HLS Movie Awards 2021: Best Score Nominees!


    Welcome back to HLS Entertainment! Today we are going to be discussing the nominees for the best original musical score of a 2021 film. This is easily one of my favorite categories every year, I love having the excuse to jam out to these incredible works of music while writing and doing my other work. We have some all-star talent in this year's nominees, some composers that were new to me that I now love, as well as one composer who is nominated for two separate films.

    Please be sure to like share this on social media and follow me on Twitter @HaroldLStokes to keep up with all of this year's nominees! Now with these nominations, I will only do a quick blurb about the composer and the film, but I am putting the link to the score on Spotify as well. Let these nominees be the background music to your life today as you listen and enjoy their incredible work.


Don't Look Up - Composer: Nicholas Britell

    Don't Look Up as a film itself was divisive online but my goodness it had nothing to do with the score. This incredible score is the heart of this movie. Leonardo Dicaprio did an incredible job acting but this score is what really drove home the anxiety of the film. Nicholas Britell is a three-time Academy Award nominated composer who has done great work over the years, but his most popular work has to be on the hit HBO show Succession, which has one of the best themes of all time. Click here to listen to this film's score.


Dune - Composer: Hans Zimmer

    Twelve-time Academy Award Nominee Hans Zimmer hardly needs any introduction. Having composed over 200 film and tv scores it is very difficult to narrow down what he is best known for, but his lone Oscar he won for his work on the original Lion King in 1995. Other incredible works of his include the music for Gladiator (2000), Sherlock Holmes (2010), Inception (2011), Interstellar (2015) and Dunkirk (2018), all were nominated for Oscars. Now his score for Dune is just once again another incredible piece of art, and you can listen to it here.


Encanto - Composer: Germaine Franco

    Germaine Franco is a composer who going through their IMDb has done great work but none of it previously had stood out as excellently as the music for Encanto. Now reminder this is for her work composing the film NOT the songs in the film written by Lin-Manuel Miranda. It is very impressive how her work has stood out so well even when next to the very popular songs also in the film. Listen here to the full film's soundtrack.


The French Dispatch - Composer: Alexandre Desplat

    Eleven-time Academy Award nominee and two-time winner Alexandre Desplat is one of the most respected composers alive and has done impeccable work throughout the years. His previous Oscar nominations include films like, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2009), The King's Speech (2010), Argo (2012), The Imitation Game (2014) and Little Women (2020), but he won his two Oscars for The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) and The Shape of Water (2017). If you are a Wes Anderson fan you probably love Desplat's work. Click here to listen his score for this film.


The Power of the Dog - Composer: Jonny Greenwood

    You might know Jonny Greenwood as the lead guitarist and keyboardist for the alternative rock band Radiohead, but he has been doing just outstanding work as a film composer as well over the years. He has now been nominated for two Oscars with this film and Phantom Thread (2018). He has done incredible work on multiple Paul Thomas Anderson films such as There Will Be Blood (2007), The Master (2012), Inherent Vice (2014), Phantom Thread (2018), and Licorice Pizza (2021). Here is the link to this film's score.


Spencer - Composer: Jonny Greenwood

    Jonny Greenwood joins last year's Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor as the only people to get multiple HLS Movie Award nominations, funny enough both for Best Score, and all three are part of rock bands as Ross and Reznor are a part of the band Nine Inch Nails. This score is similar to Don't Look Up's as they both portray anxiety and building pressure so well, it is very interesting listening to them back-to-back. Listen to his Spencer score here!


Spider-Man: No Way Home - Composer: Michael Giacchino

    Michael Giacchino has been nominated for best score twice, once for Ratatouille (2008) and then won for Up (2010). His music in Spider-Man: No Way Home is a huge reason why the movie somehow works. The emotional themes are beautifully lead along being heartbreaking while also having the grand powerful hero moments, showing off one of the widest ranges of music this year. Click here to listen.


Thank you so much for reading! Please remember to like and share. I would love for you to listen to each of these and hit me up on Twitter @HaroldLStokes and let me know your thoughts on them!

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