Academy Award for Best Original Score


The Academy Award for Best Original Score is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to the best substantial body of music in the form of dramatic underscoring written specifically for the film by the submitting composer. Some pre-existing music is allowed, though, but a contending film must include a minimum of original music. This minimum since 2021 is established as 35% of the music, which is raised to 80% for sequels and franchise films. Fifteen scores are shortlisted before nominations are announced.
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History

The Academy began awarding movies for their scores in 1935. The category was originally called Best Scoring. At the time, winners and nominees were a mix of original scores and adaptations of pre-existing material. Following the controversial win of Charles Previn for One Hundred Men and a Girl in 1938, a film without a credited composer that featured pre-existing classical music, the Academy added a Best Original Score category in 1939. In 1942, the distinction between the two Scoring categories changed slightly as they were renamed to Best Music Score of a Dramatic Picture and Best Scoring of a Musical Picture. This marked the first time the category was split into separate genres. From 1942 to 1985, musical scores had their own category, with the exception of 1958, 1981, and 1982. During that time, both categories had many name changes:
;1. Non-musical scores
  • Best Music Score of a Dramatic Picture
  • Best Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture
  • Best Music Score—substantially original
  • Best Original Music Score
  • Best Original Score—for a motion picture
  • Best Original Score
  • Best Original Dramatic Score
;2. Musical scores
  • Best Scoring of a Musical Picture
  • Best Scoring of Music—adaptation or treatment
  • Best Score of a Musical Picture—original or adaptation
  • Best Original Song Score
  • Best Scoring: Adaptation and Original Song Score
  • Best Scoring: Original Song Score and Adaptation -or- Scoring: Adaptation
  • Best Original Song Score and Its Adaptation or Adaptation Score
  • Best Adaptation Score
  • Best Original Song Score and Its Adaptation -or- Adaptation Score
  • Best Original Song Score or Adaptation Score
  • Best Original Song Score
  • Best Original Musical or Comedy Score
Following the wins of four Walt Disney Feature Animation films in six years from 1990 to 1995 during a period called the Disney Renaissance, it was decided to once again split the Best Original Score category by genres, this time by combining comedies and musicals together. As Alan Bergman, the chairman of the Academy's music branch said, "People were voting for the songs, not the underscores. We felt that Academy members outside the music branch didn't distinguish between the two. So when a score like The Lion King is competing against a drama like Forrest Gump, it's apples and oranges – not in the quality of the score, but in the way it functions in the movie. There's a big difference." The category was therefore split into Best Original Dramatic Score and Best Original Musical or Comedy Score in 1996. This change proved unpopular in the other branches of the Academy as Charles Bernstein, chairman of the Academy's rules committee, noted that "no other Oscar category depended on a film's genre" and "the job of composing an underscore for a romantic comedy is not substantially different from working on a heavy drama." This split was reverted in 2000.
In 2020, rules were changed to require that a film's score include a minimum of 60% original music. Franchise films and sequels must include a minimum of 80% new music. In 2021, the rules were changed again, lowering the minimum percentage of original music from 60% to 35% of the total music in the film.

Academy Award for Best Original Musical

The Academy Award for Best Original Musical is a category that was re-established in 2000 after the Best Original Musical or Comedy Score category was retired. It has never been awarded in its present form due to a prolonged drought of films meeting the sufficient eligibility requirements. The Music Branch Executive Committee of the Academy decides whether there are enough quality submissions to justify its activation.
According to the rules, the Best Original Musical is defined as follows:

Winners and nominees

The following is the list of nominated composers organized by year, and listing both films and composers. The years shown in the following list of winners are the production years, thus a reference to 1967 means the Oscars presented in 1968 for films released in 1967.

