Royalty Free Music for Filmmakers: Top 10 Tracks Inspired by the 2025 Oscar Nominees

While the world of filmmaking, video production, and content creation extends far beyond just the Hollywood movies that we see on the big screen these days, for anyone who dabbles in any form of film and video, the Oscars will always hold a special place in our hearts.

Presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Academy Awards (aka the Oscars) set the bar for excellence in cinematic achievements each year. And, as has been the case for every year since the first Academy Awards presentation back in 1929, this year has been no different.

Yet, while most of the Oscar ceremony is dedicated to directors, writers, and big stars, one aspect that is often overlooked but never underappreciated is the music and soundtracks backing these Oscar-worthy films.

If you’re looking to safely license and use music that sounds like, gives similar inspiration, or simply reaches the same level of excellence, let’s go over some of the best royalty free songs inspired by the 2025 Oscar nominees.

10 best royalty free songs inspired by 2025 Oscar nominees

This year’s Academy Awards ceremony has been one of the most notable music years in quite some time. Two of the most nominated films this year were musicals, with Wicked and Emilia Pérez both seeing unprecedented acclaim and box office success, and Timothée Chalamet notably portraying Bob Dylan in his biopic A Complete Unknown and performing his own songs.

The nominees for Best Original Score this year are all excellent films with soundtracks that expertly immerse audiences in the films and help them explore a host of powerful themes and important stories.

If you’d like to harness the same powers of music in your films and other content projects, we’ve compiled a list of some of the best royalty free music for filmmakers and content creators inspired by this year’s Oscar nominees, which you can check out here.

1. It’s Your Destiny by Moments

• Consider if your reference track is: One of the songs from Best Original Score nominee Wicked.
• Description: Sweeping, whimsical orchestral inspired by musicals.
• Listen and license here

2. Shaking A Feeling by Cody Martin

• Consider if your reference track is: One of the songs from Best Original Score nominee Wicked.
• Description: Emotive, hopeful cinematic theme with pop nuance.
• Listen and license here

3. The Enchanted Castle by Adam Saban

• Consider if your reference track is: One of the songs from Best Original Score nominee Wicked.
• Description: Magical theatrical score.
• Listen and license here

4. Dare To Live by Scarlett Solo

• Consider if your reference track is: One of the songs from Best Original Score nominee The Wild Robot.
• Description: Inspiring and motivational pop lyric.
• Listen and license here

5. To The Sky by Pete Stewart

• Consider if your reference track is: One of the songs from Best Original Score nominee The Wild Robot.
• Description: Upbeat, driving lyrical anthem.
• Listen and license here

6. Spare Parts by Colder Months

• Consider if your reference track is: A Best Original Song nominee from Elton John: Never Too Late.
• Description: Reflective, sentimental ballad.
• Listen and license here

7. Chasing The Light by Luna Wave feat. Moments

• Consider if your reference track is: A Best Original Song nominee from The Journey.
• Description: Invigorating and inspiring anthemic pop track.
• Listen and license here

8. Casa Hortera by Neon Beach

• Consider if your reference track is: One of the songs from Best Original Score nominee Emilia Pérez.
• Description: Latin-infused rebellious dance floor song.
• Listen and license here

9. The Ritual by Wicked Cinema

• Consider if your reference track is: One of the songs from Best Original Score nominee Conclave.
• Description: Eerie, suspenseful string orchestration.
• Listen and license here

10. Dark Places by Wicked Cinema

• Consider if your reference track is: One of the songs from Best Original Score nominee The Brutalist.
• Description: Haunting, sinister composition.
• Listen and license here

You can also further explore these tracks and preview them more easily by hopping over to this full playlist below:

Royalty Free Music Inspired by 2025 Oscar Nominees

Description: The best Royalty Free Music Inspired by 2025 Academy Awards Nominees.

These are just a few of the top tracks our Soundstripe curators recommend. With over 10,000 songs and plenty of additional styles, tones, and genres to explore, you’re always welcome and encouraged to listen to our complete catalog of royalty free music on our Soundstripe app.

What is royalty free music?

There have been a few terms thrown around when discussing the Oscar nominee-inspired music tracks above that we’d like to explain. We’ve mentioned the term “royalty free music” a few times now and feel like we should help describe this phrase a bit more in case you aren’t super familiar with it. Here’s a great article on what royalty free music means.

To understand how music rights and royalties work, you must understand that all music has basic copyrights. These copyrights extend to both the composer of the music as well as the musicians who recorded the music. And if you want to use any music in any videos, you’ll need permission from the copyright owners.

Royalty free music can be a great option for all your campaigns and content simply because it’s easy to find and use. Soundstripe’s music is composed and recorded by Grammy-winning artists who know how to make Oscar-worthy soundtracks and scores for all types of films and video content.

Tips for using Oscar-inspired royalty free music 

Now that you’ve explored some of our Oscar nominee-inspired, royalty free music tracks, let’s review some tips and tricks for using them in your campaigns, videos, and other content.

These tips are simply aimed at helping you select, edit, and implement the addition of royalty free music tracks to your videos and other projects. There are a million ways to edit and add music, though, so feel free to explore your own pathways and workflows.

• If you like the music of any artists recommended above, you can explore more of their tracks by going to their artist pages.
• You can also explore tracks based on different filters to search for genre, mood, energy, and other elements. You could start with exploring our cinematic music filter.
• Consider downloading preview tracks to use as placeholders in your edits before deciding if a track is right for your projects.
• Be sure to check out our library of royalty free sound effects to help your videos feel bigger and more cinematic with impactful SFX.
• Try out Soundstripe’s AI Song Editor to instantly edit your audio track to match the length of your content and campaigns.

In an ideal world, every filmmaker or content creator would be able to work with a composer to create a custom soundtrack for his or her project from the start. 

However, the custom soundtrack process takes months or even years in the real world. Still, with high-quality, royalty free music for filmmakers to use from the Soundstripe library, you can quickly, easily, and safely find Oscar-worthy music for your projects in minutes.

So, let these tracks inspire you cinematically as you create your own projects. Hopefully, these will one day earn you the awards and recognition you deserve.