A Brief History of Documentaries competing in "Best Original Song
Thursday, March 11, 2021 at 7:30PM by Juan Carlos Ojano
One of the more interesting Oscar trends during the past decade is the increased presence of documentaries in the Best Original Song category. While most award-giving bodies have an aversion to recognizing docs outside of their own category, the Music branch of AMPAS has shown an openness to embrace them. At least in Best Original Song. Six of the eight songs from documentary films nominated came from the 2010s.
Here is the list of eight docs nominated for Best Original Song (with only one winner so far) and this year's contenders...
1962: “More” - Mondo Cane
Music by Nino Oliviero & Riz Ortolani / Lyric by Norman Newell
2006: “I Need to Wake Up” - An Inconvenient Truth *WINNER*
Music and Lyric and Melissa Etheridge
2012: “Before My Time” - Chasing Ice
Music and Lyric by J. Ralph
2014: “I’m Not Gonna Miss You” - Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me
Music and Lyric by Glen Campbell and Julian Raymond
2015: “Manta Ray” - Racing Extinction
Music by J. Ralph / Lyric by Anohni
2015: “Til It Happens to You” - The Hunting Ground
Music and Lyric by Lady Gaga & Diane Warren
2016: “The Empty Chair” - Jim: The James Foley Story
Music and Lyric by J. Ralph & Sting
2018: “I’ll Fight” - RBH
Music and Lyric and Diane Warren
ELIGIBLE THIS YEAR?
This year, four documentaries made the shortlist of 15 songs contending for this category, with mostly famous musicians at helm.
“Never Break” - Giving Voice
Written by John Stephens, Benjamin 'Mr Hudson' McIldowie, Greg Wells, Nasri Atweh
“See What You’ve Done” - Belly of the Beast
Written by Mary J. Blige, Darhyl Camper, Jr., Denisia Andrews, Brittany Coney
“Show Me Your Soul” - Mr. Soul!
Written by Robert Glasper and Lalah Hathaway
“Turntables” - All In: The Fight for Democracy
Written by Janelle “Django Jane” Monáe, Nathaniel Irvin III, George “George 2.0” A. Peters II
Which of these contenders do you have predicted for Best Original Song?
Reader Comments (16)
Fingers crossed for Monae. I'd love to see her nominated after her fantastic 2016 double punch and opening the Oscars with such an impressive performance. Love her.
I really hope Monae gets in on Monday.
BTW, was I the only person hoping for a "Manta Ray" win when it was nominated? It is a heartbreaking song.
I agree that Manta Ray was the best song of its year. In a second place Simple Song #3. That James Bond Song did not deserve the Oscar.
I’d say the one from Mr. Soul, just because voters will think it is a song from the Pixar movie.
Wasn't there a song that was nominated a few years ago only for the nomination to be pulled because it was from an Oscar voter?
You've listed the wrong song for More from Mondo Cane. Here's the YouTube link for the song which became a huge international hit - instrumental and vocal in many languages: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bML2WlsRAWc
Who is this J. Ralph who keeps getting nominated for these? He’s like the Meryl Streep of documentary songs.
Glen Campbell was great in True Grit and would've made a more worthy winner for this song. Honestly the Selma song and whatever Diane Warren they nominated that year are clearly 4th and 5th quality-wise that year.
Good thread!
I don't like these much at all which is funny given I am the site's resident doc person. I do quite like the Monae song from ALL IN and I'd be predicting it easily.
So glad Gaga lost.
None actually. I have Turntables on my 6th place. I have a feeling they might go only 3 this year:
Husavik
Lo Si (Seen)
Speak Now
If they go 5, then:
Fight For You
Hear My Voice
-thevoid99 - the song in question was "Alone Yet Not Alone" from the film of the same name and it was nominated in 2013 to compete alongside the likes of "Let It Go," "Happy," "The Moon Song," and "Ordinary Love." Then it turned out that one of the film's writer contacted members of the Music Branch in a way that broke the rules as the member in question was an executive committee member of the branch, so the Academy rescinded the nomination. Which was too bad because it was actually a fine song.
But the song was from a narrative film, so it wasn't included in this discussion. I wonder if the changes to the nomination voting for songs led to the increase in songs from documentaries getting nominated.
I really hate this trend. In fact I kind of hate the "tangentially related song stuck in the credits" trend in general, but documentaries are kind of the worst offenders since the songs really don't integrate with the actual films much at all and they seem to pretty transparently be grabs for free award nominations. Kind of like when famous people randomly win Grammys for reading audiobooks.
Another vote for Manta Ray being the best nominee that year.
I'm with MJS in not liking this trend - but given that it's a thing, am pulling for Monae.
Agree with Pat; the video is not the song "More" that got nominated for "Mondo cane" (but thanks for including it; until a couple of years ago, even the official statistics' page of the Academy kept omitting it from the list of nominations received by Documentaries in other categories)