Academy Award for Best Original Musical or Comedy Score

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 in 35% of the music, which is raised to 80% for sequels and franchise films. Fifteen scores are shortlisted before nominations are announced.

History

The Academy began awarding movies for their scores in 1935. The category was originally called Best Scoring. At the time, winners and nominees were a mix of original scores and adaptations of pre-existing material. Following the controversial win of Charles Previn for ''One Hundred Men and a Girl'' in 1938, a film without a credited composer that featured pre-existing classical music, the Academy added a Best Original Score category in 1939. In 1942, the distinction between the two Scoring categories changed slightly as they were renamed to Best Music Score of a Dramatic Picture and Best Scoring of a Musical Picture. This marked the first time the category was split into separate genres, a distinction that technically still lasts today, although there haven't been enough submissions for the musical category to be activated since 1985. From 1942 to 1985, musical scores had their own category, with the exception of 1958, 1981, and 1982. During that time, both categories had many name changes:

;1. Non-musical scores
* Best Music Score of a Dramatic Picture (1942)
* Best Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture (1943–1962)
* Best Music Score—substantially original (1963– 1966)
* Best Original Music Score (1967–1968)
* Best Original Score—for a motion picture ot a musical(1969–1970)
* Best Original Score ( 1971, 1976–1995, 2000-today)
* Best Original Dramatic Score (1972–1975, 1996–1999)

;2. Musical scores
* Best Scoring of a Musical Picture (1942–1962)
* Best Scoring of Music—adaptation or treatment (1963–1968)
* Best Score of a Musical Picture—original or adaptation (1969–1970)
* Best Original Song Score ( 1971)
* Best Scoring: Adaptation and Original Song Score (1972–1973)
* Best Scoring: Original Song Score and Adaptation -or- Scoring: Adaptation ( 1974–1976)
* Best Original Song Score and Its Adaptation or Adaptation Score (1977– 1978)
* Best Adaptation Score (1979)
* Best Original Song Score and Its Adaptation -or- Adaptation Score ( 1980, 1983)
* Best Original Song Score or Adaptation Score (1984)
* Best Original Song Score (1985)
* Best Original Musical or Comedy Score ( 1996–1999)

Following the wins of four Walt Disney Feature Animation films in six years from 1990 to 1995 (''The Little Mermaid'', ''Beauty and the Beast'', '' Aladdin'', and ''The Lion King'') during a period called the Disney Renaissance, it was decided to once again split the Best Original Score category by genres, this time by combining comedies and musicals together. As Alan Bergman, the chairman of the Academy's music branch said, "People were voting for the songs, not the underscores. We felt that Academy members outside the music branch didn't distinguish between the two. So when a score like ''The Lion King'' is competing against a drama like '' Forrest Gump,'' it's apples and oranges – not in the quality of the score, but in the way it functions in the movie. There's a big difference." The category was therefore split into Best Original Dramatic Score and Best Original Musical or Comedy Score in 1996. This change proved unpopular in the other branches of the Academy as Charles Bernstein, chairman of the Academy's rules committee, noted that "no other Oscar category depended on a film's genre" and "the job of composing an underscore for a romantic comedy is not substantially different from working on a heavy drama." This split was reverted in 2000.

In 2020, rules were changed to require that a film's score include a minimum of 60% original music. Franchise films and sequels must include a minimum of 80% new music. In 2021, the rules were changed again, lowering the minimum percentage of original music from 60% to 35% of the total music in the film.

Academy Award for Best Original Musical

The Academy Award for Best Original Musical is a category that was re-established in 2000 after the Best Original Musical or Comedy Score category was retired. It has never been awarded in its present form due to a prolonged drought of films meeting the sufficient eligibility requirements. The Music Branch Executive Committee of the Academy decides whether there are enough quality submissions to justify its activation.

According to the rules, the Best Original Musical is defined as follows:

Winners and nominees

The following is the list of nominated composers organized by year, and listing both films and composers. The years shown in the following list of winners are the production years, thus a reference to 1967 means the Oscars presented in 1968 for films released in 1967.

1930s

1940s

1950s

1960s

1970s

1980s

1990s

2000s

2010s

2020s

Notes

Records

Superlatives

These are only for nominations in the Scoring categories. Nominations in other categories, such as the Original Song category, are not included.

Only one composer has won two Scoring Oscars the same year: in 1973, Marvin Hamlisch won Original Dramatic Score for ''The Way We Were'' and Best Adaptation Score, for ''The Sting''. Hamlisch also won Best Song that year for ''The Way We Were'', making him the only composer to win three music Oscars in the same year.

Only one composer has won Oscars three years in a row: Roger Edens won for '' Easter Parade'' (1948), '' On the Town'' (1949) and '' Annie Get Your Gun'' (1950).

Eight composers have won Oscars two years in a row:

# Ray Heindorf won for ''Yankee Doodle Dandy'' (1942) and ''This Is the Army'' (1943).
# Franz Waxman won for ''Sunset Boulevard'' (1950) and '' A Place in the Sun'' (1951).
# Alfred Newman won for '' With a Song in My Heart'' (1952) and ''Call Me Madam'' (1953). He won again two years in a row for '' Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing'' (1955) and ''The King and I'' (1956).
# Adolph Deutsch won for ''Seven Brides for Seven Brothers'' (1954) and ''Oklahoma!'' (1955).
# André Previn won for '' Gigi'' (1958) and ''Porgy and Bess'' (1959). He won again two years in a row for ''Irma la Douce'' (1963) and ''My Fair Lady'' (1964).
# Leonard Rosenman won for '' Barry Lyndon'' (1975) and '' Bound for Glory'' (1976).
# Alan Menken won for ''Beauty and The Beast'' (1991) and '' Aladdin'' (1992).
# Gustavo Santaolalla won for ''Brokeback Mountain'' (2005) and '' Babel'' (2006).

Female nominees

As of 2022, only ten women have been nominated in music score categories: Ann Ronell, Tylwyth Kymry aka Meg Karlin, Angela Morley, Marilyn Bergman, Rachel Portman, Lynn Ahrens, Mica Levi, Hildur Guðnadóttir, and Germaine Franco. Kymry, Bergman, and Ahrens were nominated for their contribution as lyricists.

Four women have won in the scoring categories. Three are composers: Rachel Portman