The biggest question going into Academy Awards nominations on Thursday, Jan. 22, isn't if "One Battle After Another" will be up for some Oscars. Instead, it's will there be enough to sink an unsinkable ship?
Paul Thomas Anderson's revolutionary-flavored powerhouse has a good chance to at least tie and maybe even break the all-time number of nods: 14, shared by "La La Land," "All About Eve" and, yep, "Titanic." But so does Ryan Coogler's gangster vampire period epic "Sinners" in an awards season that hasn't been too much of a roller-coaster yet heading into the 98th Oscars ceremony on March 15.
Does that make it easier to fearlessly predict who's going to snag nominations tomorrow morning? Nope, because a snub or surprise always comes when you least expect it.
It's time to separate the potential contenders from the pretenders in the six major Oscar categories:
The best: Remember where there were only five movies up for Oscars' biggest honor? If that were still the case, this category would be the easiest of all to predict. A pair of Golden Globe winners, "One Battle After Another" and Shakespearean tearjerker "Hamnet," are shoo-ins, and they'll be joined by fellow Producers, Directors and Screen Actors Guild nominees "Frankenstein," "Marty Supreme" and "Sinners."
