With his companion, puppeteer and director Julie Taymor, Goldenthal has collaborated on several stage productions, including "The Transposed Heads", "The Green Bird" and the mixed-medium, Uruguayan-inspired "Juan Darien--A Carnival Mass". The original 1988 production earned him an OBIE Award and its 1996 Broadway production earned five Tony Award nominations, including one for Goldenthal's ecclectic score. Additionally, he was commissioned to create a musical piece in honor of Leonard Bernstein's 70th birthday. The resulting piece, "Shadow Play Scherzo" (1988) won critical kudos. Other works include the dark, subtle oratorio "Fire Water Paper" (1995) written to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam war. Utilizing themes from the Catholic liturgy and incorporating Buddhist texts as well as contemporary Vietnamese poetry, the tripartite composition veers from furiously violent to ethereal and calming. The composer was also commissioned by the American Ballet Theater to write a full-length ballet version of "Othello" (1997).
Goldenthal's first brush with the film world came in the late 70s with a brief collaboration with Andy Warhol ("Blank Generation", "Cocaine Cowboys"). He did the music for the suspense film "Pet Sematary" (1989), but Goldenthal considered Gus Van Sant's "Drugstore Cowboy" (also 1989) to be his real debut. Van Sant had used music from "Juan Darien" as a stop-gap and asked Goldenthal to provide the finished score. The eerie, almost subliminal music was acclaimed for its enhancement of the mood established by the director, capturing the drug-induced state of its characters.
Goldenthal has come to specialize in suspense and action films; his music is neither soaring nor intrusive, but integrated with background noises and actions. His atmospheric score for "Alien3" recalled works by Corigliano. Each of his subsequent film scores defy description; each possesses a distinctive, somewhat atonal sound. Goldenthal earned his first Oscar nomination for his moody and gothic work on Neil Jordan's "Interview With the Vampire". A last minute replacement, the composer created a score that utilized aspects of the musical genres from the three centuries the film spanned. Moving easily from the Rococo to the contemporary, using boys choirs, liturgical chants and period instruments, the score set the appropriate tone for the action.
Goldenthal next joined the "Batman" team mid-flight for Joel Schumacher's sequel "Batman Forever" (1995). Lighter and goofier than the previous entry, it demanded a less ominous but still heroic score than the original. He and Schumacher reteamed for the courtroom drama "A Time to Kill" (1996), for which he proffered the subtle but stirring music. Again working with Neil Jordan on "Michael Collins" (1996), the composer incorporated traditional Celtic music yet managed to avoid the pitfalls of cliche with his compositions enhancing the visuals without detracting from them.