A few things happened this year to make Best Original Score, my usual favorite category, the thorn in my side. First, the academy disqualified the scores of Birdman and Whiplash because the former wasn’t prewritten for the film and the latter because there wasn’t “enough” score. That already angered me enough, but when they egregiously snubbed Gone Girl, I was furious.
Now what we’re left with is a subpar category and a surefire subpar winner. Golden Globe winner The Theory of Everything is the strong frontrunner for this category simply because (a) it’s a best picture nominee and (b) it won the Globe, which is often a pretty accurate precursor.
However, there are two films that could upset it. The first is The Grand Budapest Hotel, which is one of two nominations for Alexandre Desplat in this category. An argument could be made that the vote is split for him, however I think the clear choice for him would be TGBH rather than The Imitation Game. The other possible spoiler here is Interstellar. I know, it was snubbed in the major categories and received a pretty mixed reception. However, if voters who are looking for an alternative to Theory‘s and TGBH‘s more traditional scores, then this is it.
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Will Win: The Theory of Everything
Could Win: The Grand Budapest Hotel
Should Win: Interstellar
Should’ve Been Nominated: Gone Girl
Hey, I'm Karl, founder and film critic at Smash Cut. I started Smash Cut in 2014 to share my love of movies and give a perspective I haven't yet seen represented. I'm also an editor at The New York Times, a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, and a member of the Online Film Critics Society.