(The annual “Will Win/Should Win” of the Awards Circuit has been our most popular yet most challenging series where each writer let’s their final thoughts be known on the Oscar categories.  Each writer will reveal their choices everyday leading up to the Oscar ceremony.  Think you can do better?  Let your final thoughts be known in the comment section or by joining our Oscar Pool. -CD)

Best Picture
Will Win: Can it be anything other than Argo at this point? When you win the BFCA, Globe, DGA, PGA, SAG, Scriptor and WGA Awards, it’s clear that industry really loves your movie.
Should Win: Lincoln ranks one spot higher than Argo on my top 10 films of the year and I would love to see it win on Oscar night. Spielberg teamed up with Tony Kushner to create a biopic that was tightly focused, expertly acted and just executed very well.
Should Have Been Nominated: A nomination for Cloud Atlas here would have sent me over the moon but given the support for Skyfall in the Tech categories, I’m amazed it didn’t make it in. Considering they changed the rules to allow for well regarded blockbusters to make it in, you would think the “best” Bond film in the series could have been nominated.

Best Director
Will Win: I really don’t even want to predict this category cause I haven’t the slightest clue who can win. Conventional wisdom would say the biggest name (Spielberg) should take this but Lincoln hasn’t won anything outside of DDL, TLJ at SAG, and Kushner at BFCA. The next in line would be the well respected Ang Lee but Life of Pi has just been floating in the waves. Haneke and Zeitlin both have well regarded films, but I don’t see either really claiming the Oscar. Clayton just wrote a brilliant article about the odds of David O. Russell winning and the more and more I think about this (and the SLP lovers) I can totally see him winning. Ugh this is terrible…but I think Russell takes the Oscar.
Should Win: I am going to shock everyone here and say Benh Zeitlin. I think of this group, his film is the most confidently directed and I can say without a doubt wouldn’t have existed without his superb vision. And those performances he managed to get out of his actors!
Should Have Been Nominated: How did Kathryn Bigelow NOT get in? I can totally see the Affleck snub from people who don’t feel like his direction was anything special, but Bigelow’s film is such an auteurist flick that I’m shocked they couldn’t include her.

Best Actor
Will Win: Daniel Day-Lewis. The End. Period. Next.
Should Win: There’s not a better performance in the nominated field than Joaquin Phoenix‘s bristling turn in The Master. It’s a master class in how to fully embody a character with eccentricities and foibles without going over board and totally deserves to be rewarded.
Should Have Been Nominated: Logan Lerman‘s performance in The Perks of Being a Wallflower is among the most impressive I’ve seen in a long time. He manages to straddle the cliches of being in a high school film and deliver a richly nuanced performance about a damaged soul.

Best Actress
Will Win: Jennifer Lawrence, but just barely. I just feel like this is basically her victory lap for being crowned the newest star in Hollywood. Everything that an Academy member could ask for a performer to do (she yells and cries! she’s damaged but still smoking hot! she chases after the leading man the entire time and even though that might annoy you and you want more for her character, it’s totally endearing!) is located in this performance.
Should Win: Jessica Chastain‘s high wire work in Zero Dark Thirty is the stuff awards should be given out for. She’s a concrete flower that peels slowly, only offering us mere glimpses into the psyche of such an intriguing woman. That final scene is a gem.
Should Have Been Nominated: I’ll never understand how Kiera Knightley wasn’t in bigger contention for Anna Karenina. We all know she excels in period dramas, but her turn as the doomed woman was one of the most mature performances of her career.

Best Supporting Actor
Will Win: This is the most difficult category to pick as any of the nominees could conceivably win: the Silver Linings Playbook “movement” has now become widespread and could easily carry De Niro to a win, Philip Seymour Hoffman is a default nominee at this point and should never be underestimated, Arkin in the Best Picture winner, Waltz is the only acting nominee from Django and TLJ is in the film with the most nominations. Which brings it to the amount of awards they’ve won, and no one has had more chances to make a great impression on the voters than Christoph Waltz with his Globe and BAFTA wins. I think he takes it in an upset.
Should Win: Tommy Lee Jones gets most of the funniest and righteous lines in Lincoln, especially his speech about equality under the law, but it’s the quieter moments that really make him stand out.
Should Have Been Nominated: Oh what the Academy could have had by nominating Matthew McConaughey for his brilliant work in Magic Mike.

Best Supporting Actress
Will Win: This is just going to be a rehash of the wonderful Supporting Actress Oscar Circuit I did two weeks ago, so I’ll keep it short. Anne Hathaway will take this in a walk.
Should Win: Helen Hunt gives a great naturalistic performance and manages to be the thing I remember most about The Sessions.
Should Have Been Nominated: There was no supporting performance that touched me more than Doona Bae in Cloud Atlas. She holds the screen effortlessly and conveys so much emotion with just her eyes. In terms of people who were in real competition, it would have been nice to see the Academy embrace the kind of out there performance Nicole Kidman gave in The Paperboy.

