Golden Globe Best Original Score

The Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score is presented annually during the Golden Globe Awards ceremony by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), an organization that comprise of journalists and photographers covering the US entertainment industry for publications mainly in non-US media markets. The accolade is given to recognize and honor remarkable original music composed by an artist for a film that helped in heightening the emotion conveyed by a specific scene of the film or the film as a whole thereby making it more appealing and enchanting to the viewers.

The award for Best Original Score was introduced by the Hollywood Foreign Correspondent Association (HFCA), predecessor of the HFPA, during the 5th Golden Globe Awards held in 1948. Austrian composer and conductor Max Steiner, regarded as one of the greatest musical composers of Hollywood, became first recipient of the award for his compositional work on the American Technicolor comedy film Life with Father. The award was not presented from the 11th Golden Globe Awards (1954) to the 16th Golden Globe Awards (1959).

Legendary American composer, conductor, and pianist John Williams, who has worked with the likes of Alfred Hitchcock, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, won the award 4 times out of a record count of 25 nominations. The first win among these was in 1976 for his most iconic score that he made for Spielberg’ thriller film Jaws, and which with time has emerged as the most recognizable compositions in the history of cinema. The other two luminaries who won 4 awards each in this category are ace Russian-born American film composer and conductor Dimitri Tiomkin out of just 5 nominations and French composer and conductor Maurice Jarre out of 10 nominations. Notable artists who were honored with the award thrice include Justin Hurwitz, Alan Menken, Ennio Morricone and Hans Zimmer. Accolades of Tiomkin and Menken include two consecutive awards. Composer Howard Shore also won his two awards in the category successively. Tiomkin also received the "Special Award" "For creative musical contribution to Motion Picture" in 1955 and the "Special Award" as "Recognition for film music" in 1957; while American composer and cellist Hugo Friedhofer was conferred with a Special Achievement Award for his contribution to film music in 1958.

American composer and conductor Jerry Goldsmith known for composing scores for five films in the Star Trek franchise, three films in the Rambo franchise, and films like Logan's Run, Planet of the Apes, and The Mummy garnered nine nominations in the category however did not receive the award. Other artists who were also nominated several times but never won the award include French film score composer Michel Legrand with 7 nominations, and American songwriting duo Sherman Brothers with five nominations.

List of Winners - Golden Globes Best Original Score