I knew going into last night I would be disappointed about the outcome of the Best Original Score award. Last night’s outcome is added to the long list of the Academy awarding a lesser-deserving score.
Can you hum the theme from Midnight Express? No? But what about Superman?
Certain scores, like certain films that went undeservedly unrecognized, are now more appreciated as time has passed. That they weren’t Oscar-winning scores now seems like a mistake. Here are a few:
1978: Midnight Express over Superman
1979: A Little Romance over Star Trek: The Motion Picture
1980: Fame over The Empire Strikes Back
1981: Chariots of Fire over Raiders of the Lost Ark
1986: ‘Round Midnight over Aliens, Hoosiers, and The Mission
1995: Il Postino over Apollo 13 and Braveheart
1998: Life is Beautiful over Saving Private Ryan and The Thin Red Line
1999: The Red Violin over American Beauty, Angela’s Ashes, and The Cider House Rules
2000: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon over Gladiator
2005: Brokeback Mountain over Memoirs of a Geisha
2006: Babel (a mind-boggling back-to-back win for composer Gustavo Santoalalla) over everything else
2010: The Social Network over How to Train Your Dragon and Inception
