Three-time Academy Award winner Ludwig Göransson has won the Oscar for original score for “Sinners.”
Göransson beat Jerskin Fendrix (“Bugonia”), Max Richter (“Hamnet”), Jonny Greenwood (“One Battle After Another”) and Alexandre Desplat (“Frankenstein”) at Sunday’s 98th Academy Awards.
Göransson previously won original score Oscars for 2018’s “Black Panther” and 2023’s “Oppenheimer.”
“My dad bought his first blues album in Sweden, 1964,” Göransson said, crediting his dad’s love of music for his own. He “devoted his whole life to music,” the composer said. Eventually his father gave him a guitar and opened up his world.
“I love the guitar,” he continued. “It was the guitar that eventually led me to one of the greatest storytellers of our time, Ryan Coogler.”
“Sinners” is filmmaker Coogler’s bluesy, vampire, gangster musical about the tenuousness of life in the Jim Crow South. But it’s also a story of two brothers coming home to Mississippi in 1932 to launch a juke joint after spending time on the German front in World War I and then learning from Al Capone in gangland Chicago, as The Associated Press’ Jocelyn Noveck writes in her review. It’s a also story about love, and one about music, especially the transporting power of the blues. “Sinners” entered the night with a record-setting 16 nominations.
When the nominations were announced in January, Göransson told AP that he was grateful for the recognition for this project in particular.
“We woke up to a bunch of amazing, beautiful texts and calls. And it’s very much like a family affair, this film. Everyone on “Sinners,” we’ve been working together for a long time and we’re kind of like a family,” he said. “What’s cool about this film, and what’s incredible about this movie, is that it’s about blues music. It’s about a guitar player. … Anything we’re hearing today on the radio and from Western culture, you know, wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for blues. Ryan (Coogler) was able to show that in the movie and through the movie.”
___
For more coverage of the 2026 Oscars, visit https://apnews.com/hub/academy-awards
