2022 Oscar Predictions: ORIGINAL SCORE, ORIGINAL SONG and SOUND (December)

Erik Anderson December 21, 2021

The shortlists are here for Original Score, Original Song and Sound, giving us now a very narrowed field from which to predict.

No Time to Die made the biggest showing and is the only film to show up on all three shortlists here (as well as visual effects) and that pushed the Billie Eilish title song to the top spot this month. Belfast, Encanto, Dune, King Richard, The Harder They Fall, The Power of the Dog, Don’t Look Up, The Matrix Resurrections and Spider-Man: No Way Home all found a place on two of the shortlists.

Jonny Greenwood stands an excellent chance at being double-nominated in score for his shortlisted work on The Power of the Dog and Spencer. He would be the first to score two nominations since Alexandre Desplat did with his 2014 films The Imitation Game and The Grand Budapest Hotel, the latter of which won him his first Oscar. Incidentally, Desplat is on the shortlist once again, this time for The French Dispatch.

Here are my ranked 2022 Oscar predictions in Original Score, Original Song and Sound for December 2021 with designations for Golden Globe (GG) and Critics Choice (CCA) nominations.

ORIGINAL SCORE

Fifteen scores advanced in the Original Score category for the 94th Academy Awards. One hundred thirty-six scores were eligible in the category. Members of the Music Branch vote to determine the shortlist and the nominees.

Green – moves up ↑ Red – moves down ↓ Blue – new/re-entry ♦ Black – no movement ↔

1. Dune (Warner Bros/HBO Max) – GG, CCA ↔
2. The Power of the Dog (Netflix) – GG, CCA ↑
3. Parallel Mothers (Sony Pictures Classics) – GG ↑
4. Spencer (NEON) – CCA ↓
5. Don’t Look Up (Netflix) – CCA ↓

6. Encanto (Walt Disney) – GG ♦
7. The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun (Searchlight Pictures) – GG ↓
8. No Time to Die (MGM/UAR) ↑
9. The Tragedy of Macbeth (Apple Original Films) ↓
10. The Last Duel (20th Century Studios) ↑

Other contenders: Being the Ricardos, Candyman, The Green Knight, The Harder They Fall, King Richard

ORIGINAL SONG

Fifteen songs advanced in the Original Song category for the 94th Academy Awards. Eighty-four songs were eligible in the category. Members of the Music Branch vote to determine the shortlist and the nominees.

Green – moves up ↑ Red – moves down ↓ Blue – new/re-entry ♦ Black – no movement ↔

1. “No Time to Die” from No Time to Die (MGM/UAR) – GG, CCA ↑
2. “Be Alive” from “King Richard (Warner Bros/HBO Max) – GG, CCA ↓
3. “Down to Joy” from Belfast (Focus Features) – GG ↑
4. “Dos Oruguitas” from Encanto (Walt Disney) – GG, CCA ♦
5. “Just Look Up” from Don’t Look Up (Netflix) – CCA ↓

6. “Beyond the Shore” from CODA (Apple Original Films) ↔
7. “Automatic Woman” from Bruised (Netflix) ♦
8. “Guns Go Bang” from “The Harder They Fall (Netflix) – CCA ↑
9. “Somehow You Do” from Four Good Days (Vertical Entertainment) ↔
10. “Here I Am (Singing My Way Home)” from Respect (MGM/UAR) – GG ↔

Other contenders: “The Anonymous Ones” from Dear Evan Hansen, “Dream Girl” from Cinderella, “Right Where I Belong” from Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road, “So May We Start?” from Annette, “Your Song Saved My Life” from Sing 2

SOUND

Ten films advanced in the Sound category for the 94th Academy Awards. Members of the Sound Branch vote to determine the shortlist and the nominees. All members of the Sound Branch will be invited to view eight-minute excerpts and interviews with the artists from each of the shortlisted films beginning Friday, January 28, 2022. Branch members will vote to nominate five films for final Oscar consideration.

Green – moves up ↑ Red – moves down ↓ Blue – new/re-entry ♦ Black – no movement ↔

1. Dune (Warner Bros/HBO Max) ↔
2. No Time to Die (MGM/UAR) ↔
3. Belfast (Focus Features) ↔
4. West Side Story (20th Century Studios) ↑
5. tick, tick…BOOM! (Netflix) ↑

6. The Power of the Dog (Netflix) ↔
7. A Quiet Place Part II (Paramount Pictures) ↑
8. Spider-Man: No Way Home (Sony/Marvel) ♦
9. The Matrix Resurrections (Warner Bros/HBO Max) ↓
10. Last Night in Soho (Focus Features) ♦

Photo: Nicola Dove/DANJAQ/MGM

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.