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We've taken a look at the films the Academy of Motion Picture Arts is likely to hand an Oscar to on Monday (AEDT) and those that don't deserve to miss out.
Here are some of film critic Jason Di Rosso's predictions.
Best Picture
Will win: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
If there was ever a film that could excite middle brow political minds of the Academy voters by convincing them they were voting for something radical and edgy, it's British director Martin McDonagh's very angry, confused and artfully grotesque film about a mother's quest to find her daughter's killer.
Forget the fact that for all Frances McDormand beats her magnificent head against the brick wall of small town misogyny, racism and ineptitude, it takes a white man's letter from the grave to trigger the film's major turning point.
Forget that an open ending masquerading as ambiguity is actually proof that the female protagonist has no real agency in the film.
What the Academy will see is a southern drama bristling with a contempt and outrage that feels very "now" and resonates with the widespread, justifiable anger of the #MeToo and #timesup movements.
Should win: Get Out
This isn't the most technically proficient or stunning film (that's probably Dunkirk or Phantom Thread), but its inventive mix of horror movie, slapstick comedy and satire makes it one of the high points of the past year.
Thrilling, funny and provocative, its politics are more sophisticated than Three Billboards and The Shape of Water combined.
It also helps articulate something many have found hard to explain since Trump won: why Hillary lost.
Remember, the villains in the film are a bunch of white east coast Obama voters, whose allegiances in the last election would not have been in doubt.
And yet they are villains because their veneer of progressive politics and hospitality hides a deep cynicism that knows no bounds.
For many Americans, rightly or wrongly, Hillary Clinton and her husband have become similarly problematic figures.
While Hollywood usually likes calling out the bigotry and narrowmindedness on the right, Get Out is unique — and brilliant — for its timely, over-the-top metaphor of corruption and hypocrisy on the other side.
Best Director
Will win: Guillermo del Toro (Shape of Water)
The Mexican director is one of the most technically brilliant in the field, and many voters are no doubt in awe of the mastery in his underwater scenes, many of which were shot without a drop of water.
Academy voters have shown a soft spot for this gothic romance between a mute woman (Sally Hawkins) and a "fishman", nominating it in 13 categories — more than any other film.
Meanwhile, its portrayal of government conspiracies, larger-than-life toxic masculinity and unexpected heroes who hail from the margins seems to strike a chord.
Noble intentions aside, it's heavy handed and simplistic, but I don't think the Academy will resist awarding it one of the big gongs.
Should win: Paul Thomas Anderson (Phantom Thread)
Anderson's sophisticated direction on Phantom Thread takes the apparently genteel premise of a romance between a 1950s couturier (Daniel Day Lewis) and a mysterious war refugee (Vicky Krieps) and turns it into a blood sport.
This film is a spectacular achievement of directing for the way Anderson works through several dimensions — psychological horror, period picture, artist biopic, romance — and never misses a beat.
Even when the tables turn and the gender imbalance flips in the second half thanks to an audacious plot development that pushes the limits of belief, his expert handling of tone, aided by fine grain performances and an evocative, swirling score by Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood, is a thing of wonder.
Best Actor
Will win: Gary Oldman (Darkest Hour)
OK, maybe it's the Japanese prosthetics master Kazuhiro Tsuji (who Oldman lured out of retirement) who deserves much of the credit (and he'll no doubt win an award too), but without Oldman's performance, the layers of padding and plastic would be lifeless artifice.
Oldman gets Churchill.
The stoop, the cigar, the slightly guttural speech and Churchill's mercurial gravitas and playfulness.
He takes an otherwise conventional biopic into richly evocative places and there will be few who complain if he wins.
Should win: Gary Oldman (Darkest Hour)
I can't go past Oldman for this one.
His main competition is Day Lewis for Phantom Thread, which is a sublime performance, and perhaps a better one. But Day Lewis has won it three times before and Oldman never has.
Daniel Kaluuya is an outside chance for Get Out, a performance that required a nuanced handling of creeping dread and paranoia, but I think it's Oldman's.
Best Actress
Will win: Francis McDormand (Three Billboards)
As much as I don't like the film, McDormand is a force of nature that can't be ignored in Three Billboards.
The script undermines much of what her character stands for in a way that's frustrating more than it is thought provoking, but that's by the by.
McDormand's character is a strong, determined, blue-collar underdog with a viciously articulate way of putting her case.
But as a mother grieving her murdered daughter, she's also a deeply sad figure and at times vulnerable.
McDormand's depiction of a woman unable to escape from the abusive men in her life — despite her undeniable strength — is poignant and many shades of luminous grey.
Should win …
To be fair, everyone in this category is great: Sally Hawkins in The Shape of Water; Margot Robbie in I, Tonya; Saoirse Ronan in Lady Bird and Meryl Streep in The Post.
Ronan is perhaps the main outside chance for her role as a rebellious, sensitive teen in Greta Gerwig's low-key, perfectly pitched directorial debut.
But McDormand looks like picking up her second statue after Fargo in 1997.
Best supporting actor
Will win: Sam Rockwell (Three Billboards)
Rockwell, like his co-star McDormand, at least seems to have all the buzz and has won key lead-up awards at the Golden Globes and SAGs.
His portrayal of a violent, corrupt redneck cop in Three Billboards is grotesque without being particularly cartoonish.
And although his character's bizarre redemptive arc is one of the clumsiest parts of the film, I think he is so integral to how the story works, if he doesn't win, it might reflect that the Academy voters don't buy a central element of the film.
Should win: Christopher Plummer (All the Money in the World)
Called in at the last minute to replace a disgraced Kevin Spacey on what proved to be a middling Ridley Scott thriller, 88-year-old Plummer parachuted in to a film that was 90 per cent finished and stole every scene he's in.
Playing the arrogant, self-centred and spiteful oil magnate John Paul Getty, who famously refused to pay a ransom for his kidnapped grandson, Plummer performs his villain with effortless nuance — a dignified gentleman whose eyes show flashes of inner malevolence and greed.
Best supporting actress
Will win: Laurie Metcalf
Metcalf is best known for her role on Roseanne, but she's also regarded by her fellow actors as a highly skilled stage actress.
In a film as delicate as Lady Bird, where the tender but often fractious relationship between mother and daughter is the central focus, Metcalf is a multifaceted and essential foil for Ronan's eccentric teen.
It would be very fitting to see this beautiful, small-scale drama by actor-turned-director Gerwig win a major award, especially for a performance that's at least as good a depiction of blue-collar heroism as McDormand's.
Should win …
While I have no issues with Metcalf winning, my second choice would have to be Leslie Manville as the prim but tough-as-nails sister to Day Lewis's protagonist in Phantom Thread.
Playing the business brain behind her brother's creative genius, Manville is deceptively mild mannered, but every now and again shows her teeth.
She has one of the best lines in the film, too, warning her brother quietly to back off during an argument with such sudden acidity her words could scrape paint.
The 90th Academy Awards ceremony starts at 12:00pm AEDT on Monday, March 5.
Topics: arts-and-entertainment, academy-awards-oscars, film-movies, united-states
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