Taylor Swift has spent more than a decade collecting near misses at the Academy Awards. That run may finally be over. “I Knew It, I Knew You,” the song Swift wrote with Jack Antonoff for Toy Story 5, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 this week, making it her 15th career chart-topper and only the third song from an animated Disney film ever to reach the summit. The commercial success arrives just as Toy Story 5 opens wide in theaters Friday — and as awards-watchers begin calculating her odds of finally securing an Oscar nomination.
The franchise she has joined carries unusual weight with the Academy’s music branch. Randy Newman received a Best Original Song nomination for each of the first four Toy Story films, earning nods for “You’ve Got a Friend in Me,” “When She Loved Me,” “We Belong Together,” and “I Can’t Let You Throw Yourself Away.” Swift is the first songwriter other than Newman to write an original song for the series.
Her Oscar record to date has been a study in frustration. Despite 14 Grammy wins and 58 Grammy nominations — including a record four Album of the Year victories — she has never received an Academy Award nomination. Her closest moment came with “Carolina,” written for Where the Crawdads Sing in 2022, which made the shortlist of 15 eligible songs before missing the final five.
The Toy Story 5 filmmakers say they had no notes on her submission. Co-director Kenna Harris described the collaboration as “game recognized game — storyteller recognized storyteller.” Director Andrew Stanton went further, saying the song felt so embedded in the franchise’s DNA that it seemed like it had always existed.
Swift performed the song live for the first time at the film’s Los Angeles premiere on June 9, playing a piano arrangement before joining Randy Newman for a duet of “You’ve Got a Friend in Me.”
On June 10, the song became the first track by a female artist ever to receive instant adds at all 157 country radio stations that report to Mediabase — a format Swift publicly walked away from ahead of the 1989 era in 2015. The country crossover matters for Oscar purposes too: songs that demonstrate broad cultural reach tend to perform better with Academy voters.
Whether the franchise’s historical Oscar magic transfers from Newman to Swift remains the open question, but the song’s multi-format dominance gives it the kind of visibility that nominations often follow. The Academy’s Best Original Song shortlist is expected in late 2026.
