Will Diane Warren finally win an Oscar? She’s nominated for Best Original Song for “I’m Standing with You” from “Breakthrough” (watch the music video above). This is her 11th nomination, but she has yet to win. In fact, her latest nomination means she has contended for songwriting in five straight decades: the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s and 2020s. Granted, her current nomination is for her work in 2019, but this nomination came in the 2020s, and it probably won’t be her last, so even if you don’t count this one, it’s only a matter of time. Check out the complete list of nominations here.
Best Song is the only Oscar nom for “Breakthrough,” a faith-based drama led by “This is Us” star Chrissy Metz (who also performs the song) as a mother whose adoptive teenage son miraculously wakes up from his coma after falling through an icy lake. That has actually been common for Warren in recent years; the music branch of the motion picture academy admires her so much that she is often nominated for her work on films that don’t otherwise have a lot of support from awards voters, like “Beyond the Lights” (2014), “The Hunting Ground” (2015) and “Marshall” (2017).
But the good news for Warren is that the other nominees for Best Song don’t have a lot of broad support from the academy either. “Into the Unknown” from “Frozen II” (by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez) and “I’m Gonna Love Me Again” from “Rocketman” (by Elton John and Bernie Taupin) are also the only nominations for those films. And “Toy Story 4” (“I Can’t Let You Throw Yourself Away” by Randy Newman) and “Harriet” (“Stand Up” by Joshuah Brian Campbell and Cynthia Erivo) each have only one other nomination: Best Animated Feature for “Toy Story” and Best Actress for Erivo in “Harriet.”
So will the academy finally award Warren 32 years since her first nomination? Check out her full list of nominations below. Who she lost to each year are in parentheses.
1987: “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” from “Mannequin” (lost to “I’ve Had the Time of My Life” from “Dirty Dancing”)
1996: “Because You Loved Me” from “Up Close and Personal” (lost to “You Must Love Me” from “Evita”)
1997: “How Do I Live” from “Con Air” (lost to “My Heart Will Go On” from “Titanic”)
1998: “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” from “Armageddon” (lost to “When You Believe” from “The Prince of Egypt”)
1999: “Music of My Heart” from “Music of the Heart” (lost to “You’ll Be in My Heart” from “Tarzan”)
2001: “There You’ll Be” from “Pearl Harbor” (lost to “If I Didn’t Have You” from “Monsters, Inc.”)
2014: “Grateful” from “Beyond the Lights” (lost to “Glory” from “Selma”)
2015: “Til it Happens to You” from “The Hunting Ground” (lost to “Writing’s on the Wall” from “Spectre”)
2017: “Stand Up for Something” from “Marshall” (lost to “Remember Me” from “Coco”)
2018: “I’ll Fight” from “RBG” (lost to “Shallow” from “A Star is Born”)
2019: “I’m Standing with You” from “Breakthrough” (result pending)
Be sure to make your Oscar winner predictions today so that Hollywood insiders can see how their films and performers are faring in our odds. You can keep changing your predictions as often as you like until just before winners are announced on February 9. And join in the fun debate over the 2020 Academy Awards taking place right now with Hollywood insiders in our film forums. Read more Gold Derby entertainment news.
