Sinners or OBAA? Predicting the most unpredictable Oscars in years

Welcome to the most unpredictable Academy Awards in living memory.

Sure, some categories may feel like a lock: frontrunners Sinners and One Battle After Another are almost guaranteed to earn best original and best adapted screenplay, respectively. Avatar: Fire and Ash should pull in best visual effects, Frankenstein should see success in the technical categories, and anything other than KPop Demon Hunters in best song and best animated feature would be a seismic event.

But it's unpredictable elsewhere. Many categories have been drastically influenced by a topsy-turvy awards season, and a box office supported by an uncharacteristically original slate of films.

To help you prepare for what is sure to be a nail-biter of a night, we've broken down the biggest categories — and the razor's-edge battles taking place within them.

Probably: One Battle After Another.

Maybe: Sinners.

Should win: Either.

Of course, best picture is a vitally important category every year. But starting off an Oscars prediction ballot with this award gives an opportunity to break down the betting strategies this time around. 

Heading into the awards with more nominations than any film ever, Ryan Coogler's Sinners is set to break some kind of record. But the awards circuit darling has clearly been Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle, picking up top prizes from the Producers Guild of America, Directors Guild of America (DGA), BAFTA Awards, Critics' Choice and the respective adapted screenplay category from the Writers Guild of America. 

But don't count out Sinners just yet. A late-stage win at the Actor Awards (previously SAGs) has set up the underdog Cinderella story that Academy voters love. And then there was the media debacle at the BAFTAs, in which Sinners stars Delroy Lindo and Michael B. Jordan stood onstage while a racial slur was heard from the audience (said without intent by a man with Tourette syndrome).

If you were to believe some publications, both those events improved Sinners' odds. Also in the film's favour is its impressive list of nominations. The three previous record holders for most Oscar nods were Titanic, All About Eve and La La Land; the first two also won best picture, while the last one infamously nearly did. 

And then there's the energy around the film. Awards prognosticator Clayton Davis of Variety reported that many voters believe One Battle will triumph, but were personally voting for Sinners. He predicted that was the perfect storm to set up several surprise wins for the vampire flick.

But despite an internal push for diversity in their voter rolls, the Oscars aren't necessarily known for their iconoclasm. OBAA's dominance throughout awards season, its more awards-friendly genre (only one horror, The Silence of the Lambs, has ever won best picture) and vague, safely non-specific revolutionary theme set it up as the frontrunner. 

As the Hollywood Reporter noted, about 20 per cent of the Academy's voters are based abroad, while the Actor Awards' are almost entirely based in the U.S. That has led it to honour more populist fare — and particularly films about Black American issues — more reliably, including wins for The Help and Black Panther.