Diane Warren made Oscar history last week, becoming the first songwriter to land nine consecutive nominations for best original song. The old record of eight consecutive nods in that category was set by Sammy Cahn, who had eight straight nods from 1954-61 – a streak that started before Warren was born.
Warren achieved the feat when her song “Dear Me” from Diane Warren: Relentless, a documentary about herself, was nominated. This was Warren’s third song from a documentary to land a best original song nomination, following “Til It Happens to You,” which she co-wrote with Lady Gaga for The Hunting Ground, a film about the rising incidence of campus sexual assault, and “I’ll Fight,” which she wrote by herself for RBG, a film about Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Warren is the second songwriter to receive three Oscar nods for songs written for documentaries. The first was Josh Ralph, known professionally as J. Ralph, who was nominated with “Before My Time” from Chasing Ice, “Manta Ray” from Racing Extinction (which he co-wrote with Anohni) and “The Empty Chair” from Jim: The James Foley Story (which he cowrote with Sting).
A second song from a documentary was nominated this year: “Sweet Dreams of Joy” from Viva Verdi!, a film that focuses on retired opera singers and musicians who live at Milan’s retirement home Casa Verdi. This is the second time that two songs from documentaries were nominated in the same year. Warren also had one of the nominated songs the last time this happened, in 2016. The aforementioned “The Hunting Ground” competed that year with the aforementioned “Manta Ray.”
Just one song from a documentary was nominated for an Oscar for best original song in the first 70 years that the award was presented – “More,” a pop standard of the early 1960s, which was written for the 1962 doc Mondo Cane. But the field has exploded in the last 20 years, with 11 more songs from documentaries nominated in that time.
Here’s a complete list of songs from documentaries that have received Oscar nominations for best original song. The years shown are the years of the Oscar ceremonies.