With its victory at the 98th Oscars on Sunday (March 15), HUNTR/X’s “Golden” from KPop Demon Hunters has joined our list of songs that have both topped the Billboard Hot 100 and won the Oscar for best original song. It’s the first song to join the list since “Shallow” from A Star Is Born seven years ago.
“Golden” topped the Hot 100 for eight nonconsecutive weeks last year. Only other two Oscar-winning songs logged eight or more weeks on top. Debby Boone’s cover version of “You Light Up My Life” from the film of the same name topped the Hot 100 for a then-record 10 weeks in 1977. Eminem’s original recording of “Lose Yourself” from 8 Mile was on top for 12 weeks in 2002-03.
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The Motion Picture Academy first awarded best original song in 1935. Billboard launched the Hot 100 in 1958. In the chart’s nearly 68-year history, only 18 songs have hit No. 1 and also won best original song. B.J. Thomas’ “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” was the first song to achieve the double distinction. The jaunty tune, from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, spent four weeks at No. 1 in January 1970 before winning the Oscar that April.
Barbra Streisand and Jennifer Warnes are the only artists who have topped the Hot 100 twice with Oscar-winning songs. Burt Bacharach, Giorgio Moroder and Will Jennings are the only songwriters who have won two Oscars for songs that topped the Hot 100.
The 1970s and 1980s were a heyday for best original song winners topping the Hot 100, but the double distinction became far less common beginning in the 1990s. That decade, only two songs earned the double victory, followed by one each in the 2000s and 2010s and now one (so far) in the 2020s.
In chronological order, here are the 18 songs that have doubled up atop the Hot 100 and at the Oscars. The year shown is the year of the Oscar ceremony.
Additional research by Xander Zellner.
