Final Best Original Score Oscar Nomination Predictions

With the Academy’s nominations announcement drawing closer by the day, it’s time to lay it all on the line with my final Oscar nomination predictions. The three locks of the Original Score lineup are easily Mank, News of the World, and Soul. All three collected nominations at BAFTA, the Golden Globes, and the Critics Choice Awards (Soul won the latter two), so consider them cemented in this race.

For a long while, I thought Emile Mosseri’s Minari score may be too subtle for this race, but it nabbed nominations at BAFTA, the Critics Choice Awards, and won Best Original Score – Independent Film at the Hollywood Music in Media, so surely that’s more than enough to secure its place in the Academy’s top five. But who nabs that final spot is anyone’s guess.

Both the Golden Globes and the Critics Choice Awards nominated The Midnight Sky and we know how much the Academy adores Alexandre Desplat (11 nominations and two wins), so that seems the most likely to claim the fifth slot. That being said, Desplat’s nominations generally align with Best Picture nominees, so perhaps they’ll default to a major contender like Daniel Pemberton for The Trial of the Chicago 7, previous winner Ludwig Göransson for Tenet, or even something as left-field as 15-time nominee Thomas Newman for The Little Things.

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE PREDICTIONS:
1. Soul (Disney)
Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross and Jon Batiste
2. News of the World (Universal Pictures)
James Newton Howard
3. Mank (Netflix)
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross
4. Minari (A24)
Emile Mosseri
5. The Midnight Sky (Netflix)
Alexandre Desplat

Alternate: Tenet (Warner Bros.)