Now that the vast majority of critics groups have announced their nominees and before all but the Screen Actors Guild announce theirs, we thought it would be a good time to update our Oscar Predictions. The nominations for the Academy Awards will be announced next Thursday, so we’ll post our final predictions in ALL categories a week from today. There were quite a few changes and a lot of solidification in our predictions, though there are a lot of incomplete races still being played out and we don’t know which way they will ultimately turn and our suppositions are quite varied. And since it’s been over a month since our last update, there will be a lot of changes.

This also marks our first full assessment of the strengths of various potential Best Picture nominees. Since there can be anywhere from 5 to 10 nominees, we ranked our choices before tabulating the points. 10 points went to the films we thought most likely to get nominated and 1 point went to the film we thought least likely to get nominated, leaving a range of points from 1 to 30 as we tabulated our points together. The films in Best Picture are ranked in descending order based on those points, not in alphabetical order. Our individual rankings are displayed in numbers next to the prediction date for each entry. As you can see, a majority of our predictions are unified, but a few outliers still exist in the results. Best Picture is the only category we rank, so other categories are presented in alphabetical order.

KEY:

Best Picture

• (29) Lincoln (10 O) (9 N) (10 O)
• (25) Zero Dark Thirty (9 O) (8 O) (8 N)
• (24) Argo (8 T) (7 O) (9 O)
• (23) Les Miserables (7 O) (10 O) (6 O)
• (14) Life of Pi (2 N) (5 A) (7 N)
• (14) Silver Linings Playbook (6 O) (3 T) (5 T)
• (12) The Master (4 O) (4 ) (4 O)
• (8) Amour (1 J) [New] (6 O) (1 J) [New]
• (8) Moonrise Kingdom (5 N) (3 J) [New]
• (5) Django Unchained (3 J) [New] (2 N)
• (2) The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2 J) [New]
• (1) The Sessions (1 J) [New]

Best Animated Feature

• Brave (N) (N) (N)
• Frankenweenie (J) [New] (N) (N)
• ParaNorman (N) (J) [New] (N)
• Rise of the Guardians (N)
• Wreck-It Ralph (N) (N) (N)
• Zarafa (N)
• The Rabbi’s Cat (J) [New]

Best Director

• Ben Affleck – Argo (N) (T) (O)
• Kathryn Bigelow – Zero Dark Thirty (O) (J) [New] (N)
• Michael Haneke – Amour (J) [New]
• Tom Hooper – Les Miserables (O) (T)
• Ang Lee – Life of Pi (J) [New]
• David O. Russell – Silver Linings Playbook (O)
• Steven Spielberg – Lincoln (O) (N) (O)

Best Actor

• Bradley Cooper – Silver Linings Playbook (O) (J) [New]
• Daniel Day-Lewis – Lincoln (O) (N) (O)
• John Hawkes – The Sessions (O) (O)
• Hugh Jackman – Les Miserables (O) (O) (O)
• Joaquin Phoenix – The Master (J) [New] (J) [New]
• Jean-Louis Trintignant – Amour (T)
• Denzel Washington – Flight (N) (N)

Best Actress

• Jessica Chastain – Zero Dark Thirty (J) [New] (N) (N)
• Marion Cotillard – Rust and Bone (T) (N)
• Judi Dench – The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (J) [New]
• Jennifer Lawrence – Silver Linings Playbook (O) (T) (T)
• Helen Mirren – Hitchcock (N) (T) (J) [New]
• Emmanuelle Riva – Amour (T)
• Naomi Watts – The Impossible (J) [New] (N)

Best Supporting Actor

• Alan Arkin – Argo (J) [New] (T) (T)
• Robert De Niro – Silver Linings Playbook (O) (T) (T)
• Leonardo DiCaprio – Django Unchained (J) [New]
• Philip Seymour Hoffman – The Master (T) (T) (T)
• Tommy Lee Jones – Lincoln (N) (N) (N)
• Eddie Redmayne- Les Miserables (J) [New]
• Christoph Waltz – Django Unchained (J) [New]

Best Supporting Actress

• Amy Adams – The Master (J) [New]
• Samantha Barks – Les Miserables (J) [New]
• Ann Dowd – Compliance (J) [New]
• Sally Field – Lincoln (O) (N) (O)
• Anne Hathaway – Les Miserables (T) (T) (O)
• Helen Hunt – The Sessions (T) (T) (T)
• Nicole Kidman – The Paperboy (J) [New]
• Maggie Smith – The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (A) (J) [New]

Best Original Screenplay

• Amour (N) (N) (N)
• Django Unchained (J) [New] (J) [New]
• The Master (N) (N) (N)
• Middle of Nowhere (J) [New]
• Moonrise Kingdom (N) (N) (N)
• Zero Dark Thirty (N) (N) (N)

Best Adapted Screenplay

• Argo (N) (N) (N)
• Beasts of the Southern Wild (N) (N)
• Lincoln (N) (N) (N)
• The Perks of Being a Wallflower (J) [New] (J) [New]
• The Sessions (N) (N)
• Silver Linings Playbook (N) (N) (N)