The Academy Award for Best Original Score is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) to the best substantial body of music in the form of dramatic underscoring written specifically for the film by the submitting composer. Some pre-existing music is allowed, though, but a contending film must include a minimum of original music. This minimum since 2021 is established as 35% of the music, which is raised to 80% for sequels and franchise films. Fifteen scores are shortlisted before nominations are announced.
You've Got Mail is a 1998 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Nora Ephron, and starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. Inspired by the 1937 Hungarian play Parfumerie by Miklós László, the screenplay was co-written by Nora and Delia Ephron. It tells the story of two people in an online romance who are unaware they are also business rivals. It marked the third pairing of Hanks and Ryan, who previously appeared together in Joe Versus the Volcano (1990) and Sleepless in Seattle (1993), the latter directed by Ephron. The film takes its name from the greeting AOL users receive when they get a new email.
Jerrald King Goldsmith was an American composer, with a career in film and television scoring that spanned nearly 50 years and over 200 productions, between 1954 and 2003. He was considered one of film music history's most innovative and influential composers. He was nominated for eighteen Academy Awards, six Grammy Awards, five Primetime Emmy Awards, nine Golden Globe Awards, and four British Academy Film Awards.
James Roy Horner was an American film composer. He worked on more than 160 film and television productions between 1978 and 2015. He was known for the integration of choral and electronic elements alongside traditional orchestrations, and for his use of motifs associated with Celtic music.
Rachel Mary Berkeley Portman is a British composer who made history in 1996 for being the first female composer to win an Academy Award for the Best Original Score, for Emma. She was also nominated twice, for the soundtracks of The Cider House Rules (1999) and Chocolat (2000). She was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 2010, and is an honorary member of Worcester College, Oxford. She has composed more than one hundred scores for film, television and theatre, and has collaborated with the BBC on several projects, including an opera based on The Little Prince and a choral symphony called The Water Diviner.
Emma is a 1996 period comedy film based on the 1815 novel of the same name by Jane Austen. Written and directed by Douglas McGrath, the film stars Gwyneth Paltrow, Alan Cumming, Toni Collette, Ewan McGregor, and Jeremy Northam.
Marco Beltrami is an American composer of film and television scores. He has worked in a number of genres, including horror, action, science fiction, Western, and superhero.
The Lake House is a 2006 American fantasy romance film directed by Alejandro Agresti and written by David Auburn. A remake of the 2000 South Korean film Il Mare, it stars Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock, who last appeared together in the 1994 action thriller film Speed. The film revolves around an architect (Reeves) living in 2004 and a doctor (Bullock) living in 2006 who meet via letters left in the mailbox of a lake house where they both lived at separate points in time. They carry on a two-year correspondence while remaining separated by the time difference.
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl is the official soundtrack album from the film of the same name. The album was released on July 22, 2003, by Walt Disney Records, and contains selections of music from the film score. The music of the film and this album are credited to composer Klaus Badelt and producer Hans Zimmer.
The Truth and the Light: Music from the X-Files is a 1996 album by Mark Snow. The album is composed of excerpts of instrumental music scores from the first three seasons of the American science fiction television series The X-Files, on which Snow was the resident composer. These tracks are linked together with portions of dialogue from the series.
300: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is the soundtrack to the 2007 film of the same name by Tyler Bates. The album was released by Warner Bros. Records on March 6, 2007, three days before the film opened for public viewing.
The Passion of the Christ is the soundtrack, on the Sony label, of the 2004 Academy Award-nominated film The Passion of the Christ starring James Caviezel, Maia Morgenstern and Monica Bellucci. The original score was composed by John Debney and conducted by Nick Ingman, with additional music by Jack Lenz. The album was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Score.
The Dark Knight: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is the soundtrack album to the 2008 film of the same name, which is a sequel to Christopher Nolan's 2005 film Batman Begins. The soundtrack was released on July 15, 2008, in three editions: CD, limited edition CD digipak, and digital download. The 2-CD Special Edition was released on December 9, along with the DVD. A limited edition 180-gram vinyl LP was released on August 12. The soundtrack was composed by Batman Begins collaborators Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard and recorded in April.
Up (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is the film score to the 2009 Disney-Pixar film of the same name composed by Michael Giacchino. This is his third feature film for Pixar after The Incredibles and Ratatouille. Giacchino wrote a character theme-based score that the filmmakers felt enhanced the story of the film. Up received positive reviews from music critics and won major awards. Despite being well regarded, Up was not released as a compact disc (CD) until 2011, when it became available via Intrada Records.
No Strings Attached is a 2011 American romantic comedy film directed and co-produced by Ivan Reitman. Starring Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher, the film is about two friends who decide to make a pact to have a "no strings attached" relationship, without falling in love with each other. The film was released in the United States on January 21, 2011.
How to Train Your Dragon: Music from the Motion Picture is a soundtrack album composed by John Powell for the film of the same name and released by Varèse Sarabande on March 23, 2010. The score earned Powell his first Academy Award nomination and his third BAFTA nomination, which he lost to The Social Network and The King's Speech, respectively. The score also won the International Film Music Critics Association 2011 Awards for Best Original Score for an Animated Feature and Film Score of the Year, and was nominated twice for Film Music Composition of the Year for the tracks "Forbidden Friendship" and "Test Drive". The soundtrack received wide acclaim from professional music critics.
American Journey is a six-part orchestral composition by the American composer John Williams. The piece was commissioned by U.S. President Bill Clinton to accompany a multimedia presentation titled The Unfinished Journey directed by Steven Spielberg for the 2000 "Millennium" celebrations. The work premiered at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. on New Year's Eve, 1999.
The Artist (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is the soundtrack album to the 2011 French comedy-drama film of the same name directed by Michel Hazanavicius, and stars Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo in the lead. The film features original score composed by Ludovic Bource, Michel's norm collaborator, and the album consists of 24 tracks of Bource's score, which also incorporates works from other composers such as Alberto Ginastera's "Estancia".
The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button (Music from the Motion Picture) is the soundtrack album to the 2008 film of the same name, released by Concord Music Group on December 16, 2008. It was released in physical forms as a two-disc album, with one disc containing the film's original score composed by Alexandre Desplat, and the other consists few classical songs as well as dialogues featured in the film. The David Fincher-directed film, written by Eric Roth and Robin Swicord is loosely based on the 1922 short story of the same name by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and stars Brad Pitt as the titular character, alongside Cate Blanchett, Taraji P. Henson, Mahershala Ali, Julia Ormond, Jason Flemyng, Elias Koteas, and Tilda Swinton.
Never Let Me Go (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is the soundtrack to the 2010 film of the same name directed by Mark Romanek starring Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield and Keira Knightley. The soundtrack featured musical score composed by Rachel Portman which was released on 14 September 2010 through Varèse Sarabande.
