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How this ranking works
The Academy’s five nominees for Music (Original Score) at the 97th Academy Awards were The Brutalist, Conclave, Emilia Pérez, Wicked, and The Wild Robot. The Academy credited Daniel Blumberg, Volker Bertelmann, Clément Ducol and Camille, John Powell and Stephen Schwartz, and Kris Bowers, respectively. The Academy’s 2025 ceremony results list The Brutalist as the winner.
The order below is a critical judgment, not a claim that an award or a single set of criteria can settle which score is objectively best. The comparison weighs four things: whether a score has a distinctive and coherent musical identity; how effectively it serves character, place, tension, or emotion; how its instrumental music relates to songs or other music in the film; and whether it remains engaging away from the screen.
1. The Brutalist — Daniel Blumberg
Blumberg’s score takes the top place for the force of its musical identity and its fit with a film built around ambition, displacement, and monumental architecture. Rather than treating the music as decorative uplift, the score contributes to the film’s severe, searching atmosphere. Its impact is bound to the film’s scale and emotional pressure, yet it also makes a strong case for listening beyond the images.
#1 Best Overall
- Item Name: The Film Scores and Original Orchestral Music
- Product ty: ABIS MUSIC
The Academy named The Brutalist the 2025 Original Score winner. BAFTA also selected it as its Film Original Score winner, though the two awards did not have identical nominee fields. BAFTA’s film awards information lists its nominees; Wicked was in the Oscar field, while Nosferatu was among BAFTA’s nominees.
Milan Records announced a 32-track release of The Brutalist (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) in 2025, in double-CD and 2-LP vinyl editions. That announcement establishes the formats existed; it does not confirm current retailer stock or prices. Milan Records’ release announcement has the edition details.
Rank #2
2. The Wild Robot — Kris Bowers
Bowers’s score earns second place for the emotional range available to it: the story’s natural world, its moments of danger, and the developing bond at its center all call for music that can shift without losing its identity. Its strength is dramatic responsiveness—music that can make a world feel expansive while keeping the emotional focus close.
That adaptability gives the score a persuasive life beyond any single scene. It is not as singular in its overall impression as the top-ranked entry, but its ability to support both scale and tenderness makes it one of the field’s most complete dramatic contributions.
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Bertelmann’s score is strongest when it sustains pressure. In a story shaped by secrecy, procedure, and political maneuvering, restraint can be more effective than a grand, constantly announcing theme. The score’s placement reflects how well that measured approach serves tension and atmosphere.
Its controlled dramatic function is a virtue, though it leaves less of a vivid standalone impression than the two scores above it. The music works most persuasively as part of the film’s tightly managed mood.
Rank #4
4. Wicked — John Powell and Stephen Schwartz
Wicked presents a particular challenge for an Original Score comparison: its musical identity is also shaped by songs. Powell and Schwartz are credited for the nominated score, but the film’s broader musical world cannot be reduced to instrumental underscore alone. The ranking considers how the score fits within that larger sound rather than treating every musical moment as the same kind of composition.
The result is an energetic entry with the scale expected of a fantasy musical, but its score is harder to separate from the film’s songs and overall spectacle. That makes the instrumental work less distinctive as a standalone listening experience than the entries ranked higher.
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5. Emilia Pérez — Clément Ducol and Camille
Ducol and Camille’s nomination sits at another intersection of score and song. Emilia Pérez draws on a musical identity that includes vocal material, so the score’s effectiveness has to be judged in relation to the film’s songs and dramatic structure—not as if it were a conventional instrumental-only score.
In this ranking, the music makes a clear contribution to the film’s identity, but the balance between score and song gives the instrumental component less independent weight than the other nominees. That is a question of fit and listening experience, not a dismissal of the film’s musical approach.
How the Oscar field compares with BAFTA’s
The 2025 awards aligned on the winner: both the Academy and BAFTA chose The Brutalist. Their nominee lists differed, however. BAFTA’s five were The Brutalist, Conclave, Emilia Pérez, Nosferatu, and The Wild Robot; the Oscars nominated Wicked instead of Nosferatu. A shared winner therefore does not mean the two organizations evaluated identical fields.
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