FINAL 2023 Oscar Predictions: ORIGINAL SCORE

Since 1999, when the Original Score category merged into one, after four years of being split between comedy and dramatic scores and long after the age of song scores and adapted scores, an Oscar-winning score has most often come from a Best Picture nominee (unless you’re Thomas Newman).

In those last 22 years, only four scores from non-Best Picture-nominated films have triumphed over a nominee from a Best Picture nominee: The Red Violin over American Beauty (1999), Frida over The Hours (2002), The Hateful Eight over Bridges of Spies (2015) and Soul over Mank and Minari (2021). Two of those (AB and BoS) were among the now 14 losses Newman has incurred in his Oscar-nominated career, and Soul was the sweeper of the season. Although he had snagged the Golden Globe (but was snubbed at BAFTA), Elliot Goldenthal’s win for Frida over the very iconic Phillip Glass score from The Hours (not to mention John Williams for Catch Me If You Can, Elmer Bernstein for Far From Heaven and Thomas Newman – again – for Road to Perdition) really stands out as one of the bigger upsets in this category in the last two decades.

So that brings us to this year, with four scores from Best Picture nominees and one on the outside. While Justin Hurwitz won the Globe for his Babylon score (he’s 4/4 there), that was his only get and with his record with the HFPA it could be just that, a Globes thing. Despite the film itself faltering in the end with Oscar nominations, it’s a major contender in its two other categories (Costume and Production Design) and arguably has one of the most memorable scores of the year, with “Voodoo Mama” like an upside down world La La Land earworm.

But, the creeper that has been All Quiet on the Western Front and the ‘BWA WAA WAA’ from the track “Tanks” of Volker Bertelmann’s evocative and BAFTA-winning score feels like a perfect storm. Combined with its Sound nomination it got (which the boisterous Babylon didn’t manage), we could have our winner. It’s also interesting to note that this is Bertelmann’s second time going up against Hurwitz; he was nominated for 2016’s Lion under his stage name Hauschka (alongside Dustin O’Halloran).

The nomination for Everything Everywhere All At Once by Son Lux was one of the nicest surprises on Oscar nomination morning and, like the film, the score spans decades, styles, universes and sounds. It’s. not quite at the level of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross and their highly successful maneuver into film scores but being in the Best Picture frontrunner sure doesn’t hurt them.

It’s hard to believe that Carter Burwell only has three Oscar nominations and, stranger still, that none of them are for Coen Brothers films. His score for The Banshees of Inisherin is one of his most complex; both elegiac and wistful in equal measures and, interestingly, the only nominee to hit four of the five precursors we have here: BAFTA, Golden Globe, Hollywood Music in Media and Society of Composers and Lyricists (it missed Critics’ Choice).

Then we have John Williams. With 48 nominations here and five wins, Williams is in a category all by himself among living composers and this is (reportedly) his last score for Steven Spielberg. Six months ago that would have seemed like a done deal. Locked, moving onto the next category. But the inconsistent awards run of The Fabelmans – going from a TIFF People’s Choice and Golden Globe win high, to a BAFTA nomination low and a mid-level performance with Oscar noms – don’t really favor a win for the legend this time around.

One big thing in Hurwitz, Burwell and Williams’ favor is that, during this same period (from 1999 to 2021), only one film has ever won the Original Score Oscar without a Golden Globe nomination first: 2014’s The Grand Budapest Hotel from Alexandre Desplat, who bested the Golden Globe winner (Jóhann Jóhannsson for The Theory of Everything). Both films were nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. So strong is this connection that in 2004 only one score crossed over from the Golden Globes to Oscar, Finding Neverland. It lost the Globe to Howard Shore’s non-Oscar-nominated score from The Aviator and won the Oscar for Jan A.P. Kaczmarek.

This is a very close race but what will prevail, the Golden Globe connection or the Best Picture nominee?

Here are my final 2023 Oscar winner predictions for Original Score.