How many Oscars does John Williams have? The composers with the most Oscars in history
At 91 years old, the American composer has won five awards, and now he has the chance to expand his collection thanks to ‘The Fabelmans’.
The Oscars are finally here and the nominees are looking forward to the moment they find out if they’ll win one of the most important awards in the world or if they will have to continue fighting to get hold of one of these gold-plated copper statuettes. While we wait, we review some of the lucky ones to get more than one Oscar. In this case we are going to focus on the composers and soundtracks.
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John Williams: The living person with the most nominations in history
John Williams leads this ranking at 90 years old. He has composed the tunes for ‘Star Wars’, ‘Jaws’, ‘Harry Potter’, and ‘E.T.’, among others, and has accumulated five Oscar Awards and 53 nominations. ‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’, was his last nomination in the year 2020.
He has won the award five times since 1972, thanks to the films ‘Fiddler on the Roof’, ‘Jaws’, ‘Star Wars’, ‘E.T.’ and ’Schindler’s List’. The latter, in 1994, was the last time he won the trophy. Williams, who has the greatest number of nominations in history, will have the opportunity to expand his collection in this great event tonight, since he is up for a nomination for Best Original Soundtrack for the film ‘The Fabelmans’.
Dimitri Tiomkin
Ukrainian Dimitri Tiomkin has won the Oscar four times thanks to the categories of Best Soundtrack and Best Original Song. In the first category, he won for the films ‘The Old Man and the Sea’, ‘The High and the Mighty’ and ‘High Noon’.
Miklós Rózsa
Between 1941 and 1962, Miklós Rózsa won three Oscars for ‘Spellbound’, ‘A Double Life’ and ‘Ben-Hur’. In addition, he was nominated 17 times.
Alfred Newman
The American Alfred Newman has won nine awards from 1939 to 1970. He won awards for both Best Soundtrack and Best Score for films such as ‘The Greatest Story Ever Told’ and ‘Camelot’. In addition, he was nominated for these awards 43 times.
Max Steiner
Max Steiner has three awards. He was awarded for his work in ‘Since You Went Away’, ‘Now, Voyager’, and ‘The Informer’. He has been nominated 19 times between 1939 and 1956.
Alexandre Desplat
French composer Alexandre Desplat has won two Oscars for the soundtracks of ‘The Shape of Water’ and ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’. He has been nominated 11 times, most recently in 2020 for ‘Little Women.’
James Horner
Californian composer James Horner was a double Oscar winner for ‘Titanic’ in 1997. He won the Oscar for Best Original Score and Best Original Song for ‘My Heart Will Go On’ in this film. He has also been nominated on another 10 occasions.
Ennio Morricone
Italian Ennio Morricone has received the Oscar twice: in 2006 he received the Honorary Oscar and in 2016 he was the winner for Best Original Score for ‘The Hateful Eight ‘. In addition, he has been nominated seven times.