Starting today, we are publishing our predictions for the Best Original Score category of next year’s 94th Academy Awards on the left side column of this page. The selection and ranking is based on our own experience of the scores in context of the movies, reactions of Academy music branch members and others in the film music community, the level of awards campaigning and awareness of the competing titles, historical data and the response to the movies in other categories. The order of the titles in the ranking is likely to shift as some movies have yet to be released or are early in their release cycle and more reactions are coming in. Predictions in the Original Song category will be published within the next few days.
The Frontrunners:
- Dune – Hans Zimmer
- The Power of the Dog – Jonny Greenwood
- Spencer – Jonny Greenwood
- The French Dispatch – Alexandre Desplat
- Don’t Look Up – Nicholas Britell
Runner-ups:
- Being the Ricardos – Daniel Pemberton
- King Richard – Kris Bowers
- The Last Duel – Harry Gregson-Williams
- Cyrano – Bryce Dessner & Aaron Dessner
- The Green Knight – Daniel Hart
- Luca – Dan Romer
- The Tragedy of Macbeth – Carter Burwell
- Raya and the Last Dragon – James Newton Howard
- The Harder They Fall – Jeymes Samuel
- Encanto – Germaine Franco
Just as in the last three years, the Academy will announce a short list of 15 original scores later this month and our predictions will be updated accordingly.
The nominations for the 94th Academy Awards will be announced on February 8, 2022 and the awards ceremony will take place on March 27
Scores that I would’ve put in here are Nightmare Alley & Coppelia
What about “Jungle Cruise” and “No Time to die”?
Black Widow should be in this Oscar list by Lorne Balfe
If the item you placed on top of your Frontrunners list ends up getting the nomination alone, it’d plague the output of the industry for many years to come once again. As if we don’t have enough cold sound design stuff already. Please no.
I’d be pretty happy if either Luca or Encanto won. I think Cry Macho by Mark Mancina deserves a nomination too, though.
What about Shiro Sagisu’s Evangelion 3.0+1.0? And I second No Time to Die…
Black Widow is not only the best Marvel soundtrack and film in years it is also one of the best scores of the year.
This one is not even close. If people have heard the “Power of the Dog” score, they will vote for Jonny Greenwood. If people just vote casually, without listening, they’ll fail to recognize one of the most towering achievements in recent years. One hopes that they don’t fail this one.