By JAKOB HAND

COLUMNIST

The Academy Awards, a.k.a. the Oscars, a.k.a. Hollywood’s annual pat on the back, are here once more and per usual, there is debate about who will win the big prizes. Some races are somewhat concluded already, while others remain a mystery heading into the ceremony this Sunday night. Here is a quick breakdown of the major races for those of you looking for an edge in your Oscar brackets.

Best Picture and Best Director: This year’s Best Picture Race is one of the tightest races in years, with Boyhood and Birdman having seemingly equal chances of taking home the big prize at the end of the night. Boyhood’s Richard Linklater and Birdman’s Alejandro González Iñárritu are in a close race for Best Director that mirrors the Best Picture contest. While Birdman is a tremendously well crafted film, I think the edge in both races goes to Linklater and Boyhood, the film and movie maker with more sentimental appeal in L.A. The Grand Budapest Hotel also has an outside shot at winning, especially if the other two contenders split their votes, but it will take a lot for it to overcome the affection for Boyhood and Birdman.

Best Actor and Actress: Julianne Moore has all but won the Best Actress prize for her performance in Still Alice. An upset in that category would be perhaps the greatest surprise of the night. The Best Actor race, however, remains murky. Eddie Redmayne and Michael Keaton appear to be locked in a fight for the prize, based on their performances in The Theory of Everything and Birdman, respectively, and even Bradley Cooper has an outside chance of winning for his turn in American Sniper. Redmayne, with his wins at the BAFTAs, Golden Globes, and SAG Awards, probably has the edge, but this contest will remain close till Oscar night.

Best Supporting Actor and Actress: These races have been over for weeks. If J.K. Simmons and Patricia Arquette do not win statues for their performances in Whiplash and Boyhood, respectively, it will be because lightning wiped the auditorium from the face of the Earth. Edward Norton and Emma Stone each have outside chances of winning for their performances in Birdman, but that’s about as meaningful as saying there’s a chance a character played by Sean Bean will survive a movie.

Best Original and Adapted Screenplay: Both of these races are completely up in the air, and the writing contests are usually more difficult to predict. Birdman and Boyhood are competing again in the Original Screenplay category, but this time they seem likely to lose out to Hugo Guinness and Wes Anderson’s writing for The Grand Budapest Hotel. In the Adapted Screenplay category almost anybody could conceivably win, although the contest seems to be primarily between Graham Moore for The Imitation Game and Damien Chazelle for Whiplash. In a category that favors independent writers, Whiplash probably has a narrow edge.

Best Animated, Foreign Language, and Documentary Films: Since The LEGO Movie was inconceivably snubbed in the nomination process, How to Train Your Dragon 2 has emerged as the favorite to win the statue for Animated Feature, although other films in that category stand outside chances of winning. Similarly, the omission of Life Itself from the Documentary Feature category leaves Citizenfour sitting pretty in that category. The Foreign Language Film contest is harder to call. Poland’s Ida and Russia’s Leviathan lead the pack, and one of these two films will likely take home an Oscar at the end of the night (Ida has a marginal lead).