Jonny Greenwood's The Power of the Dog score loses the Oscar to Dune

Hans Zimmer won Best Original Score for Dune at the 94th Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood on Sunday 27 March, and Jonny Greenwood's score for The Power of the Dog lost. Dune had already beaten it at the Golden Globes in January and at the BAFTAs a fortnight ago.

It was Greenwood's second nomination. The first, for Phantom Thread in 2018, lost to Alexandre Desplat's The Shape of Water. This year Original Score was one of eight categories handed out before the telecast and edited into it, so his category was never shown live.

The film's one award was Best Director, for Jane Campion, and Best Picture went to CODA. Greenwood had music in two more of the season's nominated films: he scored Pablo Larraín's Spencer and wrote the theme for Paul Thomas Anderson's Licorice Pizza.

The Power of the Dog score is built on a cello played like a banjo. Greenwood first tried writing for string quartet and banjo, gave it up, marked frets on a cello with Sellotape and, as he told Alex Ross of The New Yorker in December, I just learned to play banjo rhythms on the cello.⁴

94th Academy Awards, Best Original Score