Taylor Swift Is Missing One Ingredient from the Recipe for a Best Original Song Oscar Frontrunner
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- Taylor Swift's "I Knew It, I Knew You" from Toy Story 5 sits atop the Billboard Hot 100 as the film opened June 22 with the year's highest-grossing opening weekend, yet the song plays over end credits rather than during a narrative scene.
- Toy Story 5's Oscar campaign team is not concerned about the song's eligibility despite end-credits placement, which has become a lightning-rod topic among Academy members and is now addressed in new Oscar rule changes.
- The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Music Branch historically favors songs integrated into a film's narrative, citing past winners like "Shallow" from A Star Is Born, "What Was I Made For?" from Barbie, and "Golden" from KPop Demon Hunters.
- Randy Newman's "When She Loved Me" — performed by Sarah McLachlan in Toy Story 2's Jessie montage — remains the franchise's most memorable marriage of music and visuals, and Toy Story 5 echoes that scene without scoring it with Swift's track.
- Competing contenders lack Swift's commercial momentum: Lady Gaga's two songs from The Devil Wears Prada 2 missed the Top 40, and Charli XCX's Wuthering Heights soundtrack is fading amid her upcoming summer album.
- Swift was shortlisted for Best Original Song in 2022 with "Carolina" from Where the Crawdads Sing — which earned her an Academy Music Branch invitation — and previously wrote film songs including "Safe and Sound" for The Hunger Games and "You'll Always Find Your Way Back Home" for Hannah Montana: The Movie.
Why it matters: The Academy's Music Branch has historically favored songs that anchor a film's emotional arc (Shallow, What Was I Made For?, Golden). Swift's end-credits placement for "I Knew It, I Knew You" runs against that pattern, and with six months of 2026 left, the Best Original Song category remains open to a more narratively integrated entry.
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