2025 Oscars: Best Original Song Predictions
- Nominations voting for the 97th Oscars will take place from January 8-17, 2025, with the official nominations announced on January 23, 2025.
Nominations voting is from January 8-17, 2025, with official Oscar nominations announced January 23, 2025. Final voting is February 11-18, 2025. And finally, the 97th Oscars telecast will be broadcast on Sunday, March 2 and air live on ABC at 7:00 p.m. ET/ 4:00 p.m. PT. We update our picks through awards season, so keep checking IndieWire for all our 2025 Oscar predictions .
The State of the Race
Regardless of who wins, Netflix seems bound to collect an Oscar for Best Original Song, but the details as to why are still very fascinating.
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“Emilia Pérez” has long been an awards juggernaut, but the Karla Sofía Gascón social media scandal really threatened to clip its wings. It still seems like it is on track to win Best International Feature and Best Supporting Actress, but this category is where people are starting to call for something different.
Diane Warren has been nominated for a competitive Oscar 16 times now, with most of those nominations being consecutive. Not only is she working with H.E.R., who won this Oscar herself only a few years ago, but the song “The Journey” is from a film that a lot of people have seen this time. Although “The Six Triple Eight” was a departure from the populist fare Tyler Perry usually directs, it still became his most watched film on the streaming service. Both he and Diane Warren have honorary Oscars, so the Academy knows them well, meaning this may be the perfect chance to finally award her.
“El Mal” is certainly formidable, but even “Emilia Pérez” defenders would probably not describe its songs as “catchy” in the same way as the two “Barbie” songs from last year, for example. It is just so key to Zoe Saldaña’s performance that is pegged to win the Oscar, that a win for “El Mal” would fittingly complement that.
One could argue that “Like a Bird” from “Sing Sing,” performed by Abraham Alexander and Adrian Quesada, complements Oscar nominee Colman Domingo’s performance in the A24 film as well, but the drama has sadly underperformed this awards season. Even the titular song from “Elton John: Never Too Late,” a film that is not nominated in any other categories, is probably ahead of it in the awards race by virtue of Sir Elton having won the category multiple times.
Nominees are listed in order of likelihood to win.
“El Mal”— Jacques Audiard, Camille, and Clément Ducol (“Emilia Pérez”)
“The Journey”— Diane Warren (“The Six Triple Eight”)
“Never Too Late”—Brandi Carlile, Elton John, Bernie Taupin, and Andrew Watt (“Elton John: Never Too Late”)
“Like a Bird”— Abraham Alexander, Brandon Marcel, and Adrian Quesada (“Sing Sing”)
“Mi Camino”— Camille and Clément Ducol (“Emilia Pérez”)
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