2010 Oscar Predictions

Best Picture

Other possibilities: Pete Docter's Up, Marc Webb's (500) Days of Summer, Clint Eastwood's Invictus, John Lee Hancock's The Blind Side, J.J. Abrams' Star Trek, Oren Moverman's The Messenger, Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon, Louie Psihoyos' The Cove, Michael Hoffman's The Last Station, Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr. Fox, and Nora Ephron's Julie & Julia.

Five are certain — or at least as certain as "certain" can be when it comes to the Oscars: The Hurt Locker, Avatar, Inglourious Basterds, Precious, and Up in the Air. Thanks to the preferential voting system, things get pretty fuzzy for the other five slots. Even if a couple of thousand of Academy members thought Invictus and The Last Station were pretty good, they will likely not get nominated in case a few hundred members thought Broken Embraces, A Serious Man, and District 9 were pretty great. And these three movies have their ardent fans.

When there were only five slots, mainstream movies — or arthouse movies with heavy mainstream appeal — almost invariably ended up receiving Best Picture nominations. Rare was the year when something like Ingmar Bergman's Cries and Whispers or Jan Troell's The Emigrants sneaked in. With ten slots, a relatively small group of Academy members may finally be able to have their quirky choices nominated. Also, it's worth remembering that though based in Los Angeles the Academy has become quite international in terms of its membership.

Note: Up has an excellent chance of being nominated — better than, say, Broken Embraces or A Serious Man. We opted to leave it out betting (and true, the odds are against us) that Academy members will nominate the Pixar film only in the best animated feature category.

Now, Nine? Well, it's a Harvey Weinstein movie. The guy who helped to get The Reader nominated last year instead of The Dark Knight. Also, the film's cast and crew are so numerous that if they alone pick Nine as their #1 choice that'll probably guarantee the musical a nomination. We'll see…

Less likely: Jane Campion's Bright Star, Olivier Assayas' Summer Hours, Steven Soderbergh's The Informant!, Tom Ford's A Single Man, Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones, John Hillcoat's The Road, Cary Fukunaga's Sin Nombre, Sebastian Silva's The Maid, Nancy Meyers' It's Complicated.

If The Hangover gets nominated Academy members will be turned into frogs.

Photos: Avatar (WETA / 20th Century Fox); Inglourious Basterds (François Duhamel / The Weinstein Co.); Precious (Anne Marie Fox / Lionsgate); An Education (Kerry Brown / Sony Pictures Classics); Broken Embraces (Emilio Pereda & Paola Ardizzoni / El Deseo / Sony Pictures Classics); Up in the Air (Dale Robinette / Paramount); A Serious Man (Focus Features); The Hurt Locker (Jonathan Olley / Summit Entertainment); Nine (David James / The Weinstein Co.); District 9 (David Bloomer / Columbia Pictures)