Soundtracking: The Best Oscar Winning Original Songs
Wednesday, February 28, 2018 at 10:00AM by Chris Feil
While Soundtracking aims to look at the depth and relationship between movies and their music, one of this series’ minor ambitions is to defend the purpose of Oscar’s much maligned Original Song category. Complain about some of the weak nominees in recent years and you are (alone yet) not alone. But this category has a rich history of classics and film-defining tracks, some of which you may not know have their origins in the cinema. Case in point: holiday staple of hot takes "Baby It's Cold Outside" won the Oscar in 1949 for Neptune's Daughter.
While this year’s nominees run from the unfortunate to the immaculate, I’d also offer that Oscar’s Original Song is currently in an upswing in quality. It has also faced some underwhelming periods (take a look at the 50s) and may never return to its 70s-80s level of radio rotation, but Original Songs remain as essential as the films themselves. So to showcase the category, I’ve ranked the best of the Original Song winners! If your favorite didn’t make the list, consider that a reminder of how much you actually cherish the category...
25. "You'll Never Know" - Hello, Frisco, Hello - 1943
Surpris: in case you didn't know, The Shape of Water's melancholic love ballad actually belongs to this Alice Faye musical.
24. "(I've Had) The Time of My Life" - Dirty Dancing - 1987
23. "Flashdance... What a Feeling" - Flashdance - 1983
22. "Call Me Irresponsible" - Papa's Delicate Condition - 1963
21. "It Goes Like It Goes" - Norma Rae - 1979
20. "Lose Yourself" - 8 Mile - 2002
19. "Take My Breath Away" - Top Gun - 1986
18. "Let It Go" - Frozen - 2013
17. "Skyfall" - Skyfall - 2012
16. "Sooner or Later (I Always Get My Man)" - Dick Tracy - 1990
15. "Fame" - Fame - 1980
14. "White Christmas" - Holiday Inn - 1942
13. "When You Wish Upon A Star" - Pinocchio - 1940
12. "The Way You Look Tonight" - Swing Time - 1936
11. "A Whole New World" - Aladdin - 1992
10. "My Heart Will Go On" - Titanic - 1997
Allow me the schmaltz, because this one is as imposing and undeniable as the film itself. Inescapable, even. Yet like the film, you just can't help but submit to it from the jump. It takes some kind of mastery to pull deep emotion out of a pan flute. And come on: it's peak Céline and maybe peak 90s.
9. "Let The River Run" - Working Girl - 1988
Working Girl owes a major debt to this song for how the imperfect-but-still-perfect film aligns itself to an indefatiguable American spirit and the joyous pursuit of the American Dream. Many of these songs define their films, but rarely do they morph them as this does.
8. "Falling Slowly" - Once - 2007
A radio friendly love song, sure, but how quickly we've forgotten the magic of how this unfolds in the moment on screen. On its own we get lost in its open-hearted chorus, but in context its the hesitancy of falling in love that cuts deeper.
7. "Colors of the Wind" - Pocahontas - 1995
Perhaps the most underrated of the Disney musical dominance of the 90s and the most ideologically complex (spare me your "Under the Sea" revisionist thinkpiece). A song in a children's film that neither panders to them or doubts their intelligence.
6. "Theme From Shaft" - Shaft - 1971
Has a song ever built a film's iconography better than this? You have the film and its hero's identity right there in the rhythm, and with it the film's legacy. You simply can't talk about Shaft without including Isaac Hayes' contribution.
5. "Beauty and the Beast" - Beauty and the Beast - 1991
At once capturing a grand sweep of romantic legend while feeling movingly intimate, this title track is as much the peak of 90s Disney music as the film is for the films themselves. It's the culmination of all of the story's hopes and narrative baggage and still feels delicate to the touch. I would read a book just on Angela Lansbury's diction in these three minutes.
4. "The Way We Were" - The Way We Were - 1973
Love songs dominate the category's past, perhaps indicative of the cliche that music expresses the biggest emotions in ways that mere words cannot. But this song also captures something else in its romance - a goodwill that erases the bad, a bruised distant affection, a willingness to submit to the afterglow. In a word: meeeeeemmmmoriesss...
