Oscar Music Nominations 2023: Rihanna, Lady Gaga & More Receive Nods

Rihanna, who is set to perform at the Super Bowl halftime show on Feb. 12, may well perform on a second mega-platform exactly one month later – the 95th annual Academy Awards. She received her first Oscar nomination for best original song on Tuesday (Jan. 24) for co-writing “Lift Me Up” from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

If, as expected, Rihanna performs on the Oscars, she would be the first person to perform on the Super Bowl halftime show and at the Oscars in the same calendar year since Phil Collins in 2000.

Lady Gaga received her fourth Oscar nomination – her third in the best original song category –for co-writing “Hold My Hand” from Top Gun: Maverick. She was previously nominated for co-writing “Til It Happens to You” from The Hunting Ground (2015) and “Shallow” from A Star Is Born (2018), which won the award. “Take My Breath Away” from the original Top Gun won the 1986 award in this category.

Composer John Williams and songwriter Diane Warren added to their considerable Oscar legacies on Tuesday (Feb. 24). Williams received his record-extending 48th nomination in a scoring category for The Fabelmans. Warren received her 14th nomination for best original song, a total matched by only seven songwriters in history – Sammy Cahn (26 nods), Johnny Mercer (18), Paul Francis Webster (16), Alan Bergman (15), Marilyn Bergman (15), Alan Menken (14) and James Van Heusen (14).

Williams has now received scoring nods in seven consecutive decades – each decade since the 1960s. Should he win, Williams, 90, would become the oldest winner, topping James Ivory who was 89 when he won best adapted screenplay for Call Me By Your Name.

Warren is nominated for best original song for “Applause” from Tell It Like a Woman. This is the sixth consecutive year that Warren has had a nominated song. She is the first songwriter or songwriting team to be nominated six years running since Marilyn & Alan Bergman’s 1968-1973 streak. Though Warren has yet to win an Oscar in competition, she received a Governor’s Award from the Academy on Nov. 19.

Ryan Lott is this year’s only double nominee for best original song and best original score. He is nominated for both awards for his work on Everything Everywhere All at Once. He is up for best song for co-writing “This Is a Life” with David Byrne and Mitski; and for best score along with his colleagues in Son Lux, Rafiq Bhatiaand Ian Chang

Carter Burwell was nominated for scoring The Banshees of Inisherin. This is Burwell’s third nomination in this category, following Carol (2015) and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017). 

“Naatu Naatu” from RRR is nominated for best original song. This Indian Telugu-language song is vying to become the first foreign-language tune to win this category since “Jai Ho,” the festive Hindi song from Slumdog Millionaire that took the prize 14 years ago.

THE NOMINEES

Here’s a closer look at the nominees in the two music categories. In both cases, the nominated works are listed alphabetically by film title.

Best Original Song

“Lift Me Up”; Music by Ryan Coogler, Ludwig Göransson, Rhianna, Tems; Lyric by Coogler and Tems; Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Marvel Studios

“This Is a Life”; Music by David Byrne, Ryan Lott, Mitski; Lyric by Lott and Byrne; Everything Everywhere All at Once, A24

“Naatu Naatu”; Lyric by Chandrabose, Music by M. M. Keeravani; RRR, Variance Films

“Applause”; Music and lyric by Diane Warren;Tell It Like a Woman, Samuel Goldwyn Films

“Hold My Hand”; Music and lyric by BloodPop (Michael Tucker) and Lady Gaga; Top Gun: Maverick, Paramount Pictures

Best Original Score

All Quiet on the Western Front, Netflix; Volker Bertelmann

Babylon, Paramount Pictures; Justin Hurwitz

The Banshees of Inisherin, Searchlight Pictures; Carter Burwell

Everything Everywhere All at Once, A24; Son Lux

The Fabelmans, Universal Pictures; John Williams

SHORTLISTED BUT NOT NOMINATED

On Dec. 21, 15 songs and 15 scores were shortlisted for Oscars.

Here are the 10 songs that were shortlisted but passed over for nominations.

“Time”; Drake, Giveon Evans, Jahaan Akil Sweet, Daniel Pemberton; Amsterdam, 20th Century Studios

“Nothing Is Lost (You Give Me Strength)”;The Weeknd, Steve Angello, Sebastian Ingrosso, Axel Hedfors, Simon Franglen; Avatar: The Way of Water, 20th Century Studios

“Ciao Papa”;Alexandre Desplat, Roeban Katz, Guillermo del Toro; Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, Netflix

“Til You’re Home”; Rita Wilson;A Man Called Otto, Sony Pictures

“My Mind & Me”; Amy Allen, Jonathan Bellion, Selena Gomez, Jordan K Johnson, Stefan Johnson, Michael Pollack;Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me, Apple Original Films

“Good Afternoon”; Khiyon Hursey, Sukari Jones, Benj Pasek, Justin Paul, Mark Sonnenblick; Spirited, Apple Originals

“Stand Up”;Dernst “D’Mile” Emile II, Jazmine Sullivan; Till, Orion/United Artists Releasing

“Dust & Ash”;J. Ralph;The Voice of Dust and Ash, Matilda Productions

“Carolina”;Taylor Swift; Where the Crawdads Sing, Sony Pictures

“New Body Rhumba”; Pat Mahoney, James Murphy, Nancy Whang; White Noise, Netflix

“Vegas,” the biggest hit from Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis, had previously been ruled ineligible because it borrows so heavily from “Hound Dog,” the 1950s classic co-written by Mike Stoller and the late Jerry Leiber.

Here are the 10 scores that were shortlisted but passed over for nominations.

Avatar: The Way of Water, 20th Century Studios; Simon Franglen

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Marvel Studios; Ludwig Göransson

Devotion, Sony Pictures; Chanda Dancy

Don’t Worry Darling, Warner Bros.; John Powell

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Netflix; Nathan Johnson

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, Netflix; Alexandre Desplat

Nope, Universal Pictures; Michael Abels

She Said, Universal Pictures; Nicholas Britell

The Woman King, Sony Pictures; Terence Blanchard

Women Talking, MGM/United Artists Releasing; Hildur Guðnadóttir

Two high-profile scores – Tár (composed by Hildur Guðnadóttir) and Top Gun: Maverick (composed by Hans Zimmer, Harold Faltermeyer, Lorne Balfe and Lady Gaga) had earlier been ruled ineligible.

The telecast, hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, will take place on Sunday, March 12, 2023, airing live on ABC from the Dolby Theatre at Ovation Hollywood.

NON-MUSIC NOMINATIONS

Austin Butler was nominated for best actor for his performance as Elvis Presley in Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis. The film is nominated for best picture, giving Luhrmann his second nomination in that category (as a producer). He has yet to be nominated for best director.

Steven Spielberg was nominated for best director for the ninth time. That puts him in a tie for second place in this category with Martin Scorsese. The late William Wyler is the long-time leader in this category, with 12 nods.

All Quiet on the Western Front (Germany) was nominated for both best picture and best international feature (formerly known as best foreign-language film). It’s the eighth film in Oscar history to be nominated in both categories. It follows Z (1969), The Emigrants (1971/72), Life is Beautiful (1998), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), Amour (2012), Roma (2018) and Parasite (2019).