Academy Award for Best Original Score facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Academy Award for Best Original Score
2024 recipient: Daniel Blumberg
Presented by	Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Country	United States
First awarded	February 27, 1935; 90 years ago (1935-02-27) (for films released in 1934)
Currently held by	Daniel Blumberg The Brutalist (2024)

The Academy Award for Best Original Score is a special prize given out every year by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. This award celebrates the best original music written for a movie. It's for the background music that helps tell the story, not for songs that people sing.

To be considered for this award, a movie needs to have a lot of new music. Since 2021, at least 35% of the music in a film must be original. For movie sequels or films that are part of a series, at least 80% of the music must be new. Before the final nominees are announced, a group of 15 scores are chosen as a shortlist.

How the Award Started

The Academy first started giving awards for movie music in 1935. Back then, the award was simply called Best Scoring. It included both new music and music that was adapted from older songs or pieces.

After a movie called One Hundred Men and a Girl won in 1938, which used a lot of older classical music, the Academy decided to create a new award. In 1939, they added the Best Original Score category, specifically for music written just for the film.

Over the years, the award names changed many times. From 1942 to 1985, musical movies often had their own separate award category. This was to make sure that dramatic films and musicals were judged fairly, as their music works differently.

In the 1990s, many popular Disney musicals like The Little Mermaid and The Lion King won the award. Some people felt that the songs in these musicals were getting more attention than the background music in other films. So, in 1996, the award was split again into Best Original Dramatic Score and Best Original Musical or Comedy Score. However, this change didn't last long, and the categories were combined back into Best Original Score in 2000.

In 2020, the rules changed to require that a film's music score must be at least 60% original. For sequels, it had to be 80% new music. In 2021, these rules were updated again, lowering the original music requirement to 35% for most films.

Best Original Musical Award

The Academy Award for Best Original Musical category was brought back in 2000. However, it has not been given out since then because very few films have met the strict rules to qualify. For a film to be considered, it needs at least five original songs by the same writer or team. These songs must be important to the story and easy to hear.

Winners and Nominees

The years listed below are when the movies were released. The Academy Awards ceremony usually happens the year after the film's release.

1930s

1940s

1950s

2000s

2010s

2020s

Shortlisted Finalists

Before the final nominees for Best Score are chosen, a special group of music experts picks up to 15 movies that they think have the best music. These 15 films then move on to the next round of voting.

Records

Amazing Achievements

These records are only for the "Scoring" categories, not for "Original Song" awards.

Age Records

Only one composer, Marvin Hamlisch, has won two Scoring Oscars in the same year (1973). He won for The Way We Were and The Sting. He also won Best Song that year, making him the only composer to win three music Oscars in one year!

Only one composer, Roger Edens, has won Oscars three years in a row (1948, 1949, 1950).

Eight composers have won Oscars two years in a row:

• Ray Heindorf (1942, 1943)
• Franz Waxman (1950, 1951)
• Alfred Newman (1952, 1953 and again 1955, 1956)
• Adolph Deutsch (1954, 1955)
• André Previn (1958, 1959 and again 1963, 1964)
• Leonard Rosenman (1975, 1976)
• Alan Menken (1991, 1992)
• Gustavo Santaolalla (2005, 2006)

Female Nominees

As of 2025, only 11 women have been nominated for music score awards. These include composers and lyricists (people who write song words).

Four women have won in the scoring categories. Three are composers:

• Rachel Portman, who won for Emma (1996).
• Anne Dudley, who won for The Full Monty (1997).
• Hildur Guðnadóttir, who won for Joker (2019).

The fourth winner is lyricist Marilyn Bergman, who won for Yentl (1983). Hildur Guðnadóttir is the only woman to win the main "Best Original Score" award without any special conditions.

Famous Nominees

Some well-known composers from outside the film world who have been nominated include Aaron Copland, Philip Glass, and John Corigliano.

Popular musicians and pop stars have also been nominated in the Scoring categories, such as The Beatles, Prince, Pete Townshend, Isaac Hayes, Quincy Jones, and Trent Reznor.

The scores for Midnight Express (1979), Slumdog Millionaire (2009), and The Social Network (2011) are the only ones with electronic-based music to win the award.

Composers with Multiple Nominations

Here are some composers who have been nominated more than once and have won at least one Academy Award in this category.

Some composers have been nominated many times but have not yet won this award:

• Thomas Newman (14 nominations)
• Randy Newman (9 nominations)
• James Newton Howard (7 nominations)
• Alex North (14 nominations)
• Walter Scharf (9 nominations)

See also

In Spanish: Anexo:Óscar a la mejor banda sonora original para niños

• Academy Award for Best Original Song
• Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score
• Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media