Best Original Screenplay
Will Win: Thank you WGA for not nominating Django and Amour therefore making this category difficult to predict. I think those 5 nominations spoke to how well regarded Amour is with the Academy however, and I think it takes this prize.
Should Win: Mark Boal’s dynamic, thought provoking screenplay for Zero Dark Thirty deserves this prize for attempting to bring first rate journalism to the screen.
Should Have Been Nominated: It would have been nice to see the writers celebrate the meta-commentary that was Martin McDonaugh’s script for Seven Psychopaths.

Best Adapted Screenplay
Will Win: Thanks to the WGA and Scriptor both going for Chris Terrio’s script for Argo, I see no reason to bet against it here, even with Silver Linings Playbook lurking around the corner.
Should Win: Tony Kushner’s script for Lincoln is not without it’s faults but it manages to reign in Speilberg’s schmaltzy tendencies and give every actor at least one good monologue.
Should Have Been Nominated: The fact that the Academy couldn’t ind it in their hearts to nominate The Perks of Being a Wallflower doesn’t diminish what a fine piece of screenwriting it is. Stephen Chbosky, adapting his own work, managed to make a period piece high school tale feel fresh and alive, fully deserving the accolades the film has received.

Best Animated Feature
Will Win: This category is like a house of horrors, and not just cause of the two nominees that are essentially horror films. The category is really going to come down to the heavyweights: Wreck -It Ralph and Brave. I personally couldn’t care less about either of those choices as Brave is simply coasting on the Pixar name and Wreck-It Ralph didn’t really make a good first impression. Ralph’s use of video game characters certainly raises questions about the originality of the material, but I believe that the voters will somehow see past the glitz of Pixar and reward it the win.
Should Win: ParaNorman is easily the most beautifully animated of the 5 nominees, while also being the most mature in its themes, dialogue and characters. It’s also the most critically honored animated film of the year which should count for something, right?
Should Have Been Nominated: Rise of the Guardians was doomed by its low box office but man is that 3D animation, especially the Sandman, something else.

And the rest…

Best Documentary:
Will Win: Searching For Sugar Man
Should Win: How to Survive a Plague
Should Have Been Nominated: The Central Park 5

Best Foreign Language Film:
Will Win: Amour
Should Win: No
Should Have Been Nominated: Holy Motors

Best Film Editing:
Will Win: Argo
Should Win: Zero Dark Thirty
Should Have Been Nominated: Cloud Atlas

Best Cinematography:
Will Win: Life of Pi
Should Win: Anna Karenina
Should Have Been Nominated: The Master

Best Original Score:
Will Win: Life of Pi
Should Win: Life of Pi
Should Have Been Nominated: Cloud Atlas

Best Sound Mixing:
Will Win: Les Miserables
Should Win: Skyfall
Should Have Been Nominated: Sinister

Best Sound Editing:
Will Win: Life of Pi
Should Win: Zero Dark Thirty
Should Have Been Nominated: Prometheus

Best Visual Effects:
Will Win: Life of Pi
Should Win: Life of Pi
Should Have Been Nominated: Looper

Best Production Design:
Will Win: Lincoln
Should Win: Anna Karenina
Should Have Been Nominated: The Impossible

Best Costume Design:
Will Win: Anna Karenina
Should Win: Snow White and the Huntsman
Should Have Been Nominated: Django Unchained

Best Original Song:
Will Win: “Skyfall”
Should Win: “Skyfall”
Should Have Been Nominated: “Breath of Life” (Snow White and the Huntsman)

Best Hairstyling and Makeup:
Will Win: Les Miserables
Should Win: Les Miserables
Should Have Been Nominated: Cloud Atlas

Best Live Action Short:
Will Win: Buzkashi Boys
Should Win: Buzkashi Boys
Should Have Been Nominated: when you find me

Best Animated Short:
Will Win: Paperman
Should Win: Paperman

Best Documentary Short Subject:
Will Win: Inocente
Should Win: Inocente

CHECK OUT CURRENT AND PAST WHO WILL WIN/SHOULD WINS OF THE SERIES!

About Terence Johnson

When he's not enduring Shade Samurai training from Victoria Grayson, you can find Terence spends his time being an avid watcher of television, Criterion film collector, Twitter addict, and awards season obsessive. Opinionated but open minded, ratchet but with class, Terence holds down the fort as the producer of the Power Hour podcast and will soon be taking over Historical Circuit, bringing you the best films and hidden gems from the lovely history of cinema. As the only person with a degree in a STEM field (B.S. in Civil Engineering), he's holding it down for the nerds who love film. You can follow him on Twitter at @LeNoirAuteur.

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