John Williams: Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (2LP, soundtrack, sand vinyl) [WALT DISNEY RECORDS]

Why you'll love it

This edition spreads the 1989 score across four sides of sand-coloured vinyl, with cues like "The Boat Scene", "Journey To Austria" and "On The Tank" that the original single album left out. Williams conducts his own music, from the motorcycle scherzo to the hushed Grail themes, and the Raiders March closes it all out in the end credits.

This edition

• 2LP set on sand vinyl
• Gatefold jacket
• Expanded tracklist: 19 cues, up from 13 on the 1989 album

About the album

The third Indiana Jones film gave John Williams a new problem: how do you score Harrison Ford going on a quest with his dad? The answer was to keep the swagger of the Raiders March and add something warmer and stranger beside it, a solemn, almost churchy theme for the Holy Grail and a lumbering, comic menace for the Nazis. Williams composed and conducted the whole thing with the Hollywood Studio Symphony, and the result is the most good-humoured of the Indy scores.

The original 1989 album only held key moments, and it went out of print. This 2LP set gives the music room to breathe, from "Indy's Very First Adventure" (young River Phoenix on a circus train) through the gloriously over-engineered "Scherzo For Motorcycle And Orchestra" to "The Penitent Man Will Pass" and the finale. Played start to finish, it's a proper adventure in four sides. Fedora optional, though we'd not say no.

Tracklist

Listen

Out June 5, 2026 on Walt Disney Records (cat# 8759638), a reissue of the 1989 soundtrack.