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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1 new
King Kong
1933, in 26 top lists Check -
2 new
Bride of Frankenstein
1935, in 19 top lists Check -
3 new
The Informer
1935, in 7 top lists Check -
4 new
Things to Come
1936, in 8 top lists Check -
5 new
The Prince and the Pauper
1937, in 0 top lists Check -
6 new
The Adventures of Robin Hood
1938, in 17 top lists Check -
7 new
Gone with the Wind
1939, in 31 top lists Check -
8 new
Son of Frankenstein
1939, in 2 top lists Check -
9 new
Of Mice and Men
1939, in 4 top lists Check -
10 new
The Sea Hawk
1940, in 2 top lists Check -
11 new
Rebecca
1940, in 23 top lists Check -
12 new
How Green Was My Valley
1941, in 11 top lists Check -
13 new
The First of the Few
1942 — a.k.a. Spitfire, in 0 top lists Check -
14 new
Jungle Book
1942, in 1 top list Check -
15 new
All That Money Can Buy
1941 — a.k.a. The Devil and Daniel Webster, in 4 top lists Check -
16 new
The Song of Bernadette
1943, in 4 top lists Check -
17 new
The Adventures of Mark Twain
1944, in 0 top lists Check -
18 new
Laura
1944, in 21 top lists Check -
19 new
Double Indemnity
1944, in 37 top lists Check -
20 new
The Chronicle History of King Henry the Fifth...
1944 — a.k.a. Henry V, in 12 top lists Check -
21 new
The Best Years of Our Lives
1946, in 30 top lists Check -
22 new
Captain from Castile
1947, in 0 top lists Check -
23 new
Forever Amber
1947, in 0 top lists Check -
24 new
Green Dolphin Street
1947, in 0 top lists Check -
25 new
Odd Man Out
1947, in 15 top lists Check -
26 new
Johnny Belinda
1948, in 2 top lists Check -
27 new
Louisiana Story
1948, in 5 top lists Check -
28 new
Oliver Twist
1948, in 6 top lists Check -
29 new
Scott of the Antarctic
1948, in 0 top lists Check -
30 new
Madame Bovary
1949, in 0 top lists Check -
31 new
The Red Pony
1949, in 0 top lists Check -
32 new
Sunset Blvd.
1950 — a.k.a. Sunset Boulevard, in 35 top lists Check -
33 new
Night and the City
1950, in 12 top lists Check -
34 new
A Streetcar Named Desire
1951, in 15 top lists Check -
35 new
Death of a Salesman
1951, in 2 top lists Check -
36 new
The Day the Earth Stood Still
1951, in 12 top lists Check -
37 new
High Noon
1952, in 18 top lists Check -
38 new
Viva Zapata!
1952, in 2 top lists Check -
39 new
On Dangerous Ground
1951, in 3 top lists Check -
40 new
On the Waterfront
1954, in 34 top lists Check -
41 new
The Man with the Golden Arm
1955, in 8 top lists Check -
42 new
The Cobweb
1955, in 1 top list Check -
43 new
Rebel Without a Cause
1955, in 16 top lists Check -
44 new
Around the World in 80 Days
1956, in 8 top lists Check -
45 new
Auntie Mame
1958, in 3 top lists Check -
46 new
Bell Book and Candle
1958, in 0 top lists Check -
47 new
The Big Country
1958, in 6 top lists Check -
48 new
Vertigo
1958, in 42 top lists Check -
49 new
Ben-Hur
1959, in 23 top lists Check -
50 new
The Magnificent Seven
1960, in 11 top lists Check
Last updated on Feb 26, 2013; source