"Golden" wins Best Song at the 2026 World Soundtrack Awards, and Daniel Pemberton is Film Composer of the Year

The 26th World Soundtrack Awards were handed out on Saturday, 10 October 2026, at the closing ceremony and concert of Film Fest Gent in Ghent, Belgium. The awards, which celebrate music written for screens and games, gave one of its biggest prizes to a song that has spent a year outside the film world's usual orbit: "Golden" from KPop Demon Hunters.

The winners

• Best Original Song: "Golden" from KPop Demon Hunters, performed by HUNTR/X. The song was co-written by EJAE.
• Film Composer of the Year: Daniel Pemberton, recognised for Project Hail Mary, The Drama, The Bad Guys 2 and Masters of the Universe.
• Television Composer of the Year: Jeff Russo, for Alien: Earth, Cape Fear and the second season of Citadel.
• Discovery of the Year: Hannah Peel, for Midwinter Break.
• Public Choice Award: Kevin Smithers, for Soy Frankelda.
• Game Music Award: Nicolas Garcia, for Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss.
• Belgian Film Composer of the Year: Margaret Hermant, for A la cara and Mallorca Confidencial.
• Best Original Composition by a Young Composer: Xabier Doural García.
• Lifetime Achievement Award: Trevor Jones.

Why this list is worth a look

The nominees for Best Original Song sat "Golden" beside "House" from Wuthering Heights, "No Place Like Home" from Wicked: For Good, "Stolen Tale" from Hedda and "Train Dreams" from Train Dreams. That is a field of songs from prestige films, and the K-pop-flavoured animated hit beat them. For readers new to it: KPop Demon Hunters is the animated Netflix film whose fictional girl group HUNTR/X sings "Golden", and the soundtrack has been a global streaming fixture since its release.

Pemberton's win also says something about the year in screen scores: a composer with a sci-fi blockbuster, a comedy, an animated sequel and a toy-franchise film all in one eligibility window. Max Richter, Jonny Greenwood, Alexandre Desplat and Hildur Guðnadóttir were the other nominees in the category, so it was a crowded shortlist.

Peel's Discovery of the Year award is a nice reminder that the prize is not only for newcomers in age. She is a long-established artist and composer whose screen work is now getting its own spotlight.

The concert

The ceremony was paired with a concert of music by this year's guest of honour, Icelandic composer Hildur Guðnadóttir, and by Lifetime Achievement honouree Trevor Jones, the South African composer behind scores including The Last of the Mohicans. The Brussels Philharmonic played the programme under conductor Dirk Brossé.

The full programme, nominees and winners are on the World Soundtrack Awards site.