The 98th Academy Awards will be here before you know it, so I’ve been spending my free time catching up on all the Oscar-nominated films that I missed late last year. This admittedly ambitious yet fulfilling exercise recently brought me Hamnet, Chloe Zhao’s utterly heartbreaking exploration of grief and what can come from it. This outstanding drama (it was one of CinemaBlend’s top 2025 films) is competing in eight categories, but there’s one where it doesn’t belong.
No, it’s not Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, or Best Actress (Jessie Buckley is remarkable as Agnes Shakespeare), but instead the Best Music field. I’m a longtime fan of Max Richter’s work, and it pains me to say this, but his score should have been made ineligible by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and it’s all because of what I think is the movie’s best scene. Let me explain…
The Score Should Be Ineligible Because Of ‘On The Nature Of Daylight’
So why shouldn’t Max Richter’s Hamnet score be eligible for Oscar contention? Everyone who has seen the film surely recalls the climactic scene where Agnes attends the premiere of Hamlet, a tragedy William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) wrote to channel the grief following their young son’s tragic death. Well, that scene is amplified by the use of Max Richter’s “On the Nature of Daylight,” one of the composer’s best pieces of music. However, that composition was first released back in 2004, which should mean that the score shouldn’t be up for an Oscar.
The Academy even has a rule (Rule 15 II. E) about this in the “Special Rules for the Music Awards” eligibility guidelines, which states:
A score shall not be eligible if it has been diluted by the use of pre-existing music, or it has been diminished in impact by the predominant use of songs or any music not composed specifically for the film by the submitting composer, or it has been assembled from the music of more than one composer.
Considering “On the Nature of Daylight” wasn’t composed for Hamnet, the score shouldn’t be up for an Oscar, in my opinion. What has me even more irrationally upset about this situation is the fact that the Academy has deemed other movies that used the composition ineligible in the past.
Other Movies Didn’t Receive Nominations For Similar Reasons
Back in December 2016, Variety reported that Arrival was one of three original scores disqualified from Oscar contention, with Silence and Manchester by the Sea also being left off the shortlist. What’s even more maddening is the fact that Arrival was deemed ineligible because the score, which was composed by the late Jóhann Jóhannsson, included “On the Nature of Daylight” in a pivotal scene.
At that point, the track had been used in movies like Stranger Than Fiction and Shutter Island . I’m just trying to wrap my head around the Academy not allowing a score to compete because of the composition a decade ago, but now having no problem with it. You could argue that it’s included because Richter composed the Hamnet score, but that doesn’t negate the fact that it was written 20 years before the film was released.
I have no problem with Max Richter’s score (I listen to his work more than just about any other composer), I just have some confusion about what is and what isn’t eligible. I mean, I could just be salty about Jonny Greenwood being disqualified for his There Will Be Blood score years ago, but that’s a story for another time.