The 40 best Oscar-winning songs of all time, ranked
From "Under The Sea" to "Over The Rainbow," these are the finest tunes to ever capture an Academy Award
Music Features Oscar
Clockwise from left to right: Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis in a promotional portrait for Top Gun (Photo: Paramount Pictures/Archive Photos/Getty Images); Flashdance (Screenshot: Paramount Pictures/YouTube); The Little Mermaid (Screenshot: Disney/YouTube); The Wizard Of Oz (Screenshot: MGM/YouTube) Graphic: The A.V. Club
Best Original Song is the lone Academy Award that can be untethered from its origin. By definition, categories like acting, directing, cinematography, set, and costume design are inherently anchored to the film they represent. Not so with a song. Sure, some songs can best be understood within the context of a film—and, at times, a song gains stature from its presence within a movie—but the greatest Best Original Songs exist in their own realm, inspired by the story on the screen but not needing a film to have an emotional impact. What follows are the 40 Oscar-winning songs that have made great, lasting impressions, either within their own universe or ours.
80 Comments
I’m going to assume the exclusion of Zippity-doo-dah is deliberate trolling.
There’s a lot of Disney stuff missing from this list, actually. Sorry, “A Whole New World,” piss off, “Colors of the Wind.” Apparently Bruce Springsteen mumbling
“mrrmrmrmrrmrrmrrstreetsofphilidelphia” with a backing track sampled from an elevator is the greatest thing recorded in the 1990’s.
Colors of the wind musically is solid but lyrically is a mess. I always think Howard Ashmen would have been more clever with the lyrics.
Rainbow Connection would be #1 if it had not gotten robbed by that forgotten Norma Rae song.
Too true. Often times the most significant thing in the Academy Awards are what doesn’t win, not what does.
Came here to say EXACTLY this.One of the biggest heists of all time.
They didn’t want to give it to a frog. If Beaker had sung it things would have went differently.
I was trying to show “The Leprechaun Brothers” from the Muppet Show, but YouTube won’t let me transfer it.
This is a really solid list! If there are going to be slideshows on this site, this is exactly the kind I’ll read.
Don’t be shitting on Say You Say Me
They literally didn’t. Like, it’s last, but it reads like it was written by an AI set on “neutral.”
Came here to be sure “I’m Easy” was here, and “The Weary Kind”.
Good damn list! Some of the songs (“Raindrops..” and that horrible one from Dirty Dancing) were not good for their movies, but as songs they were all right.
I feel like “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head” belongs on the list for being one of the most annoying earworms in history and also a reliable “happy times montage” standard after five decades.
I have a windmill in my mind.
Let It Go is especially notable for completely changing the movie. The original script was closer to the original Snow Queen story with Elsa as the villain, but then Idina Menzel decided to perform the song with an optimistic tone that caused the crew to completely change their view on the character, even if it meant a near-total rewrite.Also, Robert Lopez’s follow-up Remember Me definitely deserves a mention, not least for how it made him likely the only Double EGOT we’ll ever see.
I love Remember Me so much. I cry every time I listen to it.
“I’m Easy” is a perfectly nice song, but the “I’m Easy” scene elevates it to an all-timer. A standout heart-stabber in the middle of an astonishing movie. *runs off to watch Nashville* Also, the writing around here gets shit on a lot, so I’d like to highlight this chunk-o-text, which perfectly captures how I feel about Springsteen’s Philadelphia: “The subject was somber and so is the song. Long, sustained synthesizers conjure a spectral spell that never breaks, not even when Springsteen opens up the arrangement to contain the vaguest hint of harmony. It’s a song—and record—that conveys an enormous sense of loss, an emotion that rhymes with the sentiments offered by Demme’s movie.”
the “I’m Easy” scene elevates it to an all-timerIt really does: every woman in the place thinks the song was written for her (it kinda was, considering Tom’s attitude towards women). But Lily Tomlin’s expression, completely still with tears shining in her eyes, is just… so… perfect.
100%. That scene in the movie is killer and makes the song. Lily’s face says everything.
#1 is perfect. I grew up in the late 70’s and early 80’s and Wizard of Oz on CBS was a must watch.With that said, how dare Jon Bon Jovi and Young guns 2 isn’t on the top 40! I demand a recount! 😉
I know he technically appears, but I feel like Howard Ashman was still done dirty by this list. His song(s) deserve to be higher up, even if they’ve been played to death the past 30+ years.
And surprising that “Beauty and the Beast” isn’t on here either… TIL that was his only other Oscar win
Howard having only two Oscars is criminal and yet… he didn’t have many chances because of AIDs. Its fucking unfair. Pocahontas or Hunchback with Howard is something I always wonder about. Stephen Schwartz isn’t a bad writer at all but… you can’t help but wonder the way you wonder what future Mozart songs never got penned.
