Best film/director

We can probably rule out most of the nominees through the process of elimination. Beasts Of The Southern Wild - too indie and arty. Zero Dark Thirty and Silver Linings Playbook - too underwhelming. Amour - too foreign. Les Miserables - too divisive. Django Unchained - too violent, which isn't a good thing for Hollywood to endorse amid the gun debate. So that leaves Argo, Life Of Pi and Lincoln. 

It would be great to see Argo win, but with Ben Affleck not nominated for best director it seems unlikely - only twice in the past decade have the best film and best director gongs been won by two different films. The last time it happened was in 2005, when Crash won best film but Ang Lee won best director for Brokeback Mountain. Lee looks the goods this year for best director for managing to film the unfilmable novel Life Of Pi, so put your money on him and Life Of Pi for best director and best film.

Best actor

Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln) and Denzel Washington (Flight) have won before, Joaquin Phoenix (The Master) has been nominated before, and Bradley Cooper (Silver Linings Playbook) and Hugh Jackman (Les Misérables) are the newcomers. Washington seems least likely - there haven't been raves about his performance like the others. Silver Linings Playbook is the first film since Reds (1981) to be nominated in all four acting categories, but will probably get beaten in all of them. This one's most likely got Day-Lewis's name on it - Phoenix and Jackman are in with a shot, but they'd be getting in the way of Day Lewis making history and becoming the first man to win three best actor Oscars.

Best actress

Compared to previous years, this is a pleasingly low-key list of actresses. None of the big guns of previous years are present but there is plenty of opportunity to make history. If Emmanuelle Riva (Amour) wins, she'll be the oldest best actress winner ever. If Quvenzhané Wallis (Beasts Of The Southern Wild) wins, she'll be the youngest best actress winner ever. But Australia's Naomi Watts (The Impossible) is the big gun here - she's the only one who's been nominated in this category before and she would be a thoroughly deserving winner. She looks like she went through hell to make The Impossible, and deserves the win. 

Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty) and Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook) give good performances but neither are as daring or edgy as Watts's turn. The dark horse is Wallis, the plucky nine-year-old who pretty much carries the entirety of Beasts Of The Southern Wild with skill beyond her years. If Watts doesn't win, I hope it's Wallis.

Best supporting actor

This could be renamed the "veteran actor award" this year. Phillip Seymour Hoffman (The Master) is the youngest nominee at 45, and all five nominees have won Oscars before. It's probably the closest race out of any of the awards, so you have to look for excuses as to why each one won't win. Alan Arkin (Argo) is great, but his role is small and essentially comic relief. Robert De Niro (Silver Linings Playbook) does his best work in years but it still feels well short of his glory years. Tommy Lee Jones (Lincoln) and Hoffman have been praised for their performances but have tended to be overshadowed by the praise of their co-stars Day-Lewis and Phoenix respectively. 

That leaves the inimitable Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained), who steals the show from star Jamie Foxx and deserves the win here. The great injustice is that his co-star Leonardo DiCaprio wasn't nominated - it would have been a real two-horse race between DiCaprio and Waltz.

Best supporting actress

This category looks the closest to being a dead cert. Amy Adams (The Master), Sally Field (Lincoln), Helen Hunt (The Sessions) and Jacki Weaver (Silver Linings Playbook) are all nominated, but this will be Anne Hathaway's night for her perfomance in Les Misérables. She's already won more than 40 awards for the turn so you can pretty much lock the Oscar in. If she doesn't win, it will launch conspiracy theories to rival Marisa Tomei's win in this category in 1992 (apparently Jack Palance read out the wrong name).

And the rest....

Best original screenplay will probably go to Django Unchained and it will be the only award it wins, Life Of Pi is best bet for adapted screenplay, best animated feature is wide open but I wouldn't begrudge Wreck-It Ralph the win, Amour will win best foreign film by default, and expect Life Of Pi to dominate a lot of the other category.