Less than 24 hours after the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences unveiled its shortlists in 12 categories, including best original song and best original score, the Society of Composers & Lyricists revealed the nominations for its 2026 awards.
Sinners composer Ludwig Göransson and Wicked: For Good composer Stephen Schwartz are each nominated for three SCL Awards. Both composers are nominated for outstanding original score for a studio film (Schwartz alongside John Powell); both also received two song nominations. Göransson received two nods for outstanding original song for a dramatic or documentary visual media production for “I Lied to You” and “Last Time (I Seen the Sun)” from Sinners. Schwartz has two nods for outstanding original song for a comedy or musical visual media production for “No Place Like Home” and “The Girl in the Bubble” from Wicked: For Good.
In addition, Göransson and director Ryan Coogler will receive the Spirit of Collaboration Award, the SCL’s most distinctive and meaningful award, which recognizes a composer/director partnership that has created a significant and enduring body of work. Since their first collaboration on Coogler’s Fruitvale Station (2013), Göransson has scored all of Coogler’s feature films as a director — Creed (2015), Black Panther (2018), Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022), and Sinners (2025). Göransson won an Oscar for best original score for Black Panther and received an Oscar nod for best original song for cowriting “Lift Me Up” from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
Composer Harry Gregson-Williams received the 2025 Spirit of Collaboration Award for his work with director Ridley Scott. Other past recipients in this category include the late composer Robbie Robertson and Martin Scorsese; Thomas Newman and Sam Mendes; Terence Blanchard and Spike Lee; Carter Burwell and the Coen Brothers; and Justin Hurwitz and Damien Chazelle.
Diane Warren is nominated for outstanding original song for a dramatic or documentary visual media production for “Dear Me” from the documentary Diane Warren: Relentless. Warren has been nominated in each of the seven years that the SCL Awards have been presented. She won in this category in both 2025 for “The Journey” from The Six Triple Eight, and in 2023 for “Applause” from Tell it Like a Woman.
Unsurprisingly, there’s a lot of overlap between the SCL nominations and the Oscar shortlists. All of the SCL nominees for outstanding original score for a studio film are on the Oscar shortlist for original score. All but one of the 2026 SCL nominees for original song for a dramatic or documentary visual media production are on the Oscar shortlist for original song. The one SCL nominee for original song that failed to make the Oscar shortlist was “The Hills of Tanchico” from The Wheel of Time, which was cowritten by Nikhil Koparkar and Rammy Park.
The Bacon Brothers, consisting of actor-musician Kevin Bacon and his older brother, composer Michael Bacon, will cohost the seventh annual SCL Awards at Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles on Feb. 6. That’s at nearly the midpoint between the announcement of the Oscar nominations on Jan. 22 and the opening of first-round Oscar voting on Feb. 26, which makes the SCL Awards an important stop on the Oscar campaign trail.
The SCL Awards will feature a performance by Grammy-winner Melissa Manchester. (Trivia note: Dean Pitchford cowrote Manchester’s Grammy-winning song, “You Should Hear How She Talks About You,” and also wrote the screenplay and cowrote all the songs for Kevin Bacon’s breakout film, Footloose.)
Final voting for the 2026 SCL Awards will open on Jan. 19 and close on Jan. 26.
Here’s the full list of 2026 SCL Award nominees:
Outstanding Original Score for a Studio Film
Ludwig Göransson – Sinners
Alexandre Desplat – Frankenstein
Jonny Greenwood – One Battle After Another
Stephen Schwartz & John Powell – Wicked: For Good
Max Richter – Hamnet
Jerskin Fendrix – Bugonia
Outstanding Original Score for an Independent Film
Dara Taylor – Straw
Bryce Dessner – Train Dreams
David Fleming – Eternity
Fabrizio Mancinelli – Out of the Nest
Jónsi & Alex Sommers – Rental Family
Sara Barone & Robert Christenson – To Kill a Wolf
Outstanding Original Song for a Dramatic or Documentary Visual Media Production
Diane Warren – “Dear Me” from Relentless
Alice Smith, Miles Caton & Ludwig Göransson – “Last Time (I Seen the Sun)” from Sinners
Raphael Saadiq & Ludwig Göransson – “I Lied to You” from Sinners
Sara Bareilles – “Salt Then Sour Then Sweet” from Come See Me in the Good Light
Nikhil Koparkar & Rammy Park – “The Hills of Tanchico” from The Wheel of Time
Ed Sheeran, Blake Slatkin & John Mayer – “Drive” from F1
Outstanding Original Song for a Comedy or Musical Visual Media Production
EJAE & Mark Sonnenblick – “Golden” from KPop Demon Hunters
Stephen Schwartz – “No Place Like Home” from Wicked: For Good
Stephen Schwartz – “The Girl in the Bubble” from Wicked: For Good
Jack Black & Jared Hess – “Steve’s Lava Chicken” from A Minecraft Movie
Mark Ronson, Andrew Wyatt & Jack Black – “I Feel Alive” from A Minecraft Movie
Blake Slatkin, Shakira & Ed Sheeran – “Zoo” from Zootopia 2
Outstanding Original Title Sequence for a Television Production
Cristobal Tapia De Veer – The White Lotus
Carlos Rafael Rivera – Dept. Q
Dave Porter – Pluribus
Sean Callery – The Beast in Me
Amanda Jones – Murderbot
Jeff Beal – All Her Fault
Outstanding Original Score for a Television Production
Theodore Shapiro – Severance
Antonio Sánchez – The Studio
Brandon Roberts – Andor
Dave Porter – Pluribus
Cristobal Tapia De Veer – The White Lotus
David Fleming & Gustavo Santaolalla – The Last of Us
Outstanding Original Score for Interactive Media
Austin Wintory – Sword of the Sea
Gordy Haab – Indiana Jones and the Great Circle: The Order of the Giants
Wilbert Roget II, Cody Matthew Johnson & Jon Everist – Star Wars Outlaws: A Pirate’s Fortune
Maclaine Deimer – Wildgate
David Raksin Award for Emerging Talent
Cameron Moody – Washington Black
Chin-Shan Chang – Laws of Man
Raashi Kulkarni – A Nice Indian Boy
Greg Nicolett – Dr. Seuss’s The Sneetches
Freya Berkhout – Ride or Die
Sara Trevino – The Map That Leads You
