Over the weekend, we have three guilds handing out awards. The Visual Effects Society announces its winners on tonight, the Directors Guild of America has their banquet Saturday night and the Screen Actors Guild awards ceremony will be shown live on TNT starting at 8pm ET, 7pm CT, 6pm MT & 5pm PT. I’ll be covering the SAG Awards and live tweeting as I have with the BFCA and Globe ceremonies. Wes was not able to contribute predictions prior to the deadline and Tripp did not submit runner-up predictions. (Update 4:06p CT: Added Wes’ predictions)

But, to prepare you for the weekend’s precursors, we’re here to provide our predictions. In most cases, we list runners-up, but not everyone has chosen one. In addition, those of us who have provided commentary will have it included as well below. We’ll start things off in order in alphabetical order:

Directors Guild of America (DGA)

David Fincher (Wesley, Peter, Tripp, Wes)

Wesley Lovell: With such a long career, it would be shocking if David Fincher didn’t win this prize. However, if anyone else does pull off a victory, The Social Network’s Oscar chances go down the drain. This and SAG are the film’s last two chances to make any kind of remergence into the race and if it loses both, it’s gone.

Screen Actors Guild (SAG)

Ensemble:

The Fighter (Wesley:RU; Peter:RU, Tripp)
The King’s Speech (Wesley)
The Social Network (Peter, Wes)

Wesley Lovell: The biggest cast is usually elected the winner and since The King’s Speech has a larger cast and is a Best Picture contender to boot, I predict it to pick up this award easily. But watch out for the talented ensemble of The Fighter who I think could come in second. If Social Network manages to pick up this award, you can bet any doubt of it being the eventual Best Picture winner will be laid to rest.

Actor:

Colin Firth – The King’s Speech (Wesley, Peter, Tripp, Wes)
James Franco – 127 Hours (Wesley:RU, Peter:RU)

Wesley Lovell: I don’t think many of us see this as anyone else’s race. Firth has a long career and with a performance like this, triumphing over adversity, past SAG winner Robert Duvall could pose the only threat, but they do love to spread the love.

Actress:

Annette Bening – The Kids Are all Right (Wesley:RU, Peter:RU, Tripp)
Natalie Portman – Black Swan (Wesley, Peter, Wes)

Wesley Lovell: The most important race of the night. This will tell us who goes into the Oscars with the best chance at victory. With only her first nomination at SAG, Natalie Portman has to be considered the leader in the race. Annette Bening is her chief rival and she has a trophy for 1999’s American Beauty. If SAG doesn’t share the wealth and gives Bening a second prize, then she may well catapult ahead of Portman. However, if Portman wins, the dialogue will be set in her favor.

Supporting Actor:

Christian Bale – The Fighter (Wesley, Peter, Tripp, Wes)
Mark Ruffalo – The Kids Are All Right (Peter:RU)
Geoffrey Rush – The King’s Speech (Wesley:RU)

Wesley Lovell: Geoffrey Rush should be considered Christian Bale’s only competition, but he has a SAG award. Bale does not. And with a performance like this and the most visible profile of all the nominees, he should win in a cake walk.

Supporting Actress:

Amy Adams – The Fighter (Peter:RU)
Melissa Leo – The Fighter (Wesley:RU, Peter, Tripp, Wes)
Hailee Steinfeld – True Grit (Wesley)

Wesley Lovell: This category will tell us who may win the Oscar. If Melissa Leo takes the prize, then she gets a big boost. If Hailee Steinfeld wins, she gets a big boost. If anyone else wins, they get a minor boost, but not likely enough to carry them through to Oscar. We don’t have a lot of precedent with SAG for younger performers. Abigail Breslin and Keisha Castle-Hughes are the only Supporting Actress nominees that managed to earn Oscar nominations (Castle-Hughes in lead at the Oscars), but neither were expected to compete. Of course, a young actress has never won, but the earliest race that might have proven as an indication was the 1993 race with Anna Paquin taking the prize. SAG did not give out prizes until the next year. So, this will be an interesting case study.

Visual Effects Society (VES)

Visual Effects/Visual Effects-Driven Picture

Alice in Wonderland (Peter:RU)
Inception (Wesley, Peter, Tripp, Wes)
TRON Legacy (Wesley:RU)

Supporting Visual Effects

Black Swan (Wesley, Peter)
Hereafter (Wesley:RU, Wes)
Salt (Peter:RU)

Animation/Animated Feature

How to Train Your Dragon (Wesley, Peter:RU)
Legend of the Guardians (Wesley:RU)
Toy Story (Peter, Wes)

Animated Short

Day & Night (Wesley)
Paths of Hate (Wesley:RU)

Animated Character/Live-Action

Dobby – Harry Potter (Wesley:RU)
Reepicheep – Chronicles of Narnia (Wesley, Wes)

Animated Character/Animated Feature

Rapunzel – Tangled (Wesley:RU)
Toothless – How to Train Your Dragon (Wesley, Wes)

Effects Animation/Animated Feature

How to Train Your Dragon (Wesley)
Toy Story 3 (Wesley:RU)

Created Environment/Live-Action

Inception – Paris Dreamscape (Wesley:RU, Wes)
TRON Legacy – Disc Game (Wesley)

Models/Miniatures

Inception – Hospital Fortress Destruction (Wesley, Wes)
Iron Man 2 – Hammer Military Drones (Wesley:RU)

Compositing

Hereafter – Tsunami Sequence (Wesley:RU)
Inception (Wesley, Wes)