3. "Last Dance" - Thank God It's Friday - 1978
The drama, the sex, the disco. "Last Dance" shows that part of the joy of Original Song can be not overthinking it (guilty) and further proof that a wholly deserving winner can still come from a bad movie. A perfect song on its own and a really goddamn cool winner still with its own straightforward crystalline longing.
2. "Moon River" - Breakfast at Tiffany's - 1961
You could easily accuse this one of being indicative of the santitation that befell the adaptation of Truman Capote's source novel, but then you'd also ignore how the song embodies its characters' search for something that can never be fulfilled in one another. The quintessential love-song-that-isn't-really and a stone cold classic still able to stir deep feeling.
1. "Over the Rainbow" - The Wizard of Oz - 1939
How can anything else compete? There's simply a distance between this song and all other winners wider than the space between Oz and Kansas. This song that famously almost landed on the cutting room floor went on to define one of show business's most iconic careers, serve as a metaphor for the LGBTQ movement, and touch every soul that longed for something more than what they were dealt. And help create a well of human pathos that fantasy films ever since have tried to emulate.
All Soundtracking installments can be found here! What are you favorite Original Song winners?
Reader Comments (27)
"I'm Easy" from Nashville is probably my favorite and is showcased in one of my favorite film scenes of all time, featuring a masterclass in acting from Lily Tomlin. I also think "Streets of Philadelphia" is really affecting.
"Falling Slowly" and "Let the River Run" are great, too.
Thanks for this great list, Chris. A nice trip down memory lane. Also, shout-out to Lea Salonga who voiced two of the songs on the list. An international treasure.
Oops brain fart: Salonga was Mulan and Jasmine but not Pocahontas. Interesting to note though that no Mulan songs (including the amazing Make a Man our of You or the iconic Reflection) we’re nominated against some other influential classics like The Prayer, Don’t Wanna Close my Eyes, or the category winner When You Believe. A testament to your main point about the richness and importance of the category.
Did you miss Madonna's You Must Love Me.
Very nice! Back in 2016, I did a whole project on Best Original Song, reviewing all (at that time) 82 years of the category: https://www.theawardsconnection.com/oscar-flashback/2016/9/14/best-original-song-wrap-up-draft
My top 10 was...
1. "Over the Rainbow," The Wizard of Oz
2. "The Way You Look Tonight," Swing Time
3. "Streets of Philadelphia," Philadelphia
4. "Lose Yourself," 8 Mile
5. "High Hopes," A Hole in the Head
6. "Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que Sera, Sera)," The Man Who Knew Too Much
7. "Mona Lisa," Captain Carey, U.S.A.
8. "Baby, It's Cold Outside," Neptune's Daughter
9. "(I've Had) the Time of My Life," Dirty Dancing
10. "The Windmills of Your Mind," The Thomas Crown Affair
25. Theme from Shaft (Shaft)
24. Streets of Philadelphia (Philadelphia)
23. Buttons and Bows (The Paleface)
22. You'll Be There in My Heart (Tarzan)
21. White Christmas (Holiday Inn)
20. Chim Chim Cher-ee (Mary Poppins)
19. Take My Breath Away (Top Gun)
18. Swinging on a Star (Going My Way)
17. Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid)
16. Que Sera Sera (The Man Who Knew Too Much)
15. Lose Yourself (8 Mile)
14. The Morning After (The Poseidon Adventure)
13. Over the Rainbow (The Wizard of Oz)
12. I Just Called to Say I Love You (The Woman in Red)
11. Beauty and the Beast (Beauty and the Beast)
10. Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah (Song of the South)
9. Under the Sea (The Little Mermaid)
8. A Whole New World (Aladdin)
7. Colors of the Wind (Pocahontas)
6. Jai Ho (Slumdog Millonaire)
5. Let the River Run (Working Girl)
4. High Hopes (A Hole in the Head)
3. The Windmills of Your Mind (The Thomas Crown Affair)
2. My Heart Will Go On (Titanic)
1. Let It Go (Frozen)
Ok, but where is Keith Carradine's "I'm Easy" from "Nashville"? One of the greatest Best Song winners ever in a scene that is an autentic masterpiece-in-the-masterpiece.
I thought I was to be the first complaining about I'm Easy not being here, but thank God I was not. It's not only a great song. It's one of the best musical moments in a movie ever.
