The Oscars are awarded Sunday night, March 5. The Academy Awards Predictions Game closes an hour or so before the telecast, so make sure you have your guesses in by then.

This year is an interesting year, because there seems to be a higher percentage of sure bets than usual, yet there are also several tight races, including for the big one itself.

Best Picture

The big race here is between Brokeback Mountain, which has virtually swept the precursor awards, and Capote, the little film that could. When it opened in September, people were so impressed with Philip Seymour Hoffman's leading performance that it distracted them from the excellence of that film. But gradually audiences have discovered the film as a whole. Recently it made history as the first ever film to win both the Critic's Choice and MTV Movie awards, which usually choose films as different as apples and oranges.

Best Director

This one's a cakewalk for Steven Spielberg, who directed "Munich." It's a simple matter of stats. Yes, Ang Lee won the Director's Guild Award, which has correctly predicted the Best Picture Oscar 51 out of 57 times. But this is far overshadowed by a surer stat: Steven Spielberg has never lost the Best Director Oscar! True, early in his career sometimes he never even got nominations -- the most scandalous snub at the time was for 1979's "1941" -- but whenever he's been nominated, he's won. Ang Lee, by contrast, lost the Oscar in 2000 even after winning the DGA.

Best Actor

Philip Seymour Hoffman had this one locked up until last weekend, when the news broke that his performance was assisted by special effects which took old footage of Truman Capote and morphed it into Hoffman's image. Personally, I still think he deserves the award (just as Andy Serkis should have been nominated for Gollum in 2003), but the Academy's rules disqualify him from the race. Moving into his spot will probably be David Strathairn, of "Good Night, and Good Luck," whose portrayal of Edward R. Murrow is the most emotionally weighty of the remaining nominees.

Best Actress

The big race here is between Charlize Theron of "North Country" and "Keira Knightley" of "Pride & Prejudice." Theron has won recently, although that didn't stop Luise Rainer from winning back-to-back Best Actress Oscars back in the day, and Knightley may be seen as too young.

Best Supporting Actor

William Hurt, in a landslide. For all the talk about Clooney, he's nominated in three other categories this year, and Academy members will have ample chance to recognize him elsewhere. And the Academy is probably tiring of awarding Giamatti year after year and will be looking for someone new to shower with accolades. William Hurt, a beloved actor in a comeback role, has never won an Oscar before, and this year is the perfect opportunity to do so.

Best Supporting Actress

Conventional wisdom puts this one at a race between Amy Adams and Frances McDormand. But this is a category noted for its surprises, and so Rachel Weisz just might be the spoiler here.

Best Original Screenplay

Here's an interesting stat: 43 of the last 50 winners for this category were for the film with the longest running time among the nominees. It's another case where "best" really means "most." "Syriana" is the longest of these five films, but its controversial political reception may mean the award will actually go to the second-longest film, "The Squid and the Whale."

Best Adapted Screenplay

This category, strangely, is more lenient on running time: only 29 of the last 50 winners here had the longest running time. On the other hand, only 4 had the shortest running time, so there is still a clear bias. "Munich" is the longest of the films, but it had an even more controversial reception than "Syriana" did. My guess is "Capote" will catch this one as part of its inevitable sweep.

Best Foreign Film

In my opinion, the clear winner should be "Sophie Scholl: The Final Days," but the reality is that Academy voters just don't care about German game show hosts. Hey, TV might not have killed film in the 1950s, but they're still natural competitors. So the winner will probably be "Joyeux Noel," a French remake of "Miracle on 34th Street." If it wins, it would be the first ever remake to win in this category.

Best Documentary

"March of the Penguins" is the popular favorite, but it opened in early summer, and the Academy's memories are rarely that long. The video game expose "Street Fight" is the one to beat.

Other Categories

Best Art Direction: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Best Cinematography: The New World
Best Editing: Cinderella Man
Best Costume Design: Walk the Line
Best Makeup: Cinderella Man
Best Visual Effects: The Chronicles of Narnia
Best Sound: Memoirs of a Geisha
Best Sound Effects: War of the Worlds
Best Original Score: Pride and Prejudice