998, in 2 top lists Check -
65 new
Far from the Madding Crowd
1967, in 2 top lists Check -
44 new
Around the World in 80 Days
1956, in 8 top lists Check -
47 new
The Big Country
1958, in 6 top lists Check -
16 new
The Song of Bernadette
1943, in 4 top lists Check -
99 new
Angela's Ashes
1999, in 0 top lists Check -
72 new
The Wild Bunch
1969, in 25 top lists Check -
45 new
Auntie Mame
1958, in 3 top lists Check -
24 new
Green Dolphin Street
1947, in 0 top lists Check -
22 new
Captain from Castile
1947, in 0 top lists Check -
81 new
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
1977, in 23 top lists Check -
23 new
Forever Amber
1947, in 0 top lists Check -
20 new
The Chronicle History of King Henry the Fifth...
1944 — a.k.a. Henry V, in 12 top lists Check -
42 new
The Cobweb
1955, in 1 top list Check -
64 new
In Cold Blood
1967, in 8 top lists Check -
83 new
The Stunt Man
1980, in 2 top lists Check -
17 new
The Adventures of Mark Twain
1944, in 0 top lists Check -
76 new
Chinatown
1974, in 31 top lists Check -
11 new
Rebecca
1940, in 23 top lists Check -
89 new
Conan the Barbarian
1982, in 4 top lists Check -
79 new
The Return of a Man Called Horse
1976, in 0 top lists Check -
53 new
To Kill a Mockingbird
1962, in 18 top lists Check -
57 new
Tom Jones
1963, in 13 top lists Check -
50 new
The Magnificent Seven
1960, in 11 top lists Check -
48 new
Vertigo
1958, in 42 top lists Check -
96 new
Basic Instinct
1992, in 10 top lists Check -
62 new
Cool Hand Luke
1967, in 13 top lists Check -
10 new
The Sea Hawk
1940, in 2 top lists Check -
93 new
Batman
1989, in 9 top lists Check -
73 new
The Last Valley
1971, in 1 top list Check -
92 new
The Mission
1986, in 6 top lists Check -
78 new
Jaws
1975, in 28 top lists Check -
86 new
Gloria
1980, in 8 top lists Check -
68 new
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
1968, in 0 top lists Check -
74 new
Lady Caroline Lamb
1972, in 0 top lists Check -
34 new
A Streetcar Named Desire
1951, in 15 top lists Check -
55 new
Taras Bulba
1962, in 0 top lists Check -
41 new
The Man with the Golden Arm
1955, in 8 top lists Check -
13 new
The First of the Few
1942 — a.k.a. Spitfire, in 0 top lists Check -
12 new
How Green Was My Valley
1941, in 11 top lists Check -
5 new
The Prince and the Pauper
1937, in 0 top lists Check -
25 new
Odd Man Out
1947, in 15 top lists Check
Last updated on Feb 26, 2013; source