2000s

Shortlisted finalists

Finalists for Best Score are selected by the Music Branch. Music Branch members shall vote in order of their preference for not more than 15 pictures to be considered for the Score award. The 15 motion pictures receiving the highest number of votes shall advance to the next round of voting.
YearFinalistsRef
1967Original Score: Bonnie and Clyde, The Flim-Flam Man, Live for Life, Two for the Road, Wait Until Dark
Scoring of Music — Adaptation or Treatment: A Countess from Hong Kong, The Family Way, The Happiest Millionaire, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, The Jungle Book
1968Original Score: For Love of Ivy, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, Rachel, Rachel, Romeo and Juliet, War and Peace
Scoring of a Musical Picture: C'mon, Let's Live a Little, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band
1969Original Score: Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, Gaily, Gaily, The Happy Ending, The Madwoman of Chaillot, True Grit
Scoring of a Musical Picture: Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness?, Marry Me! Marry Me!, Oh! What a Lovely War
1970Original Score: The Aristocats, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, Dirty Dingus Magee, Pieces of Dreams, Ryan's Daughter
Original Song Score: Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, Cotton Comes to Harlem, Norwood, R. P. M., Where's Poppa?
1971Original Score: Escape from the Planet of the Apes, The French Connection, The Hellstrom Chronicle, Kotch, Sometimes a Great Notion
Original Song Score or Adaptation Score: Honky, Jud, Zachariah
1972Original Score: Ben, Fellini's Roma, The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, The Other
Original Song Score or Adaptation Score: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, 1776, Snoopy Come Home, Young Winston
1973Original Score: Enter the Dragon, The Last American Hero, Oklahoma Crude, The Paper Chase, Robin Hood
Original Song Score or Adaptation Score: Bang the Drum Slowly, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Lost Horizon, O Lucky Man!
1974Original Score: The Castaway Cowboy, The Conversation, Earthquake, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, The White Dawn
Original Song Score or Adaptation Score: Claudine, Huckleberry Finn, Lenny, Mame
1975Original Score: The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother, The Eiger Sanction, The Hindenburg, The Other Side of the Mountain, The Yakuza
Original Song Score or Adaptation Score: The Day of the Locust, Lucky Lady, The Return of the Pink Panther, W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings
1976Original Score: King Kong, Logan's Run, The Pink Panther Strikes Again, Rocky, Silent Movie
Original Song Score or Adaptation Score: The Bad News Bears, Car Wash, The Duchess and the Dirtwater Fox, Leadbelly
1977Original Score: Airport '77, Audrey Rose, Black Sunday, Bobby Deerfield, A Bridge Too Far, Equus, Gasp, The Gauntlet, The Island of Dr. Moreau, Islands in the Stream, Joseph Andrews, MacArthur, 1900, Providence, The Rescuers, Rollercoaster, The Sentinel, Walking Tall: Final Chapter
Original Song Score or Adaptation Score: New York, New York
1978Original Score: Capricorn One, Coma, Magic, Revenge of the Pink Panther, Watership Down
Original Song Score or Adaptation Score: The Cheap Detective, Damien - Omen II, The Deer Hunter, The Magic of Lassie
1979Original Score: Escape from Alcatraz, The Frisco Kid, The Great Train Robbery, Meteor, Time After Time
Original Song Score or Adaptation Score: The Europeans, Hair, Meeting with Remarkable Men, Wise Blood
2018Annihilation, Avengers: Infinity War, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Crazy Rich Asians, The Death of Stalin, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, First Man, A Quiet Place, Ready Player One, Vice
2019Avengers: Endgame, Bombshell, The Farewell, Ford v Ferrari, Frozen II, Jojo Rabbit, The King, Motherless Brooklyn, Pain and Glory, Us
2020/21Ammonite, Blizzard of Souls, The Invisible Man, Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey, The Life Ahead, The Little Things, The Midnight Sky, Mulan, Tenet, The Trial of the Chicago 7
2021Being the Ricardos, Candyman, The French Dispatch, The Green Knight, The Harder They Fall, King Richard, The Last Duel, No Time to Die, Spencer, The Tragedy of Macbeth
2022Avatar: The Way of Water, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Devotion, Don't Worry Darling, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, Nope, She Said, The Woman King, Women Talking
2023American Symphony, Barbie, The Boy and the Heron, The Color Purple, Elemental, The Holdovers, Saltburn, Society of the Snow, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, The Zone of Interest
2024Alien: Romulus, Babygirl, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Blink Twice, Blitz, Challengers, The Fire Inside, Gladiator II, Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1, Inside Out 2, Nosferatu, The Room Next Door, Sing Sing, The Six Triple Eight, Young Woman and the Sea
2025Avatar: Fire and Ash, Captain America: Brave New World, Diane Warren: Relentless, F1, Hedda, A House of Dynamite, Jay Kelly, Marty Supreme, Nuremberg, Sirāt, Train Dreams, Tron: Ares, Truth & Treason, Wake Up Dead Man, Wicked: For Good

Records

Superlatives

These are only for nominations in the Scoring categories. Nominations in other categories, such as the Original Song category, are not included.
CategoryNameSuperlativeNotes
Most AwardsAlfred Newman9 awardsAwards resulted from 41 nominations
Most NominationsJohn Williams49 nominationsNominations resulted in 5 awards
Most Nominations without an AwardThomas Newman / Alex North14 nominations

