Some years, this category has a clear frontrunner that sweeps all the critics awards. Something like Up or The Artist. Not this year. For a little while, it looked like Birdman was going to win here, but it ended up being ruled ineligible. So let’s look at these nominees and see if we can find a winner.

5th Most Likely To Win: Mr. Turner

This is composer Gary Yershon’s first nomination. Okay, I totally haven’t seen the film. I’m about to listen to the score for the first time… Okay, that is not a pleasant sound to my ears. It sounds like a mix between a haunting melody and a tea kettle that’s whistling. This isn’t winning. I have no idea how it even got nominated.

4th Most Likely To Win: Interstellar

This is composer Hans Zimmer’s tenth nomination in this category. Now honestly, this would be my vote. Zimmer flawlessly capture both the sincerity and the scope of the film with his music. There’s only one problem – the film is not a Best Picture nominee. And the last film to win in this category was 2002’s Frida. To give you an example of how long ago that was, the film was released the same year that they started filming Boyhood. Yeah…

3rd Most Likely To Win: The Imitation Game

Composer Alexandre Desplat scores his seventh and eighth nominations this year, and personally I really want him to win for one of his two nominated scores. Why? Because he wrote this. Give the guy an Oscar. I also really like this score, and I’m totally for it winning. However, it hasn’t really won any critics prizes.

2nd Most Likely To Win: The Grand Budapest Hotel

Here we have our BAFTA winner. And even though I prefer The Imitation Game’s score, I would be totally cool with Desplat winning for this. Because then it would be Desplat winning. Plus, people really like the film. And yet, I’m not going to predict it.

MY PREDICTED WINNER: The Theory Of Everything

This is composer Jóhann Jóhannsson’s first nomination. In the past ten years, eight Oscar winning scores had come from first-time nominees. Plus, this won the Globe. That’s very telling. The score is admittedly very good, even if I don’t think it would crack my personal top five. In short, while I want to have Alexandre Desplat win an Oscar, this is one instance where I’m going to play it safe.

My Personal Ranking Of The Nominees:

1.) Interstellar
2.) The Imitation Game
3.) The Theory Of Everything
4.) The Grand Budapest Hotel