Longest gap between Oscar wins for Best Original Score

At the 94th Academy Awards on 27 March 2022, composer Hans Zimmer (Germany) pocketed his second-ever statuette for Best Original Score for providing the soundtrack to the multiple-award-winner Dune (USA, 2021). It came 27 years to the day after winning his first award for The Lion King (USA, 1994), at the 67th Academy Awards on 27 March 1995.

Thirty composers have won Best Original Score at least twice, led by Alfred Newman’s nine awards between 1939 and 1968 – including an 11-year gap between his eighth (1957) and ninth trophies (1968) – but nobody has shown such award-winning longevity to win two Oscars 27 years apart. Henry Mancini (USA, 1924-94) had previously won Best Original Score for Breakfast at Tiffany’s in 1962 and for Victor/Victoria in 1983 – a gap of 21 years, while Ray Heindorf (1944-63), Maurice Jarre (1966-85) and John Barry (1969-86) have all endured lengthy waits for repeat success.

Previous Best Original Score winners have included Burt Bacharach (1970), The Beatles (1971), Giorgio Moroder (1979), Vangelis (1982), Prince (1985), James Horner (1998), Howard Shore (2002 and 2004), Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor (2011 and 2021) and Ennio Morricone (2016).

Zimmer’s 12 Best Original Score nominations have been for Rain Man (1988), The Lion King (1994 – winner), The Preacher’s Wife (1996), As Good as It Gets (1997), The Thin Red Line (1998), The Prince of Egypt (1998), Gladiator (2000; with Lisa Gerrard), Sherlock Holmes (2009), Inception (2010), Interstellar (2014), Dunkirk (2017) and Dune (2021 – winner).