With the Academy Awards this Sunday, studios are anxiously waiting to see who will be this year’s victors of Hollywood’s most ac­claimed awards. The greatest award show host of all time, Billy Crystal, will be hosting for his ninth time and Brian Grazer will be pro­ducing. The cinematic love-ballad to early film, Hugo, led the field with 11 nominations, while the adaptation of the novel The Help snagged a Best Picture nomination and could win both Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress. Standing in The Help’s Viola Davis’s way is Meryl Streep, who is the front-runner for Best Actress for her portrayal of Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady. Terence Malick’s film The Tree of Life, which won the Palm d’Or at Cannes, deservingly received a Best Pic­ture nomination and is the front-runner for Best Cinematography. The film that opened Cannes this year, Woody Allen’s biggest block­buster hit to date, Midnight in Paris, received numerous nominations, including Best Pic­ture, and is the favorite to win Best Original Screenplay. Surprisingly, the Cannes winner for Best Director, Drive, was completely shut out of the nominations except for Best Sound Editing, which is a shame, as Drive‘s amazing direction by Nicholas Winding Refn, acting by Ryan Gosling and score by Cliff Martinez were all deserving. Director Alexander Payne’s The Descendants, his latest American classic starring George Clooney, could be a potential spoiler in many categories including Best Pic­ture and Best Actor. Another potential spoiler for Best Actor is Brad Pitt’s performance in the Best Picture-nominated Moneyball.

The deserving favorite for Best Actor is The Artist‘s Jean Dujardin, who, after winning the award at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, the Golden Globes and the British Academy Film Awards last week, looks to be on his way to collecting one of the many statues that The Artist should win this Sunday night. The Weinstein Company’s The Artist snagged ten nomi­nations and, after its amazing success at other award shows, the silent film is the front-runner to win Best Picture. Harvey Weinstein bought the film, which pre­miered at Cannes and won Jean Dujardin Best Actor. Since then, The Weinstein Company has been on a complete assault to win this black-and-white silent film the award for Best Picture. Starring the incredibly handsome and suave Jean Du­jardin as ignorant yet lovable silent film Hollywood star George Valentine, the film tells the story of the birth of talking pictures in the late 1920s. As Valentine questions his place in the industry, the rising and beautiful dancer Peppy Miller (played by Hazanavicius’s wife, Bernice Bejo) desperately falls in love with Val­entine, despite his fall from Hollywood royalty. The film’s director, French auteur filmmaker Michel Hazanavicius, who is very well known in France for his satirical James Bond-like blockbuster series OSS: 117, which also features Jean Dujardin and Bernice Bejo, is the favorite to win Best Director and could potentially up­set Woody Allen in Best Original Screen­play. While Allen’s script is excellent, Ha­zanavicius’s 44-page dialogue-less script is the most unique and clever script of the year. Bejo could potentially win Best Supporting Actress if The Help‘s Octa­via Spencer and Jessica Chastain split up each other’s votes. The film’s only sound is its amazing score by Ludovic Bource, which is reminiscent of classic early Hol­lywood scores and should – and will – win Best Score. The film was almost per­fectly made, and is a love letter to early cinema and the art of filmmaking.

Here are my predictions:

Picture – The Artist

Director – Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist

Actress – Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady

Actor – Jean Dujardin, The Artist

Supporting Actor – George Plummer,

The Beginners

Supporting Actress – Octavia Spencer,

The Help

Original Screenplay – Woody Allen,

Midnight in Paris

Adapted Screenplay – Alexander Payne,

The Descendants

Score – Ludovic Bource, The Artist

Foreign Film – A Separation

Documentary – Pina

Animated Feature – Chico and Rita

Art Direction – Hugo

Cinematography – Tree of Life

Costume Design – The Artist

Film Editing – Hugo

Makeup – Harry Potter and the Deathly

Hallows: Part Two

Original Song – “Man or Muppet,”

The Muppets

Sound Editing – Drive

Sound Mixing – Hugo

Visual Effects – Rise of the Apes

Conatct Josh Glick at [email protected].