For Your Consideration: Final Oscar Predictions

Image courtesy of AMPAS.

In just four days, Oscar prognosticators around the internet will see their months and months of buzz-tracking and guesswork culminate in the announcement of the nominations for the 82nd Annual Academy Awards.  Though there’s a lot of obvious choices suspected - from the dominance of “Avatar” and “The Hurt Locker” to grid-locked acting nominees like Christoph Waltz, Mo’Nique, Jeff Bridges, Meryl Streep and Sandra Bullock.  But the Academy still has some room to surprise, most notably in its expanded ten best picture nominees, where really only five films are certainties, and three slots true question marks. And while the supporting acting categories both seem to have unbeatable winners in Waltz and Mo’Nique, their nominees are very much up in the air (though “Up In The Air”‘s Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick shouldn’t be worried).  Two slots in both categories could find themselves going to a wide range of contenders.

For what it’s worth, indieWIRE is running down our predictions in 21 different categories, including full lists of all reasonable contenders in the six major categories.  If our predictions were to somehow come true, “Avatar” would lead the pack with 10 nominations.

Best Picture

Locks:
1. Avatar
2. The Hurt Locker
3. Up In The Air
4. Precious
5. Inglourious Basterds

Likely:
6. An Education
7. Up

For The Final Three Slots:
8. District 9
9. Invictus
10. A Serious Man
11. Crazy Heart
12. Star Trek
13. The Messenger
14. Julie & Julia

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Kathryn Bigelow on the set of “The Hurt Locker.” Image courtesy of Summit Entertainment. Best Director Locks: 1. Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker 2. James Cameron, Avatar 3. Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds Very Likely: 4. Jason Reitman, Up In The Air The Fifth 5. Lee Daniels, Precious The Alternates: 6. Neill Blomkamp, District 9 7. Lone Scherfig, An Education 8. Clint Eastwood, Invictus Best Actor Locks: 1. Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart 2. George Clooney, Up In The Air 3. Colin Firth, A Single Man Very Likely: 4. Morgan Freeman, Invictus 5. Jeremy Renner, The Hurt Locker The Alternates: 6. Matt Damon, The Informant! 7. Ben Foster, The Messenger 8. Michael Stuhlbarg, A Serious Man Meryl Streep in a scene from “Julie & Julia.” Best Actress Locks: 1. Meryl Streep, Julie & Julia 2. Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side 3. Carey Mulligan, An Education 4. Gabourey Sidibe, Precious Very Likely 5. Helen Mirren, The Last Station Alternates: 6. Emily Blunt, The Young Victoria 7. Melanie Laurent, Inglourious Basterds 8. Saorise Ronan, The Lovely Bones -This article continues on the next page-   (1 of 3)  Next Page › posted on January 31, 2010 |Share