2025 Oscars: Best Original Song Predictions

Marcus Jones
·4-min read

Nominations voting is from January 8-12, 2025, with official Oscar nominations announced January 17, 2025. Final voting is February 11-18, 2025. And finally, the 97th Oscars telecast will be broadcast on Sunday, March 2 and air live on ABC at 7:00 p.m. ET/ 4:00 p.m. PT. We update our picks through awards season, so keep checking IndieWire for all our 2025 Oscar predictions.

The State of the Race

First things first, if there was any major snub to happen upon the Oscar shortlists being released, it is “Beautiful That Way” by Miley Cyrus, co-written with Lykke Li and Andrew Wyatt, not making the cut for Best Original Song. The track from “The Last Showgirl” not only received Golden Globes and Critics Choice Awards nominations, but just received an awards nomination from the Society of Composers and Lyricists as well, which does actually consist of Music branch members of the Academy. To our knowledge, however, Cyrus has still not performed the song publicly, the same with Ed Sheeran and his song “Under the Tree” for the film “That Christmas.”

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While it is always nice for a big name to make their way into the Best Original Song race, and even better when the song is good and soundtracks a key part of the film, it takes a lot of campaigning to gain favor with the Music branch if you are coming from outside the film world.

Universal Pictures has been doing well overall in that respect. “Kiss the Sky” from “The Wild Robot,” performed by Maren Morris, is a song written by a group of people new to writing music for films, and has already received Golden Globes and Critics Choice Awards nods. Morris definitely was out and about performing the song around the opening of the DreamWorks Animation film, and “The Wild Robot” is a favorite to win Best Animated Feature, which often translates to another Oscar nomination for the film’s climactic song. The only knock against it was that it was not recognized by the SCL Awards because of a rule about the number of songwriters a prospective nominee can have, but “Out of Oklahoma” from “Twisters,” co-written and performed by country music breakout Lainey Wilson was, and also made the shortlist.

Elsewhere, Netflix is really excelling with “Emilia Pérez” composers Camille and Clément Ducol nabbing two spots on the Best Original Song shortlist for their work with director Jacques Audiard (who actually co-wrote “El Mal” with them.) Though they have never been in the Oscar race before, they’ve been side by side with performers Zoe Saldaña and Selena Gomez this year at the countless events organized to highlight the cast and crew of the film, which has been paying off. The unconventional musical has consistently been getting a lot of recognition in headlines lately for accomplishments like leading the Golden Globes nominations, so it feels safe to say both the aforementioned song and “El Camino” will receive nominations.

Here is where things get really exciting. There are actually no songs on the shortlist that have had a cultural impact on the level of the last three winners: “No Time to Die,” “Naatu Naatu,” and “What Was I Made for?” This takes us back to the 93rd Oscars where it felt like it was anyone’s game, and the winner ended up being “Fight for You” from “Judas and the Black Messiah,” co-written and performed by H.E.R. As is the case for pretty much the past decade, the music prodigy was nominated against the now 15-time Best Original Song nominee Diane Warren.

Fast forward to today, Warren actually wrote a song for H.E.R. titled “The Journey” that is now on the Oscars shortlist. While was technically written for the new Tyler Perry WWII drama “The Six Triple Eight,” which is just coming out at the end of 2024, H.E.R. has been performing the song for over a year at places like the Global Citizen Festival, teasing it in Apple Music interviews with Zane Lowe, allowing it be used as a part of segments for the 2023 NBA Playoffs, and more.

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She and Warren have really been playing the long game, and should votes split between the pair of “Emilia Pérez” song and voters decide Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross are better off being recognized for their “Challengers” score (which seems likely,) Warren could plausibly win an Oscar for what would be her 16th nomination.

Contenders for the shortlist of 15 are listed in alphabetical order below.

Frontrunners:
“El Mal”— Jacques Audiard, Camille, and Clément Ducol (“Emilia Pérez”)
“Mi Camino”— Camille and Clément Ducol (“Emilia Pérez”)
“Kiss the Sky”— Delacey, Jordan K. Johnson, Stefan Johnson, Maren Morris, Michael Pollack, and Ali Tamposi (“The Wild Robot”)
“Compress/Repress”— Luca Guadagnino, Trent Reznor, and Atticus Ross (“Challengers”)
“The Journey”— Diane Warren (“The Six Triple Eight”)

Contenders:
“Like a Bird”— Abraham Alexander, Brandon Marcel, and Adrian Quesada (“Sing Sing”)
“Sick in the Head”— Móglaí Bap, Mo Chara, DJ Próvaí, Adrian Louis Richard Mcleod, and Toddla T (“Kneecap”)
“Beyond”—Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear (“Moana 2”)
“Winter Coat”— Nicholas Britell, Steve McQueen, and Taura Stinson (“Blitz”)
“Never Too Late”—Brandi Carlile, Elton John, Bernie Taupin, and Andrew Watt (“Elton John: Never Too Late”)
“Out of Oklahoma”— Luke Dick, Shane McAnally, Lainey Wilson (“Twisters”)
“Harper and Will Go West”— Sean Douglas, Josh Greenbaum, and Kristen Wiig (“Will and Harper”)
“Tell Me It’s You”—Lin-Manuel Miranda (“Mufasa: The Lion King”)
“Piece by Piece”— Pharrell Williams (“Piece by Piece”)

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