Yesterday, I discussed my pre-guild predictions in several categories. Today, I finish up those discussions with the final eleven. Enjoy.

Best Original Song

There are no guilds to reference for this category, so this might be the last time I revisit this category. Looking over the handful of groups that nominate for this award, including the Golden Globes and the Satellite Awards, there are six songs that have earned the majority of nominations. “See You Again” from Furious 7, which has appeared on all the lists; “Writing’s On the Wall” from Spectre, which missed the Grammy list (mostly because of release date) “Love Me Like You Do” from Fifty Shades of Grey, which missed with the Phoenix and St. Louis Critics; “One Kind of Love” from Love & Mercy, which also missed the Grammys, but also the St. Louis critics nominations; “Til It Happens to You” from The Hunting Ground, which wasn’t mentioned by the Globes, Phoenix or Houston critics; and “Simple Song #3” from Youth, which wasn’t nominated for the Satellites, Grammys, Phoenix or the Broadcast Film Critics.

While it’s possible some random nominee comes out of nowhere, these are all solid bets with the exception of one: “One Kind of Love.” The song, which is apparently not the first musical cue during the closing credits, was ruled ineligible by the Academy’s music branch. That pretty much stops its momentum and leaves us with a list of five. The major issue I have is the Academy not wanting to give any recognition to Fifty Shades of Grey. If that’s the case, and which is what I’m currently predicting, then I think the only other song to earn any major recognition and that could conceivably make the cut is “Feels Like Summer” from Shaun the Sheep Movie. This branch has recognized songs from animated films multiple times in the past, so it’s entirely likely it could beat out any one of these submissions. I am just leaning towards “Love Me Like You Do” as the most vulnerable.

Best Original Score

There’s no telling with the music branch where they’ll go and with no guild awards to provide guidance, we’ll have to go this one alone. After several films were declared ineligible, it seems Ennio Morricone may be headed towards a competitive Oscar with his original score for The Hateful Eight. If he isn’t nominated, there will be a lot of shocked people out there.

As for the remaining four slots? I’ve picked out two usual suspects, a long overdue competitor and a relative newcomer making a return. John Williams’ return to his iconic work for Star Wars will likely merit inclusion. He’s gotten nominated for much lesser works, so it seems a safe bet. Likewise, Michael Giacchino has almost become a staple of this category in recent years and with Inside Out a contender for a Best Picture nomination, I believe he’ll make another go in this category where he’s won previously for a Pixar effort (Up).

Well respected composer Carter Burwell hasn’t had much favor with the Academy, but the level of enthusiasm and affection for his Carol composition could allow the Best Picture winner to pull him along for a nomination. He may be new, but Johann Johannsson has a shot at another nomination this year after his The Theory of Everything work was a major player last year. Being a part of the Sicario Best Picture campaign may help him out.

Other potential nominees include the late James Horner with several scores in competition; Thomas Newman for Bridge of Spies; Alexandre Desplat for a handful of pics; and Howard Shore for Spotlight. Any one of these or possibly an unexpected inclusion could make the Original Score slate one of the morning’s most surprise-heavy.

Best Adapted Screenplay

The most difficult part about predicting this category is that the Writers Guild of America (WGA) has rules unlike any others in the industry. Unless your production is a guild signatory, you’re ineligible. Among this year’s WGA-missing screenplays are Room, The Danish Girl, Anomalisa, Brooklyn, 45 Years and Me and Earl and the Dying Girl.

Right there, you have two major Best Picture contenders out of the race. What remains are Carol, The Big Short, The Martian and Steve Jobs along with Beasts of No Nation and Black Mass. While both Mad Max: Fury Road and The Revenant are eligible, I doubt they’ll be nominated since they aren’t generally considered screenplay-driven.

Based on the precursors, you can probably ink in Carol and The Big Short. Also, you can ignore the WGA and add Room to the list. The remaining two films, though, might be harder to predict. The Martian, Steve Jobs, Brooklyn and Anomalisa are all contenders. I give the edge to The Martian and Steve Jobs, but the latter has been struggling through precursor season and could be dumped for one of the others. There’s also the possibility that something no one is expecting could come out of nowhere for a nomination.

