The Boys in the Boat marked Desplat's fifth collaboration with Clooney, following The Ides of March (2011), The Monuments Men (2014), Suburbicon (2017) and The Midnight Sky (2020).

[3] Music critic Jonathan Broxton called it "a real return to form for Alexandre Desplat after a few years of ups and downs".

[4] Pete Hammond of Deadline Hollywood said, "Two-time Oscar winner Alexandre Desplat's lovely score avoids the usual beats for this genre and is well matched to what we see on screen".

[5] Variety's Owen Gleiberman described the score as "thick with traditional combat valor",[6] while Mae Abdulbaki of Screen Rant and Amy Nicholson of The New York Times called it "moving" and "plucky".

[10] Nick Schager of The Daily Beast wrote, "Alexandre Desplat’s accompanying musical compositions lean into the sequence’s melodramatic atmosphere, the result being a form-content synergy that establishes rowing as a sport predicated on the harmony between man, craft, instrument, and nature.