Oscar season kicked off in January of 2012 when "Beasts of the Southern Wild" wowed audiences at the Sundance Film Festival. Thirteen months later, "Beasts" will compete for a host of Oscars at the 85th annual Academy Awards on Sunday, Feb. 24. With awards season mercifully coming to a close, HuffPost Entertainment is here with a preview of the major categories at the Oscars 2013 ceremony. Next up: picking the Best Picture winner.
Best Picture Nominees: "Amour," "Argo," "Beasts of the Southern Wild," "Django Unchained," "Les Miserables," "Life Of Pi," "Lincoln," "Silver Linings Playbook," "Zero Dark Thirty"
The Race Thus Far: Historic. If the current trend holds, "Argo" will win Best Picture on Sunday night, becoming only the fourth film in 85 years of Oscar history to earn the award without a subsequent Best Director nomination. (Don't worry, Ben Affleck fans: Since the snubbed director was also an "Argo" producer, he'll accept the Best Picture award.)
The Potential Spoiler(s): Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln" leads with 12 nominations and could very well win on Sunday night, but that just doesn't seem very likely at this point. If anything, an argument could be made for "Silver Linings Playbook," David O. Russell's romantic comedy, which The Weinstein Company has expertly campaigned for since the nominations were announced. "Silver Linings Playbook" has been everywhere, and the message shift from "It's a quirky romcom!" to "It's a serious look at mental illness!" is the stuff of Best Picture victories. Still, the good money is on "Argo" to tell all other nominees to go eff themselves.
Best Picture Prediction : "Argo"
In the mood for actual data and evidence instead of speculation and conjecture? The Huffington Post Oscar Predictions Dashboard can be found here.