The place we will more likely find our clues is with the USC Scripter awards. Unlike the WGA’s strict requirements, USC Libraries have no requirements and thus are one of the better precursors out there in terms of predictive quality, frequently citing those the WGA won’t. While they aren’t infallible, they’ll be one of the guides we use to determine where this category goes.

Best Original Screenplay

While USC Scripter can help with the Adapted Screenplay category, there’s zero help for the originals. The WGA’s list of ineligible productions this year include The Hateful Eight, Inside Out, Clouds of Sils Maria, Son of Saul, Suffragette, Youth and Ex Machina. Two Best Picture contenders, a likely Best Foreign Language Film, and a genre script could all make inroads with the Academy in spite of missing out with the WGA.

Spotlight, Bridge of Spies, Joy, Mistress America and Sicario are the most likely beneficiaries of WGA consideration. The first two of which are sure to be Oscar nominees. Add in Hateful Eight, Inside Out, and Ex Machina or Son of Saul and you’ll probably have your five nominees. Barring any surprises.

Best Supporting Actress

The earlier and earlier the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) announces, the less and less impacting they become. This year, their nominees in this category were Kate Winslet (Steve Jobs), Alicia Vikander (The Danish Girl), Helen Mirren (Trumbo), Rachel McAdams (Spotlight) and Rooney Mara (Carol). The top nominees and winners that weren’t selected include Jennifer Jason Leigh for the unseen (by them) The Hateful Eight, late-breaking Vikander in Ex Machina, Kristen Stewart in Clouds of Sils Maria, Elizabeth Banks in Love & Mercy, and Cynthia Nixon for James White, a film I’m not sure any of them saw before voting.

What had happened had they announced later? Jennifer Jason Leigh would have assuredly replaced one of them and Vikander’s nomination may have been for Ex Machina rather than The Danish Girl. Most think that Mara may be the weak link here, not because she wouldn’t have strong support as a nominee towards a victory, but because she may be contending for a Best Actress nomination.

Ultimately, I left McAdams off the list because her lightweight role in the film doesn’t seem like the kind that Oscar voters typically champion. If Spotlight is a huge nomination leader, she could be swept along, but I’m leaning towards Mara sticking in Best Supporting Actress.

The Academy’s preferential balloting is weird enough as it is, but how they determine lead or supporting placement is a cause for some confusion. They tabulation both categories simultaneously and the first one in which the actor is nominated becomes their placement even if they have enough votes for both. The reason I think Supporting Actress may be where she ends up is that in this year’s Best Actress race, there is very stiff competition and I don’t know if she can make it in above everyone on the list. Supporting Actress is much weaker and, as a result, I think there will be enough to buy the category fraud and list her here simply so they can get both leads in Carol nominated.

Best Supporting Actor

In Best Supporting Actor, SAG voters nominated Mark Rylance (Bridge of Spies), Michael Shannon (99 Homes), Idris Elba (Beasts of No Nation), Jacob Tremblay (Room) and Christian Bale (The Big Short). It’s surprising that they got to see Big Short since screeners didn’t go out until late and screenings weren’t that common beforehand.

Meanwhile, Oscar contenders (and top nominees and winners so far this precursor season) include: Tom Hardy in The Revenant (not screened in time), Sylvester Stallone for Creed (Globe voters mentioned him, but he had a better shot with SAG), Paul Dano in Love & Mercy, Benicio Del Toro for Sicario, Spotlight‘s Mark Ruffalo and Michael Keaton, and Oscar Isaac in Ex Machina.

Hardy could have used the boost here, since he’s been shut out of Best Actor so far this year. He’s been picking up steam, but will it be enough? Shannon’s selection initially seemed out of the blue, but as more precursors started citing him, it became rather obvious he was a major player. Rylance seems like a safe bet as well. The Big Short is emerging as this year’s unexpected, late-breaking major player, which means Oscar winner and frequently nominated Bale should be able to take a slot.

