Oscar Predictions: Best Original Song & Best Original Score

The Oscars are coming up yet again. The guilds, Globes, BAFTAs, and critics have all made their picks. Now it's my turn to figure out what it all means with my multi-part Oscar predictions.

I'm going to go through each of the Oscar categories, tell you what has been nominated and won elsewhere, and order the nominees from who I think is most to least likely to win on Oscar night. That doesn't mean I'll be right, but it does mean I'll be informed. Wish me luck.

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Previously:

Introduction & Documentary Feature

Production Design & Visual Effects

Sound Mixing & Sound Mixing

Costume Design & Makeup and Hairstyling

Animated Feature & International Film
 

Glossary:

BAFTA - British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards

Golden Globe – Award Presented by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association 

Best Original Score

(In Order of Likelihood)

1. Joker

Golden Globe - Original Score – Winner

BAFTA - Original Score – Winner 

2. 1917

Golden Globe - Original Score – Nominee

BAFTA - Original Score – Nominee 

3. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

BAFTA - Original Score – Nominee 

4. Little Women

Golden Globe - Original Score – Nominee

BAFTA - Original Score – Nominee 

5. Marriage Story

Golden Globe - Original Score – Nominee

This is another one that feels pretty decided. Both the BAFTA and Golden Globe Awards went to Hildur Guonadottir’s score for Joker. In the last 20 years, the BAFTA and Golden Globes agreed on a winner and the Oscars went another way only twice. The first was 2001, when Moulin Rouge! won the Globe and BAFTA but wasn’t even nominated for the Oscar. More recently, Brokeback Mountain’s score won the Oscar over Memoirs of a Geisha. The other six times the Globes and BAFTA agreed, which were all more recently than either of those examples, the movie also won the Oscar. So, Joker should feel pretty safe. The only movie I really see lurking is 1917. Thomas Newman wrote that score. He’s been nominated 14 times for Best Original Score and never won. I don’t seen Oscar voters caring about his “It’s his time” campaign yet, but it's there. It could also be part of an overall 1917 freight train. The other three nominees all have multiple Oscar each already. No rush to award them again.

Best Original Song

 (In Order of Likelihood)

1. Rocketman “(I’m Gonna) Love Me Again”

Golden Globe - Original Song – Winner 

2. Frozen II “Into the Unknown”

Golden Globe - Original Score – Nominee 

3. Harriet “Stand Up”

Golden Globe - Original Score – Nominee 

4. Breakthrough “I'm Standing With You”

5. Toy Story 4 “I Can't Let You Throw Yourself Away”

I’m stumped by this one. The Golden Globe Best Song award is a poor predictor of the Oscar winner. It’s been decent in recent years, but let’s never forget that both “Remember Me” (Coco) and “Let It Go” (Frozen) lost the Golden Globe. Do not rely on it.

That means that fuzzy math is the best resource I have. I'll go with Rocketman, just because people are fully aware of the Elton John connection. There's a decent contingent of fans upset that Rocketman didn't get a Lead Actor nomination. Similar to Selma in 2014, this could be the makeup call. I originally picked the Frozen II song, because "Into the Unknown" is the biggest hit song and a lot of people were stunned by Frozen II getting left out of the Animated Feature category. All the discussion I'm hearing about this category is Rocketman though. I'm not convinced that Frozen II has a silent majority. 

This would also be a cool way to award Cynthia Erivo (who cowrote the song from Harriet) since she definitely won’t win the Lead Actress Award. The fact that Diane Warren still hasn’t won an Oscar won’t be enough to push Breakthrough to the lead. And, I suppose we should never entirely count Randy Newman out for a Toy Story song.