Fun list, if I had a quibble it would be the absence of Skyfall, a kick ass song that was a) the first Bond song to win an Oscar, b) the one that suddenly made it a thing for all Bond songs to win Oscars regardless of merit. But Skyfall had merit up the wazoo.
I’ve never been a huge fan of Adele, but Skyfall is probably my favourite Bond theme.
Same, she’s a great singer, but I always thought I’d like her better if she were born 40 or 50 years earlier and her music reflected the conventions of that era. Skyfall works because it has a distinctly old school feel.
Its a shame Shirley Bassey didn’t win for Goldfinger but damn if Skyfall is comparable quality.
“Let it Go” is not better than “Under the Sea.” Not lyrically. Not musically. Not nothinally. It’s not better than “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” either or “A Whole New World.” as Disney-winning songs go, you’re missing the quality stuff, for what got ‘internet popular.’
Can You Feel the Love Tonight is a better song than Under the Sea (it’s such a fixture on easy listening stations I completely forgot it was from the Lion King). Part of Your World is better than either of them and maybe the best 90s Disney song, but inexplicably it didn’t get an Oscar. But calling Let It Go “internet popular” is like calling Stranger Things “internet popular” – for all its flaws, it’s a solid piece of craft that has been stuck in the culture for many years.
Hot take. Under the Sea isn’t even the best Little Mermaid song. That’s Part of Your World.
You 100% cannot mention “I Just Called To Say I Love You” without mentioning that Wonder had to return the Oscar, because the song wasn’t written specifically for the movie.Also that Diana Ross performed the song at the Oscar ceremony, and Wonder hadn’t even been asked to, which led to the Academy instituting a policy of always asking the original artist to perform.
Seeing “Over the Rainbow” at #1 just makes me think about IZ and how much I appreciate his rendition of it.
He also sings Mona Lisa <3
This style of singing is the direct inspiration for the Pixar short Lava. Not a beloved short but one I like.
It’s beloved in my household. We all get misty-eyed over it. It’s so sweet.
My mother would agree. She adored it, was genuinely mad when the academy didn’t nominate it for Best Short.
I got misty-eyed from just the first few bars.
I heard some instrumentalists playing the song a year or so ago, and started getting annoyed with their version before suddenly thinking, “That doesn’t even sound Hawaiian!”Which was the moment I realized Israel’s version has basically overwritten all previous iterations of the song in my brain to become the one, correct, definitive performance of it.
I cry every time I hear IZ’s version, the only one I listen to. Thanks.
I remember that from ER.
I Just Called To Say I love You is a terrible song. And it beat out Against All Odds! And just for fun- Against All Odds had one of the worst live performances at the Oscars ever. Sorry, Ann Reinking.
Just watched a old episode of Siskel and Ebert If We Pick the Winners from that year. Everyone of the songs nominated were actual hits.
It’s true, they were.
Hell, “Ghostbusters” is a better and more deserving song (which also lost that year). Honestly, I’m willing to argue that every other nominated song in that category that year would have been a better choice. They were awarding Stevie, not the song.
“He offended me with his terrible taste”
it’s funny to say I’m easy is a gentle love song song, which it is-out of the context of the movie. In the context of the movie, it is far from that.
It’s the best song Gordon Lightfoot never wrote.
The best thing about My Heart Will Go On, is that in the movie, it is not oversized. It’s small and delicate and not recognizable Celine Dion. And then it turned into a thing and she started belting it out-the movie version is better.
They also keep it to the end credits (although the melody is all over the movie).
How could you leave off Carly Simon’s Let the River Run from Working Girl??
Which is DEFINITELY a better song that “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head.”
no mention that Up Where We Belong is actually duet with Jennifer Warnes? It is, isn’t it?
Really wish “I’ll see you again.” won back in 2016.
I’m assuming you mean “See You Again,” which wasn’t nominated.
Yes and even that non nomination was a crime. Better than the SPECTRE theme.
Some suit at Warner actually wanted to cut “Over the Rainbow” from The Wizard of Oz because he thought it was slowing down the film’s pacing.
That version may have won, but it sounds like a Eurovision entry compared to Dusty’s bluesy and best version
This list is missing “Into the West.” Say what you will about the prior two songs from the Lord of the Rings trilogy being snooze-fests (they are), but Annie Lennox KILLED it with this one.It makes me tear up every time I hear it. It’s the first lullaby I sang to both of my children. I want it played at my funeral.It’s a freaking all-timer, and its snub is unwarranted.
(grumbles about “I just called to say I love you” being included instead of this)
Thats so beautiful singing that song like that. God that reminds me of how my funeral music would be so cliché. Circle Game Joni Mitchell, Will the Circle Be Unbroken, Somewhere Out There, hell probably Moon River.
