This year’s best original score lineup is somewhat uninspired. I don’t want to be rude, as these composers are all extremely talented and their work this year should not be discredited. Still, I am mourning the losses of truly incredible scores from Daniel Pemberton for “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” Mica Levi for “The Zone of Interest” and, dare I say, Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt for “Barbie.” But this isn’t about what’s missing. Let’s take a look at what we have.
Ludwig Göransson’s “Oppenheimer” score is magnificent and kind of terrifying, just like the movie it represents. “Destroyer of Worlds” is an insane piece that chills me on every listen, but its thematic predecessor, “Can You Hear the Music,” is the widely-recognized standout. Those two tracks bookend the score, and everything in between keeps the tension hot. Through his work in television and film, the 39-year-old Göransson has already established himself as one of the greatest living composers.
The greatest living composer is John Williams who, at the age of 974, has received his 756th Oscar nomination. Those numbers are slightly inflated, but Williams really does get nominated for everything he touches these days. Even though the response to “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” was not enthusiastic, Williams made it an Oscar-nominated film. Not that the score is bad, but there’s only so much you can do with this franchise before it starts to bump up against the boundaries of what’s considered original.
A legend in his own right, Robbie Robertson received a posthumous nomination for his scoring of “Killers of the Flower Moon.” As you would expect from a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (He was inducted with The Band in 1994), Robertson works in a lot of classic rock elements, creating a diverse soundscape. Robertson, who passed away in August 2023, is the first posthumous inductee in this category since Bernard Herrmann was double nominated in 1976. Coincidentally, one of Hermann’s nominations that year was for “Taxi Driver,” which, like “Killers of the Flower Moon,” was directed by Martin Scorsese.
One of my favorite scores this year was Jerskin Fendrix’s for “Poor Things.” It’s zany, especially on tracks like “I Just Hope She’s Alright,” another one of my favorites of the year. The theme for the film’s main character “Bella” is another standout, creeping along while introducing us to Emma Stone’s take on Frankenstein. The pacing of these tracks is all over the place, and Fendrix is creating sounds that are barely familiar to my ear. Cool.
I’ll be honest, the score for “American Fiction” by Laura Karpman barely stood out to me on the first watch. There isn’t any one theme that stuck with me after I left the theater. It probably didn’t help that I saw the aforementioned “Zone of Interest” the same day, but that’s still a fairly unusual phenomenon for an Oscar-nominated score. Upon hearing it after the fact, it’s a nice listen. So not very memorable, but, as it turns out, a fine nominee.
It’s a bit of a mixed bag in best original score this year. I think the music branch is one of the more clique-y branches of the Academy (See: Williams in this piece and Diane Warren in yesterday’s). I don’t actively dislike anything here, but I generally prefer when new combatants like Fendrix and Karpman are allowed to enter the ring.
