Do me a favor. Grab your headphones, turn to your music app of choice, and press play on Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' score for "Challengers," Luca Guadagnino's 2024 film about sex, tennis, and power. I'll wait while you listen.
How freaking powerful does that score make you feel? I'll tell you this much: When I went to see "Challengers" at my local movie theater last summer on a random Thursday afternoon, I left the showing feeling like I could run a marathon or perhaps lift a car. (There is no world where I could ever physically do either of those things, to be quite clear.) That was partly due to the stunning lead performances by Zendaya, Josh O'Connor, and Mike Faist as the most twisted tennis threesome of all time -- as well as Guadagnino's cinematography, which he crafted alongside his director of photography Sayombhu Mukdeeprom -- but quite a lot of the adrenaline I felt after seeing "Challengers" was thanks to its pounding, aggressive score. Reznor and Ross, who have won two Academy Awards for their scores ("The Social Network" and "Soul," specifically), should have earned a nod for Best Original Score at the 2025 Oscars when Bowen Yang and Rachel Sennott announced the nominees on Thursday, January 23. But they didn't.
That's right: A score that magically makes the listener feel as if they could win a Grand Slam with absolutely zero tennis training got completely shut out at the Oscars ... and ultimately, "Challengers," which is easily one of the best movies released in 2024, received zero nominations. This is egregious, and I'm happy to tell you why.