Thank you. Yeah, I’ve always thought of that song as the perfect one to convey the transition from one life to another, so it seemed appropriate to sing it to my babies once they came to this one, and it’s why I intend to have others sing when I leave this one behind.And I don’t think your song choices are cliché. “Cliché” implies triteness and a lack of emotional resonance, but all of your song choices would get me misting up if I was at the funeral of someone I cared about, at least. (Especially, “Somewhere Out There.” That song is basically childlike yearning diluted into pure musical form.)
Thank you kindly. Somewhere Out There has a fun reason. Its not the movie version. Its the 1998 version from Paige O’Hara, voice of Belle and a good friend. Was a version me and my mother listened to when she had cancer.
🥺Yes, I can easily see why that song would have so much extra resonance for you. I’m hoping your mother’s still around? If not, I’m sorry for your loss.
I dunno, Gollum’s Song is kinda cool and creepy.
You know what? I can agree with that, actually. “Gollum’s Song” totally sounds like his James Bond villain theme, and that’s not actually boring. I wish I could edit my original comment.(I also would love to see the “Gollum-finger”-style music video, with all the hobbits’ silhoettes taking the place of sexy girls)What I was mostly thinking of when I wrote that was Enya’s “May It Be.” Now, I love me some Enya, but that song is sooooooo bland. Considering how she had already dipped her toes in Tolkien’s world before (her song “Lothlorien” is very dreamy), I was expecting more. But, hey, at least “Aniron” is much better.
YOU’RE a snoozefest, May It Be is great. But yeah Into The West is the best one.
Okay, your comment made me laugh out loud. And yeah, that’s fair. I dunno why it doesn’t do it for me, but hearing you come to its defense? Makes me respect it more.
The vast majority of these do absolutely nothing for me, but this was a nice reminder that I haven’t listened to the Once soundtrack since college, and it absolutely deserves a revisit.
mejor aislamiento de fachadas
I am surprisingly not mad about this list and its order. Nice work! Too bad it had to be in a fucked up slideshow.
I dont know which choice annoys me more. Ignoring Beauty and the Beast and A Whole New World or saying Audrey Hepburn didn’t do the best Moon River. She isn’t a professional singer yet the emotions are so genuine it hurts.
Yeah, sometimes emotion is way more affective than technical prowess. I think that’s precisely why “Falling Slowly” won the year it did: it’s so achingly sincere. (I had to stop myself from getting into an argument with my friend’s mother that year, because she insisted that song had no business winning over either of the more “polished” songs from Enchanted).I also think of Brandi Carlile’s beautiful song, “The Story,” and how she absolutely whiffs her vocal key shift going into the final chorus… but the emotion is so raw and powerful that I couldn’t imagine it being sung any other way.
Oh my god yes! Falling Short is very good because its so sincere.
I am once again struck by how much “Falling Slowly” sounds like a lost Aerosmith song.
Sorry, Shallow is a terrible song. Gaga has pipes but the words themselves are…well, shallow, and the idea that this kind of boring mid-tempo tune would propel her to superstardom is ludicrous.
Take My Breath Away is a fine song and I’m not knocking its win, but it also accompanies one of the most inadvertently awkward sex scenes ever filmed.
The list should include When She Loved Me from Toy Story 2, but it was robbed by You’ll be in my Heart.
No The Morning After from The Poseidon Adventure ? Nonnie is not happy.
The top two are definitely the correct top 2, but I just had a conversation with a GenZ in my life that:1. There was a South Park Movie. 2. It was a musical. 3. Almost any song from that musical could’ve gotten an Oscar nomination. 4. The one that did was probably the only one that could’ve been performed for a general audience, even though everyone KNEW the real choice would’ve been “Uncle Fucker.” 4. Robin Williams performed the one that was selected on the telecast. 5. It got beaten by some boring-ass Disney Song. 6. Matt and Trey had an episode shitting on Phil Whoozits, the guy who won, the very next week. I am happy to note that the Phil Whoozits song in question didn’t make this list, as Uncle Fucker most surely would have.
“Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head” at #6? Excellent proof of how very subjective this list is. https://www.stereogum.com/2025818/the-number-ones-b-j-thomas-raindrops-keep-fallin-on-my-head/columns/the-number-ones/
I’d take the other “Philadelphia” that was nominated.
Speaking of Oscar-winning composers, I’m surprised this site hasn’t posted an article about Ryuichi Sakamoto, who passed away yesterday. He won an Oscar for his theme for “The Last Emperor”, and with his work in Yellow Magic Orchestra was a huge influence on and pioneered multiple electronic music genres. My favorite work from him is his theme to the film “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence”. It’s a beautiful and bittersweet piece.