Age superlatives

RecordComposerFilmAge
Oldest winnerEnnio MorriconeThe Hateful Eight87 years, 110 days
Oldest nomineeJohn WilliamsIndiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny91 years, 349 days
Youngest winnerPrincePurple Rain26 years, 291 days
Youngest nomineePrincePurple Rain26 years, 244 days

Only one composer has won two Scoring Oscars the same year: in 1973, Marvin Hamlisch won Original Dramatic Score for The Way We Were and Best Adaptation Score, for The Sting. Hamlisch also won Best Song that year for The Way We Were, making him the only composer to win three music Oscars in the same year.
Only one composer has won Oscars three years in a row: Roger Edens won for Easter Parade, On the Town and Annie Get Your Gun.
Eight composers have won Oscars two years in a row:
  1. Ray Heindorf won for Yankee Doodle Dandy and This Is the Army.
  2. Franz Waxman won for Sunset Boulevard and A Place in the Sun.
  3. Alfred Newman won for With a Song in My Heart and Call Me Madam. He won again two years in a row for Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing and The King and I.
  4. Adolph Deutsch won for Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and Oklahoma!.
  5. André Previn won for Gigi and Porgy and Bess. He won again two years in a row for Irma la Douce and My Fair Lady.
  6. Leonard Rosenman won for Barry Lyndon and Bound for Glory.
  7. Alan Menken won for Beauty and The Beast and Aladdin.
  8. Gustavo Santaolalla won for Brokeback Mountain and Babel.

Female nominees

As of 2025, only 11 women have been nominated in music score categories: Ann Ronell, Tylwyth Kymry, Angela Morley, Marilyn Bergman, Rachel Portman, Anne Dudley, Lynn Ahrens, Hildur Guðnadóttir, Germaine Franco, Laura Karpman, and Camille. Kymry, Bergman, and Ahrens were nominated for their contribution as lyricists.
Four women have won in the scoring categories. Three are composers: Rachel Portman, who won for Emma ; Anne Dudley, who won for The Full Monty ; and Hildur Guðnadóttir, who won for Joker. The fourth is lyricist Marilyn Bergman, who won for Yentl in the Original Song Score category, sharing the award with co-lyricist Alan Bergman and composer Michel Legrand. Hildur is the only woman to win the award under no qualifications; Bergman won for Best Song Score while Portman and Dudley won for Best Musical or Comedy Score.
The female composers nominated for multiple Scoring Oscars are Rachel Portman, who was nominated for Emma, The Cider House Rules, and Chocolat ; and Angela Morley, who was nominated twice in the Original Song Score or Adaptation Score category for The Little Prince and The Slipper and the Rose.

Notable nominees

Dmitri Shostakovich and Duke Ellington were both nominated the same year but lost to the arrangers of West Side Story.
The scores of Midnight Express by Giorgio Moroder in 1979, Slumdog Millionaire by A.R. Rahman in 2009, and The Social Network by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross in 2011 are the only scores with electronic-based music ever to win the award. In addition, the electronic-based scores of Witness by Maurice Jarre in 1986, Rain Man by Hans Zimmer in 1989, and Her by William Butler, and Owen Pallett in 2014 have also been nominated.
Noted nominated composers known for their music mostly outside the film world include: Aaron Copland, Kurt Weill, Gian Carlo Menotti, Philip Glass, John Corigliano, Peter Maxwell Davies, Randy Newman, Richard Rodney Bennett, Stephen Schwartz, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Artie Shaw, Trent Reznor, Quincy Jones, Herbie Hancock, Jon Batiste, and Jonny Greenwood.
Rock musicians and pop stars are most often nominated in the songwriting category. These popular performers were nominated in the Scoring categories: The Beatles, Prince, Pete Townshend, Rod McKuen, Isaac Hayes, Kris Kristofferson, Quincy Jones, Randy Newman, Anthony Newley, Paul Williams, Tom Waits, David Byrne, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Trent Reznor, and Matthew Wilder.
Record producers George Martin and Jerry Wexler also received nominations in the Scoring categories.

Multiple nominations

The following is a list of composers nominated more than once and winning at least one Academy Award. This list is sorted by number of awards, with the number of total nominations listed in parentheses. These do not include nominations in the Best Original Song category.
The following composers have been nominated for a Best Original Score Oscar more than once but have yet to garner one. The number of nominations is listed in parentheses. These do not include nominations in the Best Original Song category.

Deceased

Living