Ninety-four songs and 149 scores have been deemed eligible in the music categories for the 96th annual Academy Awards, Variety has learned.
Voting began this morning, with 390 members of the Academy music branch eligible to vote in this year’s competition. And for the first time in years, there appear to be no surprises or glaring omissions.
Any film can submit up to three songs, and the “Barbie” entries were as expected: Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made for,” Dua Lipa’s “Dance the Night” and the Mark Ronson-Andrew Wyatt song “I’m Just Ken.”
Five other films submitted the maximum of three songs, including two from Disney: the live-action “The Little Mermaid,” with “For the First Time,” “The Scuttlebutt” and “Wild Uncharted Waters,” all by Alan Menken (who won Oscars for the original in 1989) and Lin-Manuel Miranda; and “Wish,” the Julia Michaels-Benjamin Rice tunes including “I’m a Star,” “This Is the Thanks I Get?!” and “This Wish.”
The “Wish” score by Dave Metzger is also eligible, but “The Little Mermaid” score was deemed ineligible, sources tell Variety. It ran afoul of the Oscar rule that disallows a score that has been “diluted by the use of pre-existing music.”
Alexandre Desplat’s score for Wes Anderson’s “Asteroid City” was submitted but not deemed eligible. Scores for “Wonka” and “Flora and Son” were also disqualified for violating another Academy rule: scores “diminished in impact by the predominant use of songs,” sources say.
All three films, however, qualified in the song category: “Dear Alien Who Art in Heaven” from “Asteroid City”; “A World of Your Own” from the “Wonka” musical; and “High Life” and “Meet in the Middle” from “Flora and Son.”
As usual, veteran Diane Warren has submitted two: “The Fire Inside” from “Flamin’ Hot” and “Gonna Be You” from “80 for Brady.” She has been nominated 14 times since 1987, without a win, although she did receive an honorary Oscar last year “for her genius, generosity and passionate commitment to the power of song in film.”
Two new songs in “The Color Purple” are eligible: “Keep It Movin’” and the end title song “Superpower.”
Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” is eligible in both score and song categories, with the music by the late Robbie Robertson and a song, “Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People)” by the Osage Tribal Singers passing muster with the Academy music branch executive committee.
As expected, songs from “American Symphony,” “Elemental,” “Flora and Son,” “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes,” “Rustin,” “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” and “Trolls Band Together” are on the list for Academy voters to choose.
The 149 eligible scores include virtually all of those that have been talked about for awards in recent weeks. Voting ends at 5 p.m. Monday. Shortlists for each category (the 15 top vote-getters in each) will be announced on Dec. 21, and music-branch voters then get to decide the final five nominees in each category. Those will be announced on Jan. 23.
Eligible Songs
“American Symphony”: “It Never Went Away”
“Asteroid City”: “Dear Alien Who Art in Heaven”
“Barbie”: “Dance the Night,” “I’m Just Ken,” “What Was I Made For”
“The Beanie Bubble”: “This”
“Bella”: “The Easy Way”
“Bobi Wine: The People’s President”: “Everything’s Gonna Be Fine”
“The Boy and the Heron”: “Spinning Globe”
“Carmen”: “Slip Away”
“Champions”: “Tell Somebody That You Love Them Right Now”
“Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget”: “My Sweet Baby”
“The Color Purple”: “Superpower,” “Keep It Movin’”
“Creed III”: “Blood, Sweat & Tears”
“Dicks: The Musical”: “Out Alpha the Alpha”
“Dreamin’ Wild”: “A Dream Is Beautiful”
“Drift”: “It Would Be”
“Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves”: “Wings of Time”
“80 for Brady”: “Gonna Be You”
“Elemental”: “Steal the Show”
“The Face of the Faceless”: “Barala Tribal Song,” “Ek Sapna Mera Suhana,” “Jalta Hai Suraj”
“Flamin’ Hot”: “The Fire Inside”
“Flora and Son”: “High Life,” “Meet in the Middle”
“A Good Person”: “The Best Part,” “I Hate Myself,” “Stardust”
“Heart of Stone”: “Quiet”
“Here. Is. Better”: “A Little More Time”
“The Home Fairy”: “Amar em Segredo”
“The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes”: “Can’t Catch Me Now”
“The Inventor”: “From This Tiny Seed”
“The Iron Claw”: “Live That Way Forever”
“Jacob the Baker”: “Better Times”
“Joe Haladin: The Case of the Missing Sister”: “It’s Precious We Have It Today”
“John Wick: Chapter 4”: “Eye for an Eye”
“Journey to Bethlehem”: “Mother to a Savior and King”
