One of six children of the legendary composer Jerry Goldsmith, and the oldest son, Joel Goldsmith's own career in film scoring began in 1978, when he collaborated with Richard Band on the score for Laserblast (1978). Joel Goldsmith next worked as sound mixer for another Band project, The Day Time Ended (1979) before receiving his first solo scoring assignment, Olivia (1983), for cult German director Ulli Lommel. The stylish synthesizer score Goldsmith provided was succeeded by dozens more for film and TV, including The Man with Two Brains (1983) and Man's Best Friend (1993). His electronic expertise came in handy when he co-produced father Jerry's first all-electronic score, Runaway (1984), and helped in the same capacity for Jerry's theme from Hoosiers (1986). Joel also scored episodes of the TV series H.E.L.P. (1990), for which Jerry wrote the original theme; and Joel composed some 20 minutes of additional music (with credit) for his father's 1996 assignment Star Trek: First Contact (1996).

Joel Goldsmith composed his first symphonic score, for Roland Emmerich's Moon 44 (1990), in 1990. Surprisingly, this sweeping score did not lead to more similar assignments; but, in recent years, Joel Goldsmith's profile has been boosted in recent years with assignments such as TV's Vampirella (1996) and the 1997 cult hit Kull the Conqueror (1997), another big, bold symphonic score which helped nab him the assignment Shadow of Doubt (1998). Most recently, he has been the chief composer for the TV shows Stargate SG-1 (1997) and Stargate: Atlantis (2004). While Joel's style is recognizably similar to his father's (he seems to have a particular love for Jerry's The Wind and the Lion (1975)), it is recognizably distinct, which observers of the film music scene believe can only continue to ripen.