‘The Brutalist’ composer Daniel Blumberg wins his first Oscar for Best Original Score

3 March 2025, 09:12 | Updated: 3 March 2025, 11:18

First-time Oscar winner Daniel Blumberg composed an electrifying score for ‘The Brutalist’, starring Best Actor winner Adrien Brody.

Young British composer Daniel Blumberg has won his first Oscar, taking home the 2025 Best Original Score award for The Brutalist.

The 35-year-old also won the BAFTA last month for scoring the film starring Adrien Brody, whose performance as fictitious Hungarian-Jewish Holocaust survivor László Tóth, who moves to the US, won him the Best Actor award.

Only his second ever film score, Blumberg’s music marries lyrical piano lines and jazz saxophone with discordant brass orchestration to reflect Tóth’s inner torment.

Blumberg beat Conclave composer, Volker Bertelmann, Emilia Pérez composers Clément Ducol and Camille, Wicked’s John Powell and Stephen Schwartz, and The Wild Robot’s Kris Bowers to the top gong.

In his acceptance speech, Blumberg said it “means a lot to be championed like this”.

Read more: All the Oscar-winning film scores from the last 50 years

Watch the trailer for The Brutalist

Blumberg’s only previous scoring credit on a feature-length film is Mona Fastvold’s The World to Come, which won him an Ivor Novello award.

Fastvold co-wrote The Brutalist with her husband, director Brady Corbet, whom Blumberg thanked in his speech, describing him as an “artistic soulmate”.

The film is dedicated to the memory of Scott Walker, who scored Corbet’s previous films.

Elsewhere at the 97th Academy Awards, which were held in Hollywood on Sunday 2 March, small-budget film Anora won Best Picture, Best Director for Sean Baker and Best Actress for Mikey Madison.

Kieran Culkin took home the Best Supporting Actor award for A Real Pain, and Zoe Saldaña won Best Supporting Actress for Emilia Pérez.