How Many Oscars Should Diane Warren Have Actually Won By Now?
by Chris Peterson
On Sunday, Diane Warren lost her 17th straight Oscar nomination for Best Original Song, which is honestly starting to feel less like an awards stat and more like one of the Academy’s weirdest long-running traditions. While she does have an honorary Oscar, given to her in 2022, she has never beat out the competition to take the golden guy home with her.
Her song this year, “Dear Me” from Diane Warren: Relentless, lost to “Golden” from K-pop Demon Hunters. This was always the expected outcome given the K-pop tune’s dominance over the awards season.
Which makes this year interesting because not every nomination was robbed. Some were absolutely there to round out the category. Some were up against monsters. Some never had a prayer. But a few of them? A few of them really do make you sit back and think, wait a minute, how did she not win that one?
So let’s dig in to each year she was nominated to find out if she actually really deserved to win a couple, let alone one.
1987 - "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" from Mannequin
Lost to - "(I've Had) The Time of My Life" from Dirty Dancing
Diane Warren’s first Oscar nomination, and honestly, she just ran into a cultural steamroller. I love that song. It is exactly the kind of power ballad that knows how to sell a feeling. But it lost to “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” from Dirty Dancing, and that was just a brutal year to show up. Anyone who was around then knows that Dirty Dancing absolutely ruled the planet that year, and that song had a complete chokehold on pop culture. It was everywhere. Kind of like “Golden” this year, where you could just feel that nothing else was getting past it.
1996 - "Because You Loved Me" from Up Close and Personal
Lost to - “You Must Love Me” from Evita
1996 gave her one of her biggest hits with Celine Dion singing “Because You Loved Me” from Up Close and Personal, which lost to “You Must Love Me” from Evita. And honestly? I am not sure either of those would be my pick. Because for me, the real winner should have been the title song from That Thing You Do!
1997 - “How do I Live” from Con Air
Lost to - “My Heart Will Go On” from Titanic
Losing to arguably the greatest and most popular movie song of all time is not a robbery, it is just bad luck and brutal timing.
1998 - "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" from Armageddon
Lost to - “When You Believe” from The Prince of Egypt
Now we are in the real conversation. This is where she should have won her first Oscar. “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” was enormous. To this day, you hear that song and immediately think of Armageddon, late-90s excess, and Aerosmith absolutely going for broke. This was not just a nominee. This was a genuine pop culture moment. And for me, this is the first time in Diane Warren’s Oscar history where you can really say, yes, she should have walked out of that ceremony with the statue.
1999 - “Music of My Heart” from Music of My Heart
Lost to - "You'll Be in My Heart" from Tarzan
I would not have given the Oscar to either of them. For me, the real winner should have been “When She Loved Me” from Toy Story 2, which is still one of the most emotionally devastating songs ever written for a film.
2001 - “There You’ll Be” from Pearl Harbor
Lost to - "If I Didn't Have You" from Monsters, Inc.
Then came “There You’ll Be” from Pearl Harbor, which lost to Randy Newman’s “If I Didn’t Have You” from Monsters, Inc., and I am just going to say it: I can barely remember that song. I know Randy Newman was long overdue and the Academy clearly wanted to finally give him his Oscar, but this felt much more like a career win than a song win.
That said, I do not think either of them should have won. For me, the real choice was Enya’s “May It Be” from The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, which is just on another level entirely.
2014 - "Grateful" from Beyond the Lights
Lost to - “Glory” from Selma
After more than a decade without a nomination, Diane was back in the race with “Grateful” from Beyond the Lights, which lost to “Glory” from Selma, and this one is not even close. “Glory” should have won, and it did. End of story.
2015 - "Til It Happens to You" from The Hunting Ground
Lost to - "Writing's on the Wall" from Spectre
Honestly, this is where she should have won Oscar number two. I still do not think that one sits right. The Academy gave the award to a James Bond song, which is always hard to beat because that franchise carries its own kind of Oscar prestige, even when the song itself is not exactly top-tier Bond. And let’s be honest, “Writing’s on the Wall” is easily one of the weakest Bond themes in the franchise. So yes, for me, this was Diane Warren’s second should-have-been Oscar.
2017 - "Stand Up for Something" from Marshall
Lost to - “Remember Me” from Coco
This is one where she finally ran straight into the Disney machine. And honestly? The Disney machine rightfully won this one.
2018 - "I'll Fight" from RBG
Lost to - “Shallow” from A Star is Born
This is where it starts to feel a little like we were just nominating her because, well, she had a song eligible. “I’ll Fight” is fine, but it never felt like a serious threat to win. Meanwhile, “Shallow” was huge, it was everywhere, and it became the defining musical moment of that movie and honestly of that entire awards season. So no, Diane was not robbed here.
2019 - "I'm Standing with You" from Breakthrough
Lost to - "(I'm Gonna) Love Me Again" from Rocketman
This is another one that felt, to me, pretty gratuitous. I still cannot believe “Into the Unknown” from Frozen 2 did not win.
2020 - "Io sì (Seen)" from The Life Ahead
Lost to - "Fight for You" from Judas and the Black Messiah
2020 was the weird COVID year, so the whole season already felt a little off. But no, this is not one I would put in the Diane Warren injustice file. It was just a weird year all around, and the Academy made a defensible call.
2021 - "Somehow You Do" from Four Good Days
Lost to - “No Time To Die” from No Time to Die
She ran straight into Bond yet again. But honestly? I do not think either of them should have won. The real winner that year was not even nominated, which is still kind of insane when you think about it. “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” from Encanto completely took over the culture. It was everywhere. So while Diane definitely was not robbed here(despite her legendary reaction to her loss), I do think this was another year where the Academy(and Disney for not submitting it for consideration) missed the song that actually owned the moment.
2022- "Applause" from Tell It Like a Woman
Lost to - "Naatu Naatu" from RRR
This was the year she got her Honorary Oscar, which at least gave the whole thing a slightly less depressing vibe. So while she did not win the competitive award, she kind of won anyway. Or at least the Academy finally stopped pretending it had never heard of Diane Warren.
2023 - "The Fire Inside" from Flamin' Hot
Lost to - "What Was I Made For?" from Barbie
“The Fire Inside” is a solid Diane Warren song, but this was never really her race to win. Billie got her again, and this time it felt completely inevitable.
2024 - "The Journey" from The Six Triple Eight
Lost to - "El Mal" from Emilia Pérez
My winner would not have been either of them. It should have been “Beautiful That Way” from The Last Showgirl, a song the Academy somehow did not even nominate, which feels a little ridiculous the more you think about it.
2025- "Dear Me" from Diane Warren: Relentless
Lost to - “Golden” from KPop Demon Hunters
There is something very Diane Warren about losing to a full-blown cultural phenomenon. Because that really has been the story more than once. She does not just lose to songs people like. She loses to songs that absolutely take over. “Golden” was not some quiet little winner that slipped through. It swept the season.
So no, this is not one where I would say she was robbed. This is another entry in the very specific Academy pattern of nominating her, admiring her, and then having her run headfirst into a song that has the entire culture in a chokehold. At this point, that may be the most consistent part of her Oscar story.
At the end of the day, I do not think she should have 17 Oscars. But she absolutely should have two by now.
So yes, the Academy has gotten some of these losses right. Plenty of them, actually. But if we are looking at Diane Warren’s Oscar history honestly, she should not still be sitting here empty-handed in competition.