FINAL 2021 Oscar Predictions: ORIGINAL SCORE

As we finally begin our descent into the 93rd Academy Awards, several categories are still up in air and real races. Original Score is not one of them.

Already the overwhelming critics’ hit, the original score for Soul by Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross and Jon Batiste has won every single precursor possible: BAFTA, Golden Globe, Critics Choice, Society of Composers and Lyricists and Hollywood Music in Media. This is the first time that this category has three credited nominees since 1998 when Matthew Wilder, David Zippel & Jerry Goldsmith were nominated for Mulan when the score category was split into two: comedy/musical and drama. If they win it will be the first time since 1987’s The Last Emperor (David Byrne, Ryuichi Sakamoto & Cong Su) that three composers shared the Oscar.

The duo of Reznor and Ross, already Oscar winners for 2010’s The Social Network, are double-nominated this year as their score for Mank is also a contender and hit the same precursors that Soul did. Newcomer Emile Mosseri’s poignant score for Minari also nabbed him those same nominations plus a win from HMMA and while he could be a spoiler here, I’m not counting on it. Sometimes a sweep is just a sweep and we have a few of those this season.

The 93rd Oscars will be held on April 25 at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood and the Union Station in Los Angeles.

Here are my ranked final Oscar predictions in Original Score.

1. Soul (Disney/Pixar) – BAFTA, BFCA, GG, HMMA, SCL
Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross and Jon Batiste

2. Minari (A24) – BAFTA, BFCA, HMMA, SCL
Emile Mosseri

3. Mank (Netflix) – BAFTA, BFCA, GG, HMMA, SCL
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross

4. News of the World (Universal Pictures) – BAFTA, BFCA, GG, HMMA, SCL
James Newton Howard

5. Da 5 Bloods  (Netflix) – HMMA, SCL
Terence Blanchard

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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.

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