Oscar predictions

In theaters Friday: Dark Skies, Snitch
New on Blu-ray: Anna Karenina, Argo

Predicting Oscar winners often gets compared to picking ponies, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Deciding the highest quality movies and movie performances year after year will always be more subjective than who can cross the finish line fastest. And subjectivity, by definition, is incredibly difficult to forecast. Besides, the collective mind of the Academy is a complete labyrinth. Shakespeare in Love won Best Picture, am I right?

And still, here we are, less than a week away from the ceremony (televised live Feb. 24 at 6 p.m. CST on ABC), and despite the fool’s errand it may be, I, like a lot of movie fans, feel compelled to make and defend our predictions. This list isn’t about who I think should win, but who I believe will win.

My picks are in bold. So, who do you think will walk away with statues this Sunday? Let the debate begin.

Alan Arkin (Argo)
Robert De Niro (Silver Linings Playbook)
Philip Seymour Hoffman (The Master)
Tommy Lee Jones (Lincoln)
Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained)

Hoffman played Hoffman, and Arkin played Arkin. They both did them well, but still. De Niro is due, and his role opposite Bradley Cooper is memorable, even among a crowded frame filled with great performances.

Amy Adams (The Master)
Sally Field (Lincoln)
Anne Hathaway (Les Miserables)
Helen Hunt (The Sessions)
Jackie Weaver (Silver Linings Playbook)

Fantine was the role Hathaway was born to play. Girl can sing and emote like few others—and looks terrible with a pixie cut. Adams was powerful in her understated role, but the rest of this bunch doesn’t deserve to be in the same category. I’m looking at you Helen Hunt.

Bradley Cooper (Silver Linings Playbook)
Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln)
Hugh Jackman (Les Miserables)
Joaquin Phoenix (The Master)
Denzel Washington (Flight)

If I was an A-list actor and found out a Daniel Day-Lewis movie was coming out the same year as my own Oscar-bait role, I’d probably break the Guinness Book record for consecutive facepalms. No way Bradley Cooper pulls off this upset. And I love some Bradley Cooper.

Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty)
Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook)
Emanuelle Riva (Amour)
Quvenzhane Wallis (Beasts of the Southern Wild)
Naomi Watts (The Impossible)

While I desperately want to see little Quvenzhane Wallis deliver what would amount to the cutest and most memorable acceptance speech in the history of ever, Chastain delivers an obsessively powerful performance and is proving to be her generations Meryl Streep, who knows a thing or two about taking home the gold.

Amour (Michael Haneke)
Beasts of the Southern Wild (Benh Zeitlin)
Life of Pi (Ang Lee)
Lincoln (Steven Spielberg)
Silver Linings Playbook (David O. Russell)

Without Ben Affleck in the field—he’s won just about every other award for his turn behind the camera for Argo—it will be a case of the rising tide lifting all ships, and Day-Lewis’ extreme makeover as “Honest Abe” will boost Spielberg to his first directing Oscar since Saving Private Ryan in 1999.

Amour
Argo
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Django Unchained
Les Miserables
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty

The Academy likes star-power and history, and shies away from too much controversy or kitsch. That pretty much cancels out Lincoln‘s biggest real competitors (Django Unchained and Zero Dark Thirty). In other years, Les Mis might have been a stronger contender, but with Spielberg, Day-Lewis and likely screenplay winner Tony Kushner, Lincoln is as close to a lock as anyone will get this year.