James Newton Howard's Sunrise on the Reaping Score Lists 35 Tracks, Out 20 November

James Newton Howard’s score for The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping has an album: a 35-track digital release titled The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping – The Score, listed for 20 November 2026.

The listing is live on Apple Music and catalogued at FMDB. Lionsgate hasn’t announced it, so the date and tracklist are listed rather than confirmed; pre-release listings of this kind usually hold. Apple’s copyright line puts it through Music Corporation of America, the same MCA label as the song album, under licence to UMG. No physical edition is listed.

It lands a week after Sunrise on the Reaping (The Album), the 29-track song soundtrack MCA Records releases on 13 November, produced by Dave Cobb and led by Noah Kahan’s “Draw You Out”. Lionsgate’s own September teaser only ever said a score album was “in the works”. This is the first time it has had a date or a tracklist.

The Australian timing

20 November is US opening day, and the morning after Australian opening night. Digital albums normally switch on at local midnight, so expect it on Apple Music and Spotify here from 12:00am AEDT Friday 20 November, a few hours after Thursday’s sessions let out. Score albums have historically landed on the film’s US release day for this franchise, so the one-day gap isn’t new; it just means Australians hear the score in a cinema before they can stream it.

Howard’s sixth

Howard has scored every film in the series, from the 2012 original through The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, and Entertainment Now reports he posted from Abbey Road Studios during the Sunrise sessions. At 35 tracks this is a longer album than Catching Fire’s 29. Only one running time has been published so far: “Haymitch Meets Snow” at 2:15.

The tracklist

Midnight Dreary
Lenore Dove
Welcome To The Reaping
Train Window
Haymitch Comforts Louella
Tributes Enter The Stadium
Haymitch Meets Snow
Ampert’s Father
Bad Oysters
Sub A
Snakes But No Clothes
Caesar Interviews Haymitch
Lenore On Phone
Plutarch’s Plan
Launch
Bloodbath
Bad Water
Gas Plants
Butterflies
Sub Level Flood
Eruption
Stay Strong
Storytelling
Aftermath
Mutt Bugs
Edge Of The Outside
Mutt Birds
Maysilee’s Necklace
Ambush
Rewrite History
Makeshift Bomb
Haymitch Comes Home
You Can’t Leave Me
Epilogue
Reunion

What the titles give away

Track one is the first line of Poe’s “The Raven”, the poem that runs through the whole novel, and track two is the girl named after it. Howard opening the album with Poe rather than a District 12 theme tells you where the film’s emotional centre sits.

The arena run from “Bad Water” through “Mutt Birds” follows the book in order: the poisoned water, the gas plants, the butterflies, the eruption, the insects, the birds. Readers will remember that most of those beats are also what Katniss watched on the tape in Catching Fire, and that the point of Sunrise is how heavily that tape was edited. Track 30, “Rewrite History”, is presumably that scene.

“Ampert’s Father” is Beetee. “Sub A” and “Sub Level Flood” are the arena’s underworks, “Makeshift Bomb” is what Haymitch does down there, and “Edge Of The Outside” is the moment the book earns its title. The train, the stadium, the Caesar Flickerman interview and the Plutarch plan are all where you’d expect them.

The last three titles we’ll leave alone. If you’ve read the book you know what “You Can’t Leave Me” is, and if you haven’t, don’t look it up.

The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping is directed by Francis Lawrence and stars Joseph Zada, Whitney Peak, Mckenna Grace, Elle Fanning, Jesse Plemons, Kieran Culkin, Maya Hawke, Glenn Close, Kelvin Harrison Jr. and Ralph Fiennes, with music by James Newton Howard. It opens in Australian cinemas 19 November 2026, a day ahead of the US.

Sources: Apple Music pre-release listing; FMDB release entry; Film Music Reporter on the song soundtrack; Entertainment Now on the Abbey Road sessions.