The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science is in hot water with Bat-fans after unveiling the shortlists for ten categories associated with the 95th Oscars celebration. While The Batman appears on the Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Sound, and Visual Effects shortlists, it failed to join the mentions for Best Score. The final nominations will be announced on January 24, 2023, and the ceremony will occur on March 12, 2023. Still, chances for Michael Giacchino’s atmospheric score being a part of the big show look grimmer than Batman trying to celebrate Mother’s Day.
To help put things into context, here’s the list of movies whose soundtracks have been included on the shortlist: All Quiet on the Western Front, Avatar: The Way of Water, Babylon, The Banshees of Inisherin, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Devotion, Don’t Worry Darling, Everything Everywhere All at Once, The Fabelmans, Glass Onion, Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, Nope, She Said, The Woman King, and Women Talking.
I’m listening to Michael Giacchino‘s The Batman soundtrack right now, and I must agree with the mob. It’s my favorite movie score of the year, and it’s a miracle that Giacchino found time to arrange the gritty soundscape of Gotham. In 2022, Giacchino composed scores for Jurassic World: Dominion, Lightyear, Thor: Love and Thunder, and Werewolf By Night. That’s an impressive bit of business. The Batman is easily one of my favorite films of the year, and in addition to Greig Fraser’s cinematography, the score was one of the film’s most impressive aspects.
The Batman soundtrack runs the gamut from dark and broody to atmospheric and mysterious. The expansive soundscape helps paint a vivid picture of a tortured hero and the broken city he’s sworn to protect. Each track elevates the film’s intense character studies, hyper-dark fight sequences, and twisted depiction of a metropolis on the verge of being overrun by psychopaths. Only Batman can put the criminal element of Gotham in their place, but he’ll need a bangin’ soundtrack pumping through his cowl while laying down the law.
Did the Academy mess up by not including The Batman soundtrack in the shortlist for Best Score? Feel free to vent your frustrations in the comments below.