What typically happens after a film is shortlisted for both music Oscars?

Matthew Stewart
·4 min read
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In the six years since the film academy’s music branch first incorporated 15-candidate shortlists into their annual Oscar nominations voting process, a total of 24 films have each been named semi-finalists for both Best Original Score and Best Original Song. This includes five 2023 releases – “American Symphony,” “Barbie,” “The Color Purple,” “Killers of the Flower Moon,” and “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” – which constitute one of the largest groups of double dippers so far. Whether each will ultimately be nominated for both, one, or neither of the music awards remains to be seen, but some insight can be gained by analyzing the fates of their 19 predecessors.

Last year, the roster of dual music shortlist entrants grew by four with the inclusion of “Avatar: The Way of Water,” “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” and “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio.” Those films all subsequently became Oscar nominees in some capacity, but only the eventual Best Picture winner landed in the song (“This Is a Life”) and score lineups. This made it the fourth doubly-shortlisted movie to officially compete for both awards, after “Black Panther” and “Mary Poppins Returns” in 2019 and “Encanto” in 2021. The only win to result from any of these instances was Ludwig Göransson’s for his “Black Panther” score.

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The “Avatar” sequel and stop motion “Pinocchio” ended up joining an unfortunate group of films that didn’t make it past the semi-final round in either music category. “Motherless Brooklyn” set that precedent in 2020 and was later followed by “Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey” (2021), “Mulan” (2021), and “The Harder They Fall” (2022). Unlike their four predecessors – most of which (save “Mulan”) received no Oscar nominations at all – “Avatar” and “Pinocchio” were ultimately consoled with one non-music win apiece (Best Visual Effects and Best Animated Feature).

As of now, the most common direct outcome of being shortlisted for both music Oscars is netting just a song nomination, as the second “Black Panther” film recently did for “Lift Me Up.” This 37% plurality further includes “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” (2019; “When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings”), “Frozen II” (2020; “Into the Unknown”), “The Life Ahead” (2021; “Io sì (Seen)”), “The Trial of the Chicago 7” (2021; “Hear My Voice”), “King Richard” (2022; “Be Alive”), and “No Time to Die” (2022, “No Time to Die”), the last of which earned a win for composers and lyricists Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell. Conversely, only two doubly-shortlisted films – “Minari” (2021) and “Don’t Look Up” (2022) – were recognized for their scores alone.

Based on precedent, each of said five new films is most likely to either only be nominated for Best Original Song or be overlooked in both areas. However, since “Barbie” and “Killers of the Flower Moon” are the strongest Best Picture candidates in the bunch, at least one of them could emulate “Everything Everywhere All at Once” by securing spots in both categories. It’s also worth noting that “Barbie” and “The Color Purple” are each capable of collecting nominations for multiple songs, but it’s hard to tell how that will pan out since only two films – “Mary Poppins Returns” and “The Lion King” (2020) – have been in the same situation during the shortlists era. Still, just as it seemed to help the former past example and hurt the latter, their score shortlist mentions should almost guarantee them at least one song bid apiece.

All things considered, “Barbie” seems to have the strongest shot at becoming both a score and song finalist this year, even though most of Gold Derby’s users clearly disagree (at least for now). Indeed, our present odds indicate that very few of our 7,000+ Oscar nominations predictors anticipate any cases of cross-category music recognition, with the consensus instead reflecting double “American Symphony” snubs, score bids for “Killers of the Flower Moon” and “Spider-Man,” and song notices for “Barbie” and “The Color Purple.” While not far from aligning with the outcomes of past years, these expectations may need some adjustment in order to truly make sense from a statistical standpoint.

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