Re: "I'm Easy" - I'm difficult. (LOVE the movie) ;-)
What a marvelous list, Chris. There are so many, I just couldn't begin to rank them. But I can say I am obsessed with You'll Never Know after seeing The Shape of Water. This has to be one of the top songs of all time.
PS. And it's time to re-evaluate the misunderstood We May Never Love Like This Again from The Towering Inferno.
Flashdance at only #23? Meet me out back
chris, super fun article! thanks for the hard work putting this together. and thanks for including "it goes like it goes"...i think it's one of the best movie songs ever: it tells you everything you need to know about the characters and the world they live in before the film starts, and its sweeping melody reflects the elegant straightforward emotional pull of the movie.
Still a shit category. Either the Disney movie or Mary J Blige gets the Oscar.
I will always shed a tear that "The Man that Got Away" lost that year. ;__;
"Up Where You Belong" - Officer and a Gentleman? I love Joe Cocker's voice. To me, it's another staple that people don't realize originated from a film, and it's almost always shows up on a classic "love song" list.
I never knew about You'll Never Know and I loved that scene in The Shape of Water! It was so risky to do that sequence and could have ruined the movie if not done right.
I think I have to be nostalgic and say "Sooner or Later" as my favorite because I saw "Dick Tracy" about 120 times as a kid AND I COULD NEVER BEAT THE NINTENDO GAME IT WAS SO HARD. I am also partial to "A Whole New World".
"Lose Yourself" still holds up and is very hard to do at karaoke. There's a panic and anxiety there in the final verse that Eminem totally aces and it serves the song and film well. .("SUCCESS IS MY ONLY MOTHERFUCKING OPTION! FAILURE'S NOT! MOM I LOVE YOU BUT THIS TRAILER'S GOT TO GO! I CAN NOT GROW OLD IN SALEM'S LOT!")
"Skyfall" is epic and haunting and perfect for a Bond film. The Pierce Brosnan films had GREAT title tracks ("Goldeneye" by Tina Turner, "Tomorrow Never Dies" by Sheryl Crow and "The World is Not Enough" by Garbage) that were overlooked by Oscar.
"Up Where You Belong" should have made the list.
In any case, my absolute favorite song was blown to smithereens by the Whitney-Mariah juggernaut in 1998. My song is "The Prayer", from "The Magic Sword: Quest for Camelot", written by David Foster and Carol Bayer Sager. By the way, Celine Dion's and Andrea Bocelli's performace at the Oscars was, in my opinion, the best live performance of a film-related duet in history.
And, by the way, David Foster remains Oscar-less after 3 nominations and Diane Warren has had 9 unsuccessful nominations! I don't think she'll win this year...
I echo those people who feel I'm Easy should be on the list because in my mind, you get extra points if the song is used in the movie to further the plot and illuminate character. And I'm Easy does that in spades, no matter what you think of the song.
I'm glad that you placed The Way We Were so high because it's iconic and appropriate for so many moments in everyone's lives and in the movie itself. Someone needs to make a fan video of scenes of Elio & Oliver set to The Way We Were. Bonus points if you can get Sufjan to sing it.
Never ever feel like you should defend Celine. Or "Heart Will Go On." Ever.
where´s when you believe by the two best singers ever?
Santy C - that's the damn truth!
"It Goes Like It Goes" is one of the worst winners. Nails on a chalkboard. The only thing about Norma Rae I do not like.
"Fame" isn't in your top 10??? Like Nashville and "I'm Easy," it's one of the best movie/music marriages of all time.
My top 10 would also include "The Shadow of Your Smile" from The Sandpiper, "Evergreen" from A Star Is Born, and "For All We Know" from Lovers and Other Strangers. All three are simply sublime.
Throw "Let It Go" right in the trash, and then meet the garbage man in the alley on the appointed day to make sure that he collects it. Five years later and I still think that song is terrible.
I ranked all 80 winners just a few years ago here at The Film Experience - thefilmexperience.net/blog/2016/1/22/ranking-all-80-winners-of-best-original-song-plus-where-this.html
I hate Skyfall
Yes Troy LET IT GO is terrible and the worst Song of the Bunch! Can´t believe it won! Best Song in that year was Lana delRyes "Young and Beautiful" but was hardly ignored by the Academy! ;-(((
Every list must start with "Somewhere over the Rainbow" and "Moonriver" - so great job here!
Over the Rainbow and Falling Slowly.
The rest.