Diane Warren has been nominated 17 times for Best Original Song. Why hasn’t she won yet?

At the Academy Awards on Sunday, we will either see one of the longest losing streaks of all time come to an end, or see history being made. Songwriter Diane Warren never won an Oscar for Best Original song, despite being nominated so many times. If she doesn’t clinch it again, she will be 0 for 17, making her the most consistent loser in Oscar history. 

Warren’s dry spell is confounding because it’s based on her greatness. 

With hits like “How Do I Live” (Con Air) and “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” (Armageddon), this woman has written some of the greatest movie songs of all time. The fact that she’s been nominated by her peers 17 times seems to signify that she’s doing something right. 

How is Diane Warren so incredibly good at making songs that get Oscar nominations, but so incredibly bad at making songs that win? 

This year Warren is nominated for “Dear Me,” a song from Relentless, a documentary about Warren herself. It’s a good time to examine the history of the category, what Oscar voters like in an original song, Warren’s chance this year, and whether she could win in the future if she misses out on Sunday (which seems likely since KPop Demon Hunters’s “Golden” has dominated awards season). 

Is there such a thing as Original Song Oscar bait?

A common descriptor that pops up around certain movies, actors, and actresses is that it’s “Oscar bait.” Slightly insulting, the term refers to the kind of films (epic war dramas, monologues, period pieces, “important” movies) and performances (portrayals of musicians and famous leaders, and roles where actors get “ugly”), that Academy voters have historically rewarded. It also can refer to movies that appeal to voters on paper (see: A Complete Unknown and Maestro) but don’t necessarily win.    

It could probably also apply when it comes to the Best Original Song category. 

“If you look back at the last 25 years of Best Song winners, what you will find is that they tend to line up in a couple of different categories. Number one is a big popular music name writes a song for a movie,” said Jon Burlingame, a professor who teaches screen scoring at USC’s Thornton School of Music. 

Some recent examples of the “big name-big movie song” wins include Billie Eilish’s Barbie hit  “What Was I Made For?” in 2024 and “No Time to Die,” which she penned for the eponymous Bond movie; Elton John’s “Love Me Again” for Rocketman in 2020; and Lady Gaga’s “Shallow” for A Star Is Born in 2019. 

Pop stars, like revered actors, actresses, and directors, do have clout with voters. Historically, Burlingame explained, there have been instances in which some voters are “desperate to be seen as hip.” A popular music star like Gaga or Eilish could be seen as the type of cool that voters want, especially since Eilish had such a massive Grammys haul in 2020, prior to her Bond song winning. But sometimes it’s as simple as wanting to reward a big name. 

“When Bob Dylan wrote a song for Wonder Boys in 2000, everybody said, ‘God, we got to give Bob Dylan an Oscar,’” Burlingame said. 

The other key trend is being a standout song in a musical or musical-ish movie, Nate Sloan, a musicology professor at USC’s Thornton, told Vox. Given the lack of musicals in the Best Picture category this year, it may seem like this sort is rare. But Sloan pointed out that animated features fall into this grouping (see: Disney’s five wins in the early ’90s) and, more loosely, a musical-ish feature like La La Land does too. The two frontrunners for this year’s award would be considered to be musical or musical-ish. 

“The odds makers probably put ‘Golden’ [from KPop Demon Hunters] up there because it’s such a smash. Probably right behind it would be, ‘I Lied to You’ from Sinners because music was such an important part of its plot,” Sloan said. 

Both Sloan and Burlingame said that there are some exceptions to these general trends. Still, they both expect “Golden” to get the win this year. It checks the “hit song from a musical” box. And while a superstar isn’t attached, “Golden” is just as big as any pop song released in the past year. That ubiquity counts for a lot too. 

“I think if you look at the list of the last 10 years or so, how many of those [nominees] were really radio hits,” Burlingame said, pointing out that Original Song nominees don’t usually chart. He did say that when they do, like Eilish’s “What Was I Made For?,” they’ll usually win. “I think that’s why there’s no way that ‘Golden’ can lose,” he added. 

Why Diane Warren probably isn’t winning this year

Given how popular “Golden” is and how many awards it’s already won, it’s not looking too good for “Dear Me.” If this isn’t Warren’s year, what might it take for her to finally bring home the award in the future? 

Based on what experts said, it would probably look like Warren collaborating with a pop star on a stupendous song for a movie musical. But that, as Sloan, the musicology professor explained, is something that Warren’s songwriting career has moved away from. 

Warren was first nominated in 1987 for “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” from Mannequin. She then reeled off a trio of hits — “Because You Loved Me” with Celine Dion in 1996, “How Do I Live” with Trisha Yearwood in 1997, and “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” with Aerosmith in 1998 — that, under the Oscar-bait rubric of big pop star and big movie song, could’ve easily won. 

Unfortunately for Warren, sometimes the Original Song category is stacked.

“How Do I Live” lost to “My Heart Will Go On,” Celine Dion’s Titanic love song. Similarly, “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” couldn’t beat “When You Believe,” which was performed by Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey for The Prince of Egypt. One could easily make the argument that either of those Warren songs may have had a different outcome in a different year. 

“I love Diane Warren, I think she’s a brilliant songwriter. She’s written some of the biggest hits of the 20th century … but I feel like she’s just getting further and further from a win,” Sloan said. “I feel like the sound of movie music is moving further away from what she does.”

Sloan explained that the power ballad love songs that Warren is so good at writing feel a bit outdated in the musical landscape of the 2020s. Contemporary movies are probably not going to be scored and tracked in that ’80s and ’90s style, and those songs might not do as well when it comes to the music charts or streaming services. “I think she’ll keep getting nominated,” Sloan said, noting Warren’s name recognition and history. “But I think it’s just going to get harder and harder to actually get a win.” (Vox reached out to Warren’s publicist to arrange an interview but did not hear back.)

If there was a time for Warren to sneak a win, Sloan said, it might’ve been last year when “El Mal” from Emilia Perez took the prize. But the controversial musical topped Warren (nominated for “The Journey” from Six Triple Eight) and Elton John (“Never Too Late” from Elton John: Never Too Late) too.

The prospect of going 0 for 17, or 18 or 20, raises another question: Would there ever be a point where the Academy rewards Warren for a good enough song that reflects her impressive body of work? Would the Academy ever award a sympathy Oscar? There’s precedent for this. Directors, actors, and actresses have all had wins that are widely considered to be more about rewarding a respected colleague who’s overdue rather than their performance in that year’s specific work. Burlingame, the screen scoring professor, pointed out that songwriter and composer Randy Newman received 16 nominations across score and song before nabbing his first win in 2009 for “If I Didn’t Have You” from Monsters Inc. 

“It was his time and people thought, oh God, this poor guy, he’s been nominated so many times, let’s just give him an Oscar,” Burlingame said, noting that Newman’s “You’ve Got a Friend In Me” is considered his career highlight. “And they gave it to him for — I mean, does anybody really remember the song from Monsters Inc?” 

Burlingame believes that something similar could happen for Warren. 

“It may one day be Diane’s time if she writes a song that’s associated with a big movie and has a big hit on the radio,” he said.

Unfortunately for Warren, that time is probably not this year.