The time has come to put forth my final predictions for Best Picture, and never has a task been more daunting. With so many films making late surges (Skyfall on the Producers Guild List? Salmon Fishing in the Yemen with three Golden Globe nods?) and the Academy rules allowing for up to 10 nominees, there are more movies with a legitimate shot at a nomination than ever before.

I’d like to put The Impossible in the mix having seen and adored it recently, but a respected colleague pointed out there isn’t much buzz out there for it. The Sessions seems to have similarly dropped off voters’ radar. It hasn’t won enough precursor awards to be seen as a legitimate contender. And we all know what happened to The Hobbit.

So who’s got the best odds? Who will hear their name called on January 10? And who will wake up to an alarm instead of a congratulatory phone call? Let’s dig in.

Nicole Kidman is in the Oscar race now, though for the life of me, I can’t figure out how it happened. The Paperboy is an incredible, unmissable film, but not because of its style, technique, or narrative finesse. It is sorely lacking in all these departments. The Paperboy is essential cinema because of its gratuitous, dirty content, which is unthinkably unique and, in a certain sense, brave. Its emotions are heightened, perpetually climaxing in sexual tension, but this isn’t the kind of erotic power we saw between Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson, or any other movie star couple we’ve seen. The content in The Paperboy is uncomfortable and - for lack of a better term - gross, and I never expected that awards voters would be inclined to reward its joyful brand of raunch.

Best Picture

01. Cloud Atlas & Holy Motors

These films take unique looks at primality, transformation and the evolution of personal identity and are pure adrenaline filtered through the lens of fantasy. Deeply-flawed or seriously genius, you decide, but either way both richly spark the imagination.

Though 2011 was undoubtedly the Good German’s breakout year, with no less than five noteworthy parts under his belt—well, six noteworthy parts under his belt if we count the Shame hullaballoo—it is his standout performance in this year’s Prometheus that is most deserving of awards buzz. Few things in Ridley Scott’s maybe-Alien-prequel were easily agreed upon by critics and audiences, save for its arresting visuals, its murky script, and Fassbender’s eerily incandescent portrayal of David, a remarkably humanlike, quietly mischievous android who accompanies the film’s scientists on their journey to discover the origins of mankind. Though we’ve seen this obligatory character in other installments of the bruised franchise, Fassbender manages to best his predecessors—no small feat, considering Ian Holm’s startling, cagy turn as Ash in the 1979 original—by becoming, ironically, the film’s moral center even as he commits amoral acts that spark a nightmarish sequence of events.

Favorite Movies:

1. Amour
2. Holy Motors
3. Zero Dark Thirty
4. Rust and Bone
5. Keep the Lights On
6. Tabu
7. The Gatekeepers
8. Django Unchained
9. Oslo, August 31
10. The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Best Director:
Michael Haneke for Amour
Runner up: Kathryn Bigelow for Zero Dark Thirty

Best Actor
Denis Lavant in Holy Motors
Runner up: Matthias Schoenaerts in Rust and Bone

Best Actress
Emmanuelle Riva in Amour
Runner up: Marion Cotillard in Rust and Bone

Best Supporting Actor
Christoph Waltz in Django Unchained
Runner up: Ezra Miller in The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Best Supporting Actress:
Amy Adams in The Master
Runner up: Kylie Minogue in Holy Motors