Clément Ducol and Camille have won the 2025 Academy Award for Best Original Song for “El Mal” from Emilia Pérez. The songwriters will take home statuettes for the track, which is performed by Camille, earning their first-ever Oscars. The other nominees were “Mi Camino” also from Emilia Pérez; “Never Too Late,” from Elton John: Never Too Late; “The Journey,” from The Six Triple Eight; and “Like a Bird,” from Sing Sing.
The Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger presented the award, and he had a few jokes up his sleeve about his fellow classic-rock contemporary. “The producers really wanted Bob Dylan to do this,” said Jagger. “Bob didn’t want to do it because he said the best songs this year were obviously in the movie A Complete Unknown. Bob said, ‘You should find somebody younger.’ I said, ‘Okay! I’m younger! I’m young enough, Bob! I’ll do it!’ So here I am.”
While accepting the award, Camille sang a bit of the Rolling Stones’ hit “Sympathy for the Devil” and then gave a short speech thanking the Emilia Pérez cast and crew, and explaining the goal of the songs they created. “We hope it speaks to the role music and art can play and continue to play as a force of the good and progress in the world,” she said.
Among the losing nominees are a few familiar names, including Black Pumas’ Adrian Quesada, who wrote “Like a Bird” for Sing Sing with Abraham Alexander, as well as EGOT-holder Elton John and his “Never Too Late” writing partners Brandi Carlile, Andrew Watt, and Bernie Taupin. Clément Ducol and Camille were up for the Emilia Pérez tracks, and the movie’s director, Jacques Audiard, also had a writing credit on “El Mal,” which would have made for his first-ever Oscar. Perennial runner-up Diane Warren was the nominee for The Six Triple Eight’s “The Journey.”
Last year, Billie Eilish and Finneas scored Barbie’s sole statuette, in Best Original Song, with “What Was I Made For?”
Follow all of Pitchfork’s coverage of the 2025 Academy Awards.
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