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Best Supporting Actress

Domination by one nominee is much rarer in this category than in its male counterpart. Melissa Leo was a shaky frontrunner through much of awards season, Kate Winslet would have been the favorite here for The Reader had she not jumped categories, and in both 2007 and 2000 three different actresses took home the Globe, the SAG, and the Oscar. But the rule remains that when one actress does build momentum, they generally hang onto it. Other than the Winslet anomaly, the last time an actress won both the Globe and the SAG in this category and lost the Oscar was 1997, when Lauren Bacall fell victim to the domination of The English Patient and Juliette Binoche won the Oscar.

With that history in mind, is there any chance that Octavia Spencer could lose Best Supporting Actress? Might co-star Jessica Chastain syphon off some of her votes? Would that allow Berenice Bejo, who is essentially a co-lead in the Best Picture frontrunner, to swoop in and steal the Oscar? It would be a gutsy pick to make, and it's unlikely to pay off. But considering everyone is going to be predicting Spencer, one way to steal a category is to pick Bejo for the upset and pray that it happens. It wouldn't be a Marissa Tomei level upset, but it would be close.

Will Win: Octavia Spencer - The Help
Might Win: Berenice Bejo - The Artist
Dark Horse: Melissa McCarthy - Bridesmaids

Best Actor

In a year in which the supporting categories are locked up, the leading categories are where we find our excitement. George Clooney was the favorite at the beginning of the race, but lately Jean Dujardin has been stepping on his coattails. Now we have something out of Ben-Hur, where the two favorites are neck and neck, each trying to angle for some sort of advantage. As always, let's let history be our guide.

This is a year with a non-traditional Globes/SAG split, the kind you can't have in the supporting categories because they are not divided by comedy and drama. There have only been three times (not including Benicio Del Toro's category jump in 2000) when the SAG and the Oscar have not matched up here. All three of those times the circumstances were strange: Daniel Day-Lewis and Jack Nicholson split the SAG and the Globe, but Adrien Brody came in at the last second to steal the Oscar. Russell Crowe won both the Golden Globe and the SAG for A Beautiful Mind, but Denzel Washington rode a wave of support to capture the Oscar. The most relevant year this happened was in 2003, when Johnny Depp won the SAG for Pirates of the Caribbean, but lost the Oscar to Sean Penn for Mystic River, who had also won the Golden Globe for Drama.

But that was a particularly strange year, since Depp had not won the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Comedy. That had gone to Bill Murray for Lost in Translation, who had also won the BAFTA. In a year with two popular actors in comedies splitting the vote, support for Sean Penn, who had never won an Oscar before, won the big prize. But Dujardin did win the Globe, and in the major precursors where Dujardin and Clooney have gone head-to-head, Dujardin has been victorious, winning both the SAG, the BFCA, and the BAFTA. Only twice has an actor won both the Globe for Actor-Comedy and the SAG Award for Actor: Jamie Foxx for Ray and Jack Nicholson for As Good as it Gets. Both of them won the Oscar, Foxx beating Leonardo Dicaprio (who won the drama Globe for The Aviator) and Nicholson beating Henry Fonda (who won the drama Globe for Ulee's Gold). Had Clooney never won an Oscar before this might be a different race, but right now it seems like the momentum for Dujardin is too much for Clooney to overcome.

Will Win: Juan Dujardin - The Artist
Might Win: George Clooney - The Descendants
Dark Horse: Brad Pitt - Moneyball

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