Ludwig Göransson’s victory for best original score for Sinners at the BAFTA Awards on Sunday Feb. 22 increases the already strong odds that he’ll win the Oscar in the same category on March 15. Göransson’s score had previously won at the Critics Choice Awards, the Golden Globes and the Grammys, among other precursor awards.
This year’s other nominees for best original score are Jerskin Fendrix for Bugonia, Alexandre Desplat for Frankenstein, Max Richter for Hamnet and Jonny Greenwood for One Battle After Another. This is Desplat’s 12th nomination in the category, the third for both Greenwood and Göransson, Fendrix’s second and the first for Richter.
A sign of Göransson’s dominance this year is that he is the only composer who is nominated for both best original score and best original song. He shares a song nod with Raphael Saadiq for “I Lied to You” from Sinners.
Another sign: This marks the first time that Göransson has been nominated for both best original score and best original song in the same year. He had a previous song nomination, for “Lift Me Up” from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, but he wasn’t nominated for that score.
The 98th Academy Awards ceremony will be held at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, with Conan O’Brien hosting for the second year in a row. An award for best casting will be presented for the first time, bringing the total number of competitive Oscar categories to 24 – about one-quarter of the number of Grammy Awards presented this year (95).
If Göransson does win the Oscar, he’ll set these six records.
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First three-time winner for best original score in the 21st Century
Göransson won for Black Panther in 2019 and Oppenheimer in 2024. He’s currently in a five-way tie for the most scoring Oscars in the 21st Century with Howard Shore (The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King); Gustavo Santaolalla (Brokeback Mountain and Babel); Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (The Social Network and Soul); and Alexandre Desplat (The Grand Budapest Hotel and The Shape of Water).
(Should Desplat win, he, rather than Göransson, will become the first three-time winner in this category in the 21st Century.)
Ryan Coogler directed both Black Panther and Sinners. If Coogler’s score for Sinners wins, he’ll be the first composer to win two Oscars for best original score working in tandem with the same director since Shore, who won for the two aforementioned The Lord of the Rings films directed by Peter Jackson.
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First composer in nearly two decades to win two best original score Oscars in the space of three years
He’d be the first composer to make it back to the winners podium this quickly since Gustavo Santaolalla won back-to-back Oscars in 2006 and 2007 with Brokeback Mountain and Babel.
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Second-youngest composer in Oscar history to win three Oscars in scoring categories
Göransson is just 41. The only composer who was even younger upon winning his third scoring Oscar was André Previn, who was 35 in 1964 when he won his third Oscar for Irma LaDouce. His first two were for Gigi and Porgy and Bess. Previn died in 2019 at age 89.
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Second composer to go 3-0 in scoring categories
Göransson won the first two times he was nominated for best original score, for Black Panther and Oppenheimer. He is vying to become the first person to win on his first three nominations in scoring categories since Alan Menken, who won on his first four scoring nominations – The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and Pocahantas.
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Third living composer with three or more scoring Oscars
Goransson would become the 16th composer with three or more Oscars in scoring categories, but most of them are no longer living. The only three-time winners who are still living are John Williams, 94, who has won five scoring Oscars, and Alan Menken, 76, who has won four.
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Fourth person born in Sweden to win three Oscars (in any category)
The only people to date who were born in Sweden to win three Oscars are actress Ingrid Bergman; sound and sound effects editor Per Hallberg; and sound editor and mixer Paul N.J. Ottosson.
Bergman won best actress for Gaslight (1945) and Anastasia (1957) and best supporting actress for Murder on the Orient Express (1975).
Director Ingmar Bergman directed three films that won the Oscar for best foreign film (The Virgin Spring, Through a Glass Darkly and Fanny and Alexander), but the only Oscar he personally won was an Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award in 1970.
