Ludwig Göransson has won Best Original Score for Sinners at the 2026 Academy Awards. It’s his fifth nomination and third Oscar win. He beat out four other contenders in the field for this year’s trophy: Alexandre Desplat (for Frankenstein), Jerskin Fendrix (for Bugonia), Jonny Greenwood (for One Battle After Another), and Max Richter (for Hamnet).
Göransson accepted the Oscar from the reunited cast of Bridesmaids at Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre, and went on to thank his father for introducing him to music as a child. “My dad bought his first blues album in Sweden, 1964. It was a John Lee Hooker album, and even though it was on the other side of the world in a place my dad had never been, and a place he could not relate to, the music was so powerful that it changed my dad’s life and he devoted his whole life to music. When I was about seven years old, a little boy, he put a guitar in my arms and I loved the guitar. It became everything to me. It was the guitar that opened up a lot of doors for and it was the guitar that brought me over to the States. It was the guitar that eventually led me to one of the greatest storytellers of our time: Ryan Coogler. Ryan, thank you for your vision and making a movie that resonated with the whole world. Thank you.”
Sinners was nominated for 16 Academy Awards this year, including Best Picture and Best Director — breaking the record for most nominations for a single movie. The movie ended up winning four of those statuettes: Best Actor (Michael B. Jordan), Best Original Screenplay (Coogler), Best Cinematography (Autumn Durald Arkapaw), and Best Original Score (Göransson).
In 2025, Best Original Score went to Daniel Blumberg for his work on Brady Corbet’s epic, nearly four-hour-long architectural drama The Brutalist. Blumberg previously made music in the indie rock band Yuck, who broke out during the early 2010s, and discussed his pivot into scoring in an interview with Pitchfork.
Read Paul A. Thompson’s film review of Sinners and follow along with all of Pitchfork’s coverage of the 2026 Academy Awards.
