Sydney: Fair 19ºC | 15ºC

or use

If we ran the Academy...

First published on 9 Mar 2010. Updated on 11 Mar 2010.

Best Picture

Avatar, The Blind Side, District 9, An Education, The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, Precious, A Serious Man, Up, Up in the Air

Who will win:Avatar
Who deserves to win:The Hurt Locker

WINNER: The Hurt Locker

Hands up everyone who's seen Avatar? Everyone? OK. Now hands up who's seen the other nine Best Picture nominees? ...aha. Best Picture is a numbers game, and nothing can stop Avatar's jolly blue giants running off with the votes as well as the box office. Too bad The Hurt Locker, the best war movie since Schindler's List, will miss out.

Best Actor

Jeff Bridges Crazy Heart; George Clooney Up in the Air; Colin Firth A Single Man; Morgan Freeman Invictus; Jeremy Renner The Hurt Locker

Who will win: Jeff Bridges
Who deserves to win: Jeremy Renner

WINNER: Jeff Bridges

His role is transparent Oscar-bait - the redemption of a washed-up legend - but workhorse Bridges is great in Crazy Heart whether romancin' Maggie Gyllenhaal, singin' country songs, or spewing his guts out backstage. Besides, the erstwhile 'Dude' has been nominated five times and never won. So it's just his turn. But personally, we'd like to see newcomer Renner garlanded for his underplayed work as the danger-addicted bomb disposal expert in The Hurt Locker.

Best Actress

Sandra Bullock The Blind Side; Helen Mirren The Last Station; Carey Mulligan An Education; Gabourey Sidibe Precious; Meryl Streep Julie & Julia

Who will win: Sandra Bullock
Who deserves to win: Meryl Streep

WINNER: Sandra Bullock

Ingrid Bergman won three Oscars. Katharine Hepburn won four. So why shouldn't Meryl Streep get a third? She's been nominated 16 times, she's incredibly funny in Julie & Julia, and she's probably the finest actor to ever stand in front of a camera. But it's Bullock's year: The Proposal was a monster hit, and her Golden Globe for The Blind Side reflects the love Hollywood has for those rare women who have box office staying power.

Best Director

Kathryn Bigelow The Hurt Locker; James Cameron Avatar; Lee Daniels Precious; Jason Reitman Up in the Air; Quentin Tarantino Inglourious Basterds

Who will win: Kathryn Bigelow
Who should win: James Cameron

WINNER: Kathryn Bigelow

Like American voters in 2008, the Academy's directing fraternity have a historic opportunity to award the first woman or the first black man (Daniels). And if Bigelow wins, it'll be because The Hurt Locker is an edge-of-your seat masterpiece. But people, have you seen Avatar? Mad genius James Cameron has changed the whole movie ballgame. Much as it pains us, we have to concur that the white guy deserves the gong over his talented ex-wife. We're sorry.

Best Supporting Actor

Matt Damon Invictus; Woody Harrelson The Messenger; Christopher Plummer The Last Station; Stanley Tucci The Lovely Bones; Christoph Waltz Inglourious Basterds

Who will win: Christoph Waltz
Who should win: Christoph Waltz

WINNER: Christoph Waltz

Since Cannes last year, Waltz has cut a swathe through the acting awards like the Werhmacht tearing through Europe. His charming, ruthless, oddball Nazi Colonel Hans Landa can expect to score another "bingo" on Oscar night – and he deserves it.

Best Supporting Actress

Penélope Cruz Nine; Vera Farmiga Up in the Air; Maggie Gyllenhaal Crazy Heart; Anna Kendrick Up in the Air; Mo'Nique Precious

Who will win: Mo'Nique
Who should win: Vera Farmiga

WINNER: Mo'Nique

If you thought Christoph Waltz was nasty, you ain't seen nothing till you've seen Mo'nique as the lazy, cruel, alcoholic, abusive, TV-throwing mom in Precious - a mom who makes Joan Crawford look like Carol Brady. It's great stuff, but we confess a soft spot for the underrated Farmiga - effortlessly alluring as Clooney's perfect match in Up in the Air.

82nd Academy Awards are broadcast live on Mon 8 Mar, 10am–4.05pm, Movie Extra

Five out of six ain't bad... More on Oscars - Time Out makes the Oscar results relevant to the youth of today

Oscar grouch!

The Academy have made plenty of blunders in the last 81 years. We're still unhappy about:

1 Sigourney Weaver failing to win Best Actress for Aliens (1986)
No disrespect to Marlee Matlin, the 21-year-old deaf performer who triumphed in the romance Children of a Lesser God, but Weaver ascended into cultural legend the moment she strapped on a machine gun. All together now: "Get away from her you bitch!"

2 Citizen Kane losing Best Picture (1941)
Orson Welles' masterpiece was a barely disguised swipe at media tycoon William Randolph Hearst and therefore lucky to even be nominated. But the winning film, John Ford's How Green Was My Valley, is dull, sentimental pap. Shame, Hollywood! Shame!

3 Crash beating Brokeback Mountain (2005)
This moving story of closeted cowboys won every major award going - including the Best Director Oscar for Ang Lee. But then the homophobic Academy had its say. Hollywood, are you trying to hide something?...

4 Gladiator winning Best Picture (2000)
"On my command - unleash bollocks." The Roman Empire is the most fascinating era in all of history. So how did this leaden, cliché revenge picture get it so wrong, and yet still achieve Oscar glory? Two thumbs down.

5 Marlon Brando losing for A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
No one would begrudge Humphrey Bogart his statue for The African Queen, but he should have won for Casablanca (1943). And while Streetcar nabbed acting Oscars for Vivien Leigh, Kim Hunter and Karl Malden, the main thing anyone remembers about the film now is Brando's ‘Stella!' performance.

6 Judy Davis losing to Marisa Tomei (1992)
Tomei has since redeemed herself with The Wrestler and In the Bedroom, but when Jack Palance called out her name as Best Supporting Actress for My Cousin Vinny it was (and is) widely considered a mistake. She defeated Sydney diva Davis - sensational in Woody Allen's Husbands and Wives.

7 Elizabeth Taylor winning Best Actress for Butterfield 8 (1960)
"Face it mother - I'm the slut of all time!" Taylor's turn as a party girl may be good camp value, but she only won because she was at death's door in hospital at Oscar time. The award should have gone to Shirley Maclaine - the adorable Miss Kubelik in evergreen comedy The Apartment.

8 Michael Nyman, unnominated for The Piano (1993)
It's one of the highest selling original soundtrack albums of all time. It's extraordinarily beautiful and perennially popular. Yet composer Nyman did not even rate a nomination that year. Of all the Oscar categories that deserve the descriptor "pathetic joke", original score must be number one.

9 Two words: Forrest Gump (1994)
Sometimes, life is like a box of shit. Especially when you consider the four classics this anodyne Best Picture winner defeated: Pulp Fiction, Quiz Show, Four Weddings and a Funeral and The Shawshank frickin' Redemption!

10 Stanley Kubrick and Alfred Hitchcock: zero wins
The two greatest directors in the history of the medium managed the odd nomination, but neither got a statuette. And just think: Mel Gibson and Kevin Costner have Best Director Oscars.