Why Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Couldn't Get A Best Score Oscar Nomination

Not everyone agrees on the best score for a Batman movie, but people do generally agree that the score for "The Dark Knight" is high on the list. If nothing else, it's impossible not to love those last 30 seconds of "I'm Not a Hero," which is usually played in the film whenever Batman does something especially cool. The scores for the other movies in the "Dark Knight" trilogy are solid, but "Batman Begins" feels undercooked compared to its successor, and the score for "The Dark Knight Rises" feels like it's trying in vain to recapture that "Dark Knight" magic. 

But foras intense and atmospheric as the music in "The Dark Knight" is, it did not win an Oscar for best original music, nor was it even nominated. As reported at the time, "The Academy's music branch acted after noting that five people were credited with composing the score. Although no one seems to know exactly how many people are allowed to be involved, that was apparently too many."

Although Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard are the main names attached to the score, music editor Alex Gibson, music designer Mel Wesson, and composer Lorne Balfe are also credited. The three of them apparently "signed an affidavit stating that Zimmer and Howard were the prime composers of the work," but that was not enough for the Academy to change its mind. "The Dark Knight" ended up nominated in eight Oscar categories and won two of them, but the Oscar for Best Original Score ended up going to A. R. Rahman for "Slumdog Millionaire." Howard couldn't be too upset, at least; that same year, he was also nominated for his score for "Defiance."

The reasoning behind excluding "The Dark Knight" in the music category feels a little flimsy, because it's not like a movie soundtrack is ever truly composed by just one or two people anyway. Hans Zimmer, for instance, has spoken a lot about how he works with a whole team of people for each movie. "I never hide my collaborators," Zimmer explained in a 2013 interview, "But as the composer, I'm the main architect. That means being responsible for the initial idea, the style, themes, orchestration, and instrumentation. The Big Idea. But in a two-hour-plus score, especially the way I work, you need a bit of help."

He explained how his soundtracks are composed with the help of "programmers, arrangers, assistants, additional composers ... in the room with the director, the editor, and the music editor, they get to be part of the process." Zimmer talked about how he tries to credit the people he works with as much as possible, but ultimately it's not practical for an album to have so many names front and center: "Sometimes it's just not possible. The 'additional composer' credit inevitably means that someone in some other department needs to give up their credit."

On the bright side, it's hardly like Zimmer or Howard have never gotten their due. Zimmer has been nominated for an Oscar 12 times throughout his career and has won one twice, most recently for his score for the first "Dune" film in 2022. (His score for the second "Dune" film wasn't so lucky.) Meanwhile, Howard has been nominated for an Oscar nine times, although he hasn't won one yet. They may not have gotten a chance for "The Dark Knight," but at least the Academy allowed them plenty more opportunities down the road.