Academy Award Music

List of winners and nominees

1930s[edit]

1940s[edit]

1950s[edit]

1960s[edit]

1970s[edit]

1980s[edit]

1990s[edit]

Year Winning
Songwriter(s)
Nominees
1990 Sooner or Later (I Always Get My Man)” — Dick Tracy
– Music and Lyrics: Stephen Sondheim
1991 Beauty and the Beast” — Beauty and the Beast
– Music: Alan Menken • Lyrics: Howard Ashman (posthumous recognition)
1992 A Whole New World” — Aladdin
– Music: Alan Menken • Lyrics: Tim Rice
1993 Streets of Philadelphia” — Philadelphia
– Music and Lyrics: Bruce Springsteen
1994 Can You Feel the Love Tonight” — The Lion King
– Music: Elton John • Lyrics: Tim Rice
1995 Colors of the Wind” — Pocahontas
– Music: Alan Menken • Lyrics: Stephen Schwartz
1996 You Must Love Me” — Evita
– Music: Andrew Lloyd Webber • Lyrics: Tim Rice
1997 My Heart Will Go On” — Titanic
– Music: James Horner • Lyrics: Will Jennings
1998 When You Believe” — The Prince of Egypt
– Music and Lyrics: Stephen Schwartz
1999 You’ll Be in My Heart” — Tarzan
– Music and Lyrics: Phil Collins

2000s[edit]

Year Winning
Songwriter(s)
Nominees
2000 Things Have Changed” — Wonder Boys
– Music and Lyrics: Bob Dylan
2001 If I Didn’t Have You” — Monsters, Inc.
– Music and Lyrics: Randy Newman
2002 Lose Yourself” — 8 Mile
– Music: Eminem, Jeff Bass, and Luis Resto • Lyrics: Eminem
2003 Into the West” — The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
– Music and Lyrics: Fran Walsh, Howard Shore, and Annie Lennox
2004 Al otro lado del río” — The Motorcycle Diaries
– Music and Lyrics: Jorge Drexler
2005 It’s Hard out Here for a Pimp” — Hustle & Flow
– Music and Lyrics: Juicy J, Frayser Boy and DJ Paul (Juicy J & DJ Paul are members of Three 6 Mafia. Frayser Boy has collaborated with Three 6 Mafia but is not a member.)
2006 I Need to Wake Up” — An Inconvenient Truth
– Music and Lyrics: Melissa Etheridge
2007 Falling Slowly” — Once
– Music and Lyrics: Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová
2008 Jai Ho” — Slumdog Millionaire
– Music: A. R. Rahman • Lyrics: Gulzar
2009 The Weary Kind” — Crazy Heart
– Music and Lyrics: Ryan Bingham and T-Bone Burnett

2010s[edit]

Year Winning
Songwriter(s)
Nominees
2010 We Belong Together” — Toy Story 3
– Music and Lyrics: Randy Newman
2011 Man or Muppet” — The Muppets
– Music and Lyrics: Bret McKenzie
2012 Skyfall” — Skyfall
– Music and Lyrics: Adele and Paul Epworth
2013 Let It Go” — Frozen
– Music and Lyrics: Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez

Note: A nomination for “Alone Yet Not Alone“, from the film of the same name, was revoked prior to voting when the Academy concluded that composer Bruce Broughton‘s promotional campaign was inconsistent with promotional regulations.[13]

Records[edit]

Most awards won[edit]

Number of nominations in parentheses

Multiple-winning songs[edit]

Several songs that won the Academy Award for Best Original Song have also ended up winning the various Award ceremonies, such as the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song; and most notably, the Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media, an accolade presented by the Grammy Awards (for the most outstanding achievements in music).

These songs include, “The Windmills of Your Mind” (1968), “The Way We Were” (1973), “I’m Easy” (1975), “Evergreen” (1976), “You Light Up My Life” (1977), “Last Dance” (1978), “Fame” (1980), “Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can Do)” (1981), “Up Where We Belong” (1982), “Flashdance… What a Feeling” (1983), “I Just Called to Say I Love You” (1984), “Say You, Say Me” (1985), “Take My Breath Away” (1986), “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” (1987), “Under the Sea” (1989), “A Whole New World” (1992), “Streets of Philadelphia” (1993), “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” (1994), “Colors of the Wind” (1995), “You Must Love Me” (1996), “When You Believe” (1998), “You’ll Be in My Heart” (1999), “Into the West” (2003), “The Weary Kind” (2009) and “Skyfall” (2012) and Let it Go (2013 ).

My Heart Will Go On” (1997) is the only Academy Award for Best Original Song to also win the Grammy Award for Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Song Written for Visual Media and the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song. Another Academy Award for Best Original Song winner “Beauty and the Beast” (1991), was also nominated for the Grammy Award for Record of the Year and Song of the Year, but managed to win the Best Song Written for Visual Media as well as Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals aside from winning the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song. Celine Dion sang the lead vocals on both songs. Skyfall (2012) is the only Brit Award winning song to win an Academy Award.

The song “White Christmas” went on to become one of the biggest selling singles of all time.

Female winners[edit]

Dorothy Fields was the first female songwriter to win the Best Original Song Oscar. She wrote the lyrics for the 1936 winner “The Way You Look Tonight” (music by Jerome Kern) sung by Fred Astaire in the film Swing Time. It was thirty-two years before a second woman was honored, Marilyn Bergman, who co-wrote with husband Alan the lyrics for “Windmills of Your Mind” (music Michel Legrand) from The Thomas Crown Affair in 1968. Alan & Marilyn Bergman also wrote the lyrics of 1973 winner “The Way We Were” (music Marvin Hamlisch) from the film of the same name (and the lyrics for the film musical Yentl, which won the Oscar in a different category, Best Original Song Score, in 1983).

Female winners since then:

Foreign-language song winners[edit]