Making predictions is a painstaking process involving, amongst other things, a lot of film-watching.

As the Academy Awards’ fever rises, with unexpected titles appearing strong late in the race, the calculations become overwhelming. But mostly the process remains rewarding as one finds an opportunity to watch the finest products of the year.

It is understood that while most nominations will not win an award, a few obvious products of marketing hyperbole (by their respective studios) will convince Oscar voters—the 5,783 members of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences (AMPAS)—to bypass collective reasoning.

They have selective wins at various individual guild awards and clearly there is a science to the process. The Producers Guild of America (PGA), Directors Guild (DGA), Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the Writers Guild (WGA) carry a distinct voice in the outcome: their members are also prominent in the AMPAS.

The Critic’s Choice Awards impose persuasive opinion. The Golden Globes and the Bafta (British Academy of Film and Television Arts), notwithstanding their foreignness, are still considerable to a lesser intensity. There are other awards, but as they happen early in the year we refer to them, more or less, as a graph outlining a change in trend.

Unfortunately, Images on Sunday is not able to cover the Shorts because it is impossible to obtain and watch the nominations. However, Pakistanis are rooting for one category this year—Best Documentary (Short Subject). Half-Pakistani in origin, Saving Face is co-directed by Daniel Junge and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, and is the first Academy Award nomination for Pakistan (and fingers crossed, maybe the first win come early Monday morning).

For the seventh year running, here are our predictions for the 84th Annual Academy Awards (aka the Oscars).

BEST PICTURE MKJ/FJ: The Descendants (Jim Burke, Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor, Producers) Prediction: The Artist (Thomas Langmann, Producer) Rationale: Every SAG male winner wins best picture for seven years; The Artist won the PGA for Best Feature

BEST DIRECTOR Unanimous: Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist) Rationale: Clean swept DGA, Critics Choice, Bafta. Wins at PGA and SAG also help its kinesis BEST ACTOR (Leading Role) MKJ/FJ: Jean Dujardin (The Artist) Prediction: Jean Dujardin (The Artist) Possible Upset: George Clooney (The Descendants)

Rationale: Dujardin is statistically impossible to beat even with Clooney’s powerhouse performance. Swept SAG, Critic’s Choice, Bafta and the Golden Globes (the last two do not count, though). Possible upset by Clooney owing to his industry-ranging star power

BEST ACTOR (Supporting Role) Unanimous: Christopher Plummer (Beginners) Rationale: Nobody beats Plummer this year

BEST ACTRESS (Leading Role) Unanimous: Viola Davis (The Help) Possible Upset: Meryl Streep (The Iron Lady) Rationale: Viola Davis, clearly the darling right now with critics and guilds, has gained remarkable momentum with wins at Critic’s Choice and SAG. Meryl Streep already has 15 nominations from the Academy and two wins—one for Kramer vs. Kramer (1980) and Sophie’s Choice (1983); her last Oscar win was 13 nominations ago, which could raise a possible upset

BEST ACTRESS (Supporting Role) Unanimous: Octavia Spencer (The Help) Rationale: In the same boat as Christopher Plummer

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE Unanimous: Rango (Gore Verbinski) Rationale: Critic favourite with a strong forward momentum; winner at Annie (Animation) Awards, Critics Choice and Bafta. Rango lost the PGA and the Golden Globe to The Adventures of Tintin, the year’s critical favorite not nominated in this Oscar category

BEST ART DIRECTION Unanimous: Hugo (Production Design, Dante Ferretti; Set Decoration, Francesca Lo Schiavo) Possible Upset: The Artist (Production Design, Laurence Bennett; Set Decoration, Robert Gould)

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY Unanimous: The Tree of Life (Emmanuel Lubezki) Least Possible Upsets: The Artist (Guillaume Schiffman) or Hugo (Robert Richardson, though only by a slight margin) Rationale: Emmanuel Lubezki’s fifth nomination. The film is an existential/spiritual drama riding on overpowering visual spectacle. This is a no-brainer. Already won the ASC (Cinematographer’s Guild) Award

BEST EDITING MKJ/FJ: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall) Prediction: The Artist (Anne-Sophie Bion & Michel Hazanavicius) Possible Upset: Hugo (Thelma Schoonmaker) or The Descendants (Kevin Tent) Rationale: Schoonmaker has strong critic/expert push. Tent won Best Dramatic and Bion and Hazanavicius won Best Comedy/Musical Eddies (the Editor’s Guild Award), making an upset probable by Oscar day

BEST COSTUME DESIGN MKJ: Anonymous (Lisy Christl) FJ: Hugo (Sandy Powell) Prediction: The Artist (Mark Bridges) Possible Upset: Jane Eyre (Michael O’Connor) Rationale: Almost every critic, expert and poll is divided. This category is conflicted between our personal opinions and that of the industry pull, The Artist (one which we also liked a lot), which also won Critics Choice and Bafta. As of this writing, the Costume Designer’s Guild Awards were still a day away

BEST MAKEUP Unanimous: The Iron Lady (Mark Coulier & J. Roy Helland) Least Possible Upset: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (Edouard F. Henriques, Gregory Funk & Yolanda Toussieng)

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE Unanimous: The Artist (Ludovic Bource) Rationale: Music was the film’s supporting character. Winning the Bafta, Golden Globe and Critics Choice creates a safe bet

BEST ORIGINAL SONG MKJ: Man or Muppet from The Muppets (Music & Lyrics by Bret McKenzie) FJ: Real in Rio from Rio (Music by Sergio Mendes and Carlinhos Brown, Lyrics by Siedah Garrett) Prediction: Man or Muppet from The Muppets (Music and Lyric by Bret McKenzie)

BEST SOUND EDITING MKJ: Transformers: Dark of the Moon (Ethan Van der Ryn & Erik Aadahl) FJ: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Ren Klyce) Prediction: Hugo (Philip Stockton & Eugene Gearty)

BEST SOUND MIXING MKJ: Transformers: Dark of the Moon (Greg P. Russell, Gary Summers, Jeffrey J. Haboush & Peter J. Devlin) FJ: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (David Parker, Michael Semanick, Ren Klyce & Bo Persson) Prediction: Hugo (Tom Fleischman & John Midgley)

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS Unanimous: Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Joe Letteri, Dan Lemmon, R. Christopher White & Daniel Barrett)

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY Unanimous: The Descendants (Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon & Jim Rash) Rationale: Winning the WGA. Clearly the best adapted film of 2011

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY MKJ/FJ: A Separation (Asghar Farhadi)Prediction: Midnight in Paris (Woody Allen)Rationale: Hollywood—and the Guilds—love Woody Allen (winning Best Original Screenplay at WGA). A Separation is strictly our personal opinion. We would have voted for it, but still it will not win.

Possible Upset: The Artist by Michel Hazanavicius but by a long-shot (if everything goes topsy-turvy in the days following this feature)

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM Unanimous: A Separation (Iran)

BEST DOCUMENTARY (Feature) Prediction: Pina (Wim Wenders & Gian-Piero Ringel) Possible Upset: Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory (Charles Ferguson & Audrey Marrs) Rationale: Having not seen any of the five documentary nominees, the prediction is dependent on industry speculation. All major awards share different titles making an actual guess-timation near impossible