Mar 12, 2026
3 min read
There are two clear winners in this year's Best Original Song competition, both of whom will be deserving Oscar winners.Diane Warren was also nominated for the 17th time.
The nominees for the 2026 Best Original Song Oscar are hard to rank
At last year's Academy Awards, the race for best original song was so sleepy — led by Emilia Perez's winner "El Mal" — that the nominees didn't even perform on television.This year, the category is showing more signs of life, as only two of the five nominees will get the full treatment live on television this Sunday.
The move is confusing for the category's entrants: a dreamy finale, an operatic slice of a little-seen documentary, and an obligatory reminder that Diane Warren will receive a decadent Oscar nomination every year until the end of time.But for the clear front-runners – both 1) spectacular and 2) suitable for powerful prime-time live shows.The showcase was insane.
This is the eighth year they've released their original list of nominees — here are 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020 and 2019 — and it's impossible to see this year's field as anything other than a two-horse race, even if you can't pick two.Let's do it!
5. “Dear Me,” Diane Warren: Relentless, performed by Kesha (Diane Warren, songwriter)
If you had to write a message to your younger self, what would it say?''Do a good job considering other people''?''Tell your loved ones how you feel while they are still around''?''Always wear earplugs to concerts''?chosen so Diane Warren can release her eternal stranglehold on Best Original Song before it gets out of hand”?
It's wiser than what Warren wrote about her youth in "Dear Me."(Headline among them: "It's OK.") The song, sung by Kesha, anchors the Diane Warren documentary: Relentless, which is notable for the sole purpose of featuring a song that would earn Warren an unpaid 17th Oscar nomination.(Note: Diane Warren was nominated, earlier this year, for 16 awards.) The Academy Awards and without winning.) The film shows the composer who, among other things, is set to win an Academy Award - the honor taken home in November 2022 is not counted - it will not besurprised anyone who watched him chase the nominations for nine straight years.
The problem is, Warren has always had a gift for melody, but she rarely matches her songs with the emotions you'd find on the nearest pillow.Her recent work has often relied on themes of resilience, defense, and/or validation, and "Dear Me" is no different.In its final form, it is elevated by a dedicated performance from Kesha, who works in "prayer" mode here.And Warren.Of the nine songs recently nominated — from "Till It Happens to You," his 2015 collaboration with Lady Gaga that would have won the category a decade ago — "Dear Me" may stand out as the most memorable.But he is almost certainly and rightly condemned to the same fate as his predecessor.
4. "Train Dreams", Train Dreams, interpretation of Nick Cave and Bryce Dessner (Nick Cave and Bryce Dessner, composers)
To be eligible for Best Original Song, a track simply has to be written and appear in an Oscar-eligible film.In many cases, the nominated songs just go beyond the end credits, which can be aggravating when the work in question barely nods to the film's themes.
"Dream Train," written and recorded by rock icon Nick Cave with The National's Bryce Dessner, was not included in the film of the same name;this is the closing credits number.But the film directs and articulates the ideas it explores—lives lived, dark visions of death, the accumulation of trauma and wonder—in a way that lends itself to Train Dreams and Cave's ever-resonant voice.
It is, like its accompanying film, whimsical – more suited to the final moments of Train Dreams than, say, a television broadcast watched by hundreds of millions of people.But the song itself works exceptionally well and is particularly effective when used in the film's bittersweet final moments.If Clint Bentley's sad and heartwarming movie moved you, then the song will too.
3. "Sweet Dreams of Joy", Viva Verdi!, dipigawé ku Ana Maria Martinez (Nicholas Pike, songwriter)
In this section which is the most on the left, "Sweet Dreams of Joy" was written for a documentary that almost no one has seen.(It's available through Jolt, whose existence suggests a world where new streaming services will have to be named after 90s energy drinks. They'll go with "Jolt" or "Surge+".) Viva Verdi!Followers of the Italian Retirement Home for Musicians - made possible by the composer Giuseppe Verdi, who died in 1901, discuss their advice to young artists of their dreams.it plays briefly at an appropriate point, about halfway through the film, and then fades into the closing credits.
The song itself serves as an elegant and accessible gateway to the opera-conne composed by Nicholas Pike and performed by the stunning soprano Ana Maria Martinez.Is it new?No, it was written and released in 2017. How is it eligible for an Oscar in 2026?It was written for a film that took so long to see the light of day that most of its subjects are dead.Is it related to this industry?Absolutely, and it's a shame that such a little-heard song — its combined YouTube views are in the low tens of thousands — won't get more airplay on Sunday night.Does it have a chance to win?nothing
2. "I Lied to You" Sinners, performed by Miles Caton (Rafael Sadiq & Ludwig Göransson, songwriters)
There's no wrong answer here: one of the first two original songs nominated this year will be the winner in most iterations of the category, which will mark the following decades.In fact, if you were to remove the ending from the nominations equation and pick the five best original songs to appear in films of 2025, the category would consist entirely of music from KPop Demon Hunters and Sinners.Excerpts from original stories, left-field cultural events and films with star-studded voices).
"I Lied To You" provides Sinners' centerpiece, as Miles Caton performs a blues song that stretches to address the way our music connects past, present and future.As a piece of daring filmmaking - and a lesson in music history - it forms an unforgettable experience, well directed and shot.As a song, it plays an important role in explaining what Caton is as a character and why his fate in the film is important.In any case, the song in the middle of the film has it, the best way The winner of the original song should be.
So why did "I lied to you" stay at number 2 and not number 1? The truth is, because one of the two songs is high. If "I lied to you" sounds like anything, the song itself is one of the elements that emphasizes the situation in it.The sound is strong and the visuals are lacking, but the visuals are very strong.If the category is "a great scene that contains an original song", then "I lied to you" is the real winner - even among many big music programs in KPop Demon Hunters.
1. "Golden", KPop Demon Hunters, performed by EJAE, Audrey Nuna & Rei Ami (EJAE, Mark Sonnenblick, Joong Gyu Kwak, Yu Han Lee, Hee Dong Nam, Jeong Hoon Seo & Teddy Park, songwriters)
It's a testament to KPop Demon Hunters, whose seventh-best song blasted every entry in the field last year.Not only are the film's songs famously loud;they drive the plot, help define the characters, and more believably fulfill the film's premise that music is powerful enough to serve as a battlefield to defeat evil.
Consider the task if your job is to write HUNTR/X's signature hit, "Golden."The song has to be good enough to become an instant phenomenon in both the real world and the movie world.It must develop the characters, while also establishing the protagonist's central internal conflict.It has to anchor the film: establish what these singers are capable of, who they are, and how much power their music has.If that song isn't strong enough to become a legitimate sensation, if it isn't strong enough to top, say, the Billboard Hot 100 for eight weeks, then the movie isn't what it is.That's a seemingly impossible bar to clear, and "Golden" soars right (up, up, up) above it.
"Golden" is not the best song of KPop Demon Hunter - think, for example, "What It Sounds Like", which should have maintained the same high standards as the final battle soundtrack of the film, or "Your Idol," which takes away the power of a pop song to seduce.But that's not what this ranking is about.The studio sent "Golden" (and only "Golden") for consideration, and even against the strongest areas of the ages.He is a worthy winner.
