More than pretty melodies, this year’s nominees use silence, invented instruments and dissonance to redefine cinema
If you close your eyes while watching the films that dominate conversations in early 2026, you’re likely to feel more fear — or fascination — than if you were watching them. The current crop of nominees for Best Original Score has definitively broken with Hollywood’s “sound wallpaper”. We are no longer talking about orchestras that just tell the audience when to cry. We’re talking about textures that scratch, bother and, in rare cases, invent entire worlds.
This year’s battle is not just between composers, but between philosophies. On the one hand, the reinvention of Southern Gothic; on the other, spatial coldness punctuated by subversive classical music. If the cinema of 2025 was visually expansive, its sonic counterpart in 2026 is claustrophobic, tactile and downright brilliant.
The hidden layer of Sinners
Nobody knows how to translate Ryan Coogler’s vision as Ludwig Göransson, but in Sinners, the duo achieved a symbiosis that borders on the supernatural. The film, a vampire plot set in the southern United States during the Jim Crow era, called for more than scares; it called for an atmosphere of historical oppression and visceral urgency.
Göransson didn’t resort to the screeching violins typical of horror. Instead, he delved into what critics have called “haunted Southern Jug Rock.” The genius here is in the subtext: the use of period instrumentation mixed with modern, almost imperceptible bass production that makes the theater vibrate before the monster even appears. The track doesn’t follow the action; she is the predator himself, breathing down the viewer’s neck. It is this ability to transform sound into a physical presence that places Göransson as the undisputed favorite of the season.
Behind the scenes and the alchemy of Pandora
While Sinners looks to the past, Avatar: Fire and Ash required Simon Franglen to look to a place that doesn’t exist. Franglen’s task is a thankless one: inherit James Horner’s legacy while expanding Pandora’s musical vocabulary to the tribe of fire and ashes.
The detail that separates this work from a generic blockbuster is the artisanal obsession. For this track, Franglen didn’t settle for synthesizers; he literally invented new instruments. Studio reports describe sessions where the composer used burned materials and woodwinds built from scratch to create a “punk” and aggressive sound, distinct from the aquatic harmony of the previous film. This “dirty energy” brings an organic texture that CGI, no matter how perfect it is, sometimes cannot convey on its own. To listen to Fire and Ash’s score is to hear the sound of an alien culture at war, forged not in computers but in wood, metal, and human breath.
The classical legacy and spatial subversion
Perhaps the most stylish surprise on the list is Mickey 17. Director Bong Joon-ho has always had a quirky ear (who can forget the tension in Parasite?), and his new collaboration with composer Jung Jae-il is a study in irony.
For a science fiction film about disposable clones, the obvious choice would be futuristic electronics. Jung Jae-il, however, went in the opposite direction: neoclassical. The score evokes the grandeur of Rachmaninoff, but with a “broken” feel, almost as if the orchestra were playing on scratched vinyl. This choice creates a hilarious and tragic emotional distance, underlining the disposability of the protagonist Mickey. It’s the song saying that, despite all the technology, human tragedy remains an old and repetitive opera.
Whether it’s Jonny Greenwood’s obsessive pulse in One Battle After Another (or The Battle of Baktan Cross, depending on which cinephile circle you belong to) or Alexandre Desplat’s gothic elegance in Frankenstein, Oscar 2026 proves that the soundtrack is no longer an accompaniment. She became the protagonist. And for the first time in years, songwriters aren’t trying to make us feel good — they’re trying to make us feel everything.
