Composers who specialized in the thriller and horror movie genres have also been neglected by the Oscar voters, even though some pf the best compositions have been in these “disreputable” genres.
In 1976, Jerry Goldsmith’s score for The Omen became the first time that a horror film received a Music Oscar. Interestingly, he competed that year with Bernard Herrmann, who was nominated posthumously for two pictures: Obsession and Taxi Driver, which turned out to be his last score.
Herrmann was nominated for two other films, “Citizen Kane” in 1941, and “Anna and the King of Siam,” in 1946, but not for any of his great Hitchcockian scores (“Psycho, “Vertigo,” “North By Northwest”).