“Killers of the Flower Moon:”: “Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People)”
“King Coal”: “King Coal”
“Knights of Santiago”: “Las Navas de Tolosa”
“Leo”: “When I Was Ten”
“The Little Mermaid”: “For the First Time,” “The Scuttlebutt,” “Wild Uncharted Waters”
“The Magician’s Elephant”: “Found”
“M3gan”: “Tell Me Your Dreams”
“My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3”: “We’re All Together”
“My Love Affair With Marriage”: “Lion / My Love Affair With Marriage”
“Nimona”: “T-Rex”
“Nyad”: “Find a Way”
“Origin”: “Falling Into Place,” “I Am”
“Orlando, My Political Biography”: “Pharma Coliberation”
“Our Son”: “Always Be My Man”
“Past Lives”: “Quiet Eyes”
“PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie”: “Down Like That,” “Learning to Fly”
“The Peasants”: “End of Summer”
“Prisoner’s Daughter”: “Shotgun Clown”
“Radical”: “Sader”
“The Road Dog”: “Remember Me”
“Ruby Gelman, Teenage Kraken”: “Rise,” “This Moment”
“Rustin”: “Road to Freedom”
“Saving Ana”: “Missing Children”
“Scream VI”: “In My Head,” “Still Alive”
“She Came to Me”: “Addicted to Romance”
“Silver Dollar Road”: “Wounded Heart”
“Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse”: “Am I Dreaming”
“Spinning Gold”: “Greatest Time”
“The Starling Girl”: “Ace Up My Sleeve”
“State of the Unity”: “One Mile,” “Songbird,” “Hides”
“Stephen Curry Underrated”: “Lil Fish, Big Pond”
“Strays”: “All of You”
“The Super Mario Bros. Movie”: “Peaches”
“Suzume”: “Kanata Haluka.” “Suzume”
“Sweetwater”: “Taking Me Higher”
“Theater Camp”: “Camp Isn’t Home”
“They Cloned Tyrone”: “Drunk AF”
“Transformers: Rise of the Beasts”: “On My Soul”
“Trolls Band Together”: “Better Place (Reunion)”
“Uncharitable”: “All of Our Dreams”
“We Dare to Dream”: “Don’t Need to Sleep”
“Wish”: “I’m a Star,” “This Is the Thanks I Get?!,” “This Wish”
“Wonka”: “A World of Your Own”
Eligible Scores
All of Us Strangers
American Fiction
American Symphony
Anselm
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret
Baby Ruby
Barbie
The Beanie Bubble
Beau Is Afraid
Big George Foreman
Blue Beetle
Blue Jean
Book Club: The Next Chapter
Bottoms
The Boy and the Heron
The Boys in the Boat
The Burial
Butcher’s Crossing
Carmen
Cassandro
Chevalier
Cocaine Bear
The Color Purple
Common Ground
The Creator
Creed III
Daliland
The Deepest Breath
Dicks: The Musical
Dream Scenario
Dreamin’ Wild
Drift
Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
80 for Brady
Eileen
Elemental
The End We Start From
The Equalizer 3
Every Body
The Face of the Faceless
Ferrari
Fingernails
Five Nights at Freddie’s
Flamin’ Hot
The Flash
Foe
Fool’s Paradise
Freud’s Last Session
Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project
Golda
Good Grief
A Good Person
Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3
Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant
Hadik
A Haunting in Venice
Heart of Stone
Here. Is. Better.
The Holdovers
How to Blow Up a Pipeline
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
Inside
The Inventor
Invisible Beauty
The Iron Claw
It Ain’t Over
Joan Baez: I Am a Noise
John Wick: Chapter 4
Journey to Bethlehem
Jules
The Killer
Killers of the Flower Moon
Knock at the Cabin
Landscape With Invisible Hand
The League
Leave the World Behind
Leo
The Lesson
Little Richard: I Am Everything
Mafia Mamma
The Magician’s Elephant
The Marvels
Master Gardener
Migration
A Million Miles Away
The Miracle Club
Miranda’s Victim
The Monkey King
Monster
The Mother
My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3
My Love Affair With Marriage
Napoleon
Nimona
1946: The Mistranslation That Shifted Culture
The Nun II
Nyad
Once Within a Time
Oppenheimer
Origin
Past Lives
PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie
The Peasants
The Persian Version
The Pigeon Tunnel
Polite Society
Poor Things
The Promised Land
Radical
Reptile
Ruby Gelman, Teenage Kraken
Rustin
Saltburn
Scream VI
Sharper
Shazam! Fury of the Gods
She Came to Me
Shortcomings
Silver Dollar Road
Sitting in Bars with Cake
Smoke Sauna Sisterhood
Society of the Snow
A Song Film By Kishi Bashi: “Omoiyari”
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Stamped from the beginning
Starbright
The Starling Girl
State of the Unity
Stephen Curry: Underrated
Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie
Story Ave
Strays
The Super Mario Bros. Movie
Suzume
Sweetwater
The Teachers’ Lounge
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
Tetris
They Cloned Tyrone
A Thousand and One
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts
2018 (Everyone Is a Hero)
Walid
War Pony
What Happens Later
Wish
Your Fat Friend
The Zone of Interest
