Who's Getting an Oscar Nomination? What to Expect from the Academy on Thursday

The nominations for the 85th Academy Awards will be announced this Thursday at 8:30 a.m., and (unlike last year), the Academy had an embarrassment of fantastic films to choose from in 2012. Under their revised rules for Best Picture, the Academy felt that only nine films released in 2011 were worthy of a Best Picture nomination. This shouldn't be the case for 2012.

I will be shocked if the Academy doesn't nominate the maximum number of ten films for Best Picture when it announces its nominations. Thanks to the sheer number of amazing films this year, I saw several critics release Top 20 lists instead of the usual Top 10. You really can't blame them, especially when you look at some of the movies that deserve a Best Picture nomination but have no shot of getting one. The Dark Knight Rises, Looper and Skyfall can hold their own against almost any film in 2012, but you won't hear their names announced among the Best Picture nominees on Thursday.

Based on what I've seen and what I've read, you'll find Popculturology's predictions for who'll get nominated in the Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Original Screenplay, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Animated Feature and Best Foreign Language Film after the jump. To clarify, these are predictions of the actual nominations, not who I personally feel deserves to be nominated. That would be an entirely different article.

Best Picture
Argo
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Django Unchained
Les Miserables
Life of Pi
Lincoln
The Master
Moonrise Kingdom
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty

Moonrise Kingdom is probably the film that's most on the bubble in this category. There's a chance we could see Amour notch a nomination for Best Picture in addition to Best Foreign Language Film. There should be ten nominees, no matter who gets that last slot. If the Academy nominates any number other than ten for this category, there's a serious issue with how they honor Best Pictures.

Best Director
Ben Affleck (Argo)
Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty)

Tom Hooper (Les Miserables)

Ang Lee (Life of Pi)

Steven Spielberg (Lincoln)

Tom Hooper or David O. Russell? Both directors have been previously nominated in this category, but I'm going with Hooper this time around. I think he still has some of that King's Speech goodwill going for him.

Best Actor
Bradley Cooper (Silver Linings Playbook)
Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln)

John Hawkes (The Sessions)

Hugh Jackman (Les Miserables)

Denzel Washington (Flight)

Six months ago, The Master's Joaquin Phoenix appeared to be the only challenger to Daniel Day-Lewis. Now, the actor's probably going to get left out of this category. It doesn't help that he openly knocked the idea of getting nominated.

Best Actress
Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty)
Marion Cotillard (Rust and Bone)

Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook)

Emmanuelle Riva (