Spotlight may have initially faded from acting consideration, but Ruffalo’s two prior nominations suggest he has some support within the Academy, making him the person I think most likely to earn the film’s sole acting nomination. I never would have predicted Shannon before, but he seems like a fairly strong competitor. Along with Rylance and Bale, I am leaning towards Sylvester Stallone. The Academy loves comeback stories. Not enough to reward them (see Michael Keaton last year and Mickey Rourke in 2008), but a nomination wouldn’t be shocking. Elba’s greatest issue is that Netflix is an upstart and many in the industry may not like them having a place at the table since they love the day-and-date release windows.

Dano’s a longshot since his support lately has been coming in lead; Hardy will need The Revenant to perform a lot better than it has so far; Tremblay may benefit from a trend towards putting him in lead rather than support, but the Mara Rule may also result in his placement in the lower category; Del Toro doesn’t seem to be building much steam and neither is his film; and Keaton could make this a two-fer for Spotlight, even though he hasn’t had much traction so far this season.

Best Actor

After several years of stiff competition, the Best Actor race seems to be rather lethargic this year with several prominent contenders failing to gain ground so far. SAG nominated Leonardo DiCaprio (another one of those weird “have they actually seen it” moments for The Revenant), Michael Fassbender (Steve Jobs), Eddie Redmayne (The Danish Girl), Bryan Cranston (Trumbo) and Johnny Depp (Black Mass).

Where Bryan Cranston came from, no one will ever know, but he went from non-player to major competitor in a very short span, starting with his SAG nomination, which has been replicated several times since. I still believe his support is soft, but apart from Depp, everyone else is much stronger. Matt Damon was thought to be a major nomination contender, but failed to show up with the one group that was sure to have seen his film. He may have been saved by the Globe nomination, but as a comedy nomination, it doesn’t have much weight.

Apart from a late-breaking push for Tremblay or Dano in lead, these seem like the six actors most likely to get nominated. Ultimately, I included Matt Damon at the expense of Johnny Depp. Damon’s film is in the hunt for a Best Picture nomination among many others where as Depp is looking at being either his film’s sole nominee or one of only two (the other in Best Makeup & Hairstyling). I might consider Depp’s chameleon portrayal for a nomination over Cranston if it didn’t seem like Cranston’s support were stronger.

Best Actress

To know just how tight a race Best Actress is, there are only eight names with any traction and only five of them will be nominated. SAG selected three of them: Saoirse Ronan (Brooklyn), Cate Blanchett (Carol) and Brie Larson (Room). These also happen to be the only actresses guaranteed berths on the nomination slate.

Sarah Silverman in I Smile Back and Helen Mirren in Woman in Gold are the other two SAG nominees and neither of them has much of a chance at a nomination and aren’t included in the list of eight.

The remaining four competitors are Charlize Theron in Mad Max: Fury Road, Jennifer Lawrence in Joy, Charlotte Rampling in 45 Years, Rooney Mara in Carol and Alicia Vikander in The Danish Girl. Each of these actors have their weaknesses.

Theron’s appearance in a genre picture may hamper her chances simply because not enough voters are likely to take her seriously for it. Long gone are the days of women like Sigourney Weaver and Kathy Bates picking up those kinds of nods. Lawrence’s film tanked with critics, but residual love and an Oscar win in her past may give her a boost. Rampling isn’t a Hollywood insider even if she is fairly recognizable and her film isn’t much of a contender outside of her performance.

Mara and Vikander have category fraud working against them with studio publicity pushing them in support when, for all intents and purposes, they are co-leads in their films. What keeps them out of this category and possibly placed in support I mentioned when discussing Mara in Supporting Actress: the timing of when they receive the nomination.

Rampling’s steam built at just the right time, thus I give her an advantage for the fourth slot. I originally had Mara down for the fifth, but I believe Lawrence may have just enough appreciation for carrying her turgid film to carry out the fifth-slot victory while Mara makes her showing in Best Supporting Actress where she definitely does not belong.

Best Director

Heed the Directors Guild of America (DGA). It is one of the most astute and highly predictive guilds in history. Not only do its nominees typically carry over four or five out of five times, to win a Best Director (or even Best Picture) Oscar without a DGA nomination is nigh impossible. They are the most important group for determining what films have support for Best Director and Best Picture, so every prediction is likely to change if the DGA throws us a curve ball.

Only five directors have utterly dominated the precursors and their nominations. George Miller (Mad Max: Fury Road), Tom McCarthy (Spotlight), Alejandro G. Inarritu (The Revenant), Todd Haynes (Carol) and Ridley Scott (The Martian) have received ten or more nominations each. The nearest competitors, with three each, are Adam McKay (The Big Short), John Crowley (Brooklyn), Lenny Abrahamson (Room) and Denis Villeneuve (Sicario).

As for precursor wins? Only the first five have gotten any awards with Miller crushing the competition with 14 prizes to Todd Haynes and Tom McCarthy’s three each. It would be hard to argue with any of these five people being left off, but the DGA does strange things, especially for late-breaking films like The Big Short. However, McKay is a comedy director and they haven’t gotten their due much in recent years. Crowley’s a journeyman and Abrahamson’s a hot young director while Villeneuve has a string of critical hits behind him.

Ultimately, my predictions match the leaderboard, so we’ll stick with that.

Best Animated Feature

The only “guild” to represent animators is ASIFA-Hollywood, The International Animated Film Society. Their rather entertaining annual kudosfest is streamed on the web and, if you’ve never seen it before, you should. For a few years, the Annie Awards were dominated by DreamWorks. In recent years, things have normalized and they’ve been a potent barometer for Oscar contenders.

This year things might be a little different thanks to a change in their rules which split out indie animated films from their Big Boy counterparts. This will certainly help them with exposure from a win, but it makes predicting Best Animated Feature a touch more difficult.

If you don’t count the smaller films that could be competing for a nomination this year, there are only five films that have been appearing in almost every Best Animated Feature list so far: Anomalisa, The Good Dinosaur, Inside Out, The Peanuts Movie and Shaun the Sheep Movie. If you didn’t know who the major producers of animated Oscar nominees were, you might be inclined to go with just such a list.

However, there is one distributor that you need to pay attention to: GKids. Responsible for several major nomination upsets in the last decade, GKids has handily leveraged their niche appreciation into a quietly effective Oscar campaign. This year, they have three major contenders for pulling an upset: Boy and the World, Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet and When Marnie Was There.

Apart form Hayao Miyazaki, Studio Ghibli’s output has languished with the Academy. I could see them going for this film, but I think that Boy and the World is unique enough to appeal to the Academy’s animation voters and The Prophet employs several different animation styles that could pique their curiosity as well. Could they pull off two or three “shock” nominations? Possibly, but the only one of the five major players that seems weak is The Good Dinosaur.

Earning several weak reviews, Good Dinosaur isn’t up to the typical quality of Pixar. Pixar also has Inside Out as the likely Oscar winner, so will voters decide the Disney/Pixar cup runneth over and give it to someone else? I think that’s a distinct possibility. I also think there are two other films that might not have as safe a spot as some might think.

The Peanuts Movie, like The Simpsons Movie is adapted from another medium and while several Oscar contenders have been based on books, none have been based on comic strips and TV shows. What hindered Simpsons may also hurt Peanuts and that’s the perception that it’s little more than a big screen adaptation of a small screen product. The only thing that flies in the face of that argument is the fact that the animation styles between the Peanuts classics of yesteryear are entirely different from one another.

The one I think most people would be shocked to see omitted, but historically has the toughest time with this branch is a film like Anomalisa. While there have been a few indie adult-targeted animated films in the Best Animated Feature category in the past, all of them have been pushed by GKids. The Animation Branch has a tendency to recognize kid-friendly features in this category and that could hurt a film like Anomalisa. When an acclaimed director like Richard Linklater can’t parlay critical acclaim into a Best Animated Feature nomination, it becomes clear that Anomalisa has a huge liability here.

The animators also have a problem with live-action directors muscling in on their territory. While Linklater is a minor example of this, Steven Spielberg can tell you from experience that they are reticent to embrace outside talent. That said, Anomalisa may have enough acclaim to propel it to a nomination, and I’m currently predicting it for one; however, don’t underestimate GKids and don’t place too much money on Anomalisa. The only reason it will have a shot with this group is that it’s stop-motion animation and not motion capture like the Linklater and Spielberg films.

Best Picture

How do you make Best Picture predictions when the rules are so strange that even the smartest folks struggle to wrap their heads around it? You look to the past and look to the precursors. While The Producers Guild of America (PGA) is a frequently accurate predictor, they often go for big titles that have no hope with the Academy like Star Trek and Harry Potter among others. So, how do you separate the wheat from the chaff? Very carefully.

There are eleven films that have so handily dominated the precursor races that they seem like the most likely nominees. Could something else come from behind and insert itself into the race? Possibly, but films like Anomalisa, Ex Machina, Trumbo, The Danish Girl, Steve Jobs, The Hateful Eight, Joy and Star Wars: The Force Awakens just have too many liabilities to make much of a play. That doesn’t mean that they won’t, but they need the support of the DGA, PGA and many other guilds to build momentum to take down the top eleven.

What are those films? They are, in descending order of most nominated so far this season: Spotlight, Mad Max: Fury Road, Carol, The Martian, Room, The Revenant, The Big Short, Brooklyn, Inside Out, Sicario and Bridge of Spies. At least one of these, possibly as many as six, will be left off the Best Picture slate and knowing which one or ones it will be is the challenge all prognosticators struggle with.

Here’s how I rank their chances:
Incredibly Likely / Near Locks: Spotlight, The Revenant, Carol
Probable with Reservations: Bridge of Spies, Brooklyn, The Martian, Room, Inside Out, Mad Max: Fury Road and The Big Short.
Odd Man Out: Sicario

I put Sicario on the outside because, of the eleven, it has one of the lowest nomination tallies and has no credible claim to being a major player and never did.

While my order on these is likely to change with The Big Short moving up and Bridge of Spies moving down, the question we’ll all ask ourselves is which of the remaining ten is going to be left out if there are fewer than ten Best Picture nominees?

The Academy’s balloting method is confusing and I’m planning to write an article later explaining how it works, but for now, based on the methodology, a film with strong support from 5% of the membership could earn a film a nomination, but if it isn’t supported as a First Place finisher, its chances diminish dramatically.

For the seven I have listed with reservations, here’s what I think of their chances: Bridge of Spies has that old school style to it that has pushed it into the background for much of the season. While it has been picking up plenty of mentions, the lack of Globe nomination may be more harmful than many expect. For Brooklyn, I’m leaning towards it being on the final list simply because it tells an old story quite well and has a nostalgia element that will surely appeal to older voters who aren’t going to support movies like Revenant, Carol, Mad Max, Inside Out, The Martian or Big Short.

The Martian has the benefit of a Best Director nomination frontrunner in Ridley Scott, otherwise it would seem unlikely that too many major box office players will show up in the race with Mad Max and Inside Out being plenty popular. Room is the only major indie competitor left in the race and that fact alone should help carry it to a nomination. Inside Out carries on the tradition of Up and Toy Story 3, parlaying its strong support among critics into strong talk for a Best Picture nomination. The originality of it could help it along even if the nostalgia factor is a bit less prominent than those other two films.

Mad Max: Fury Road would be the most unusual selection the Academy has ever made. It’s so far out of their typical recognition comfort zone that it almost seems like its inclusion is tangential. Make no mistake though, for a genre picture, it has been more prominent rewarded by critics groups than any since The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

The Big Short is emerging as a major player in spite of being almost nowhere to be seen in predictions prior to precursor season. The film is a comedy about the financial crises that created the Great Recession. It’s been playing incredibly well, but will a film by the guy who made Anchorman, Step Brothers, Talladega Nights, The Other Guys and Anchorman 2 suddenly become an Oscar nominee. Stranger things have happened, but those prior films make me wonder if it’s going to have enough first-place votes to secure a nomination.

For now, though, pay attention to the guild precursors and I’ll see you back here in a couple of weeks for my annual Oscar Morning article where I’ll go through most of these same points again, but with the added benefit of seeing what the guilds do. Until then, come back often to see what my prediction changes look like, because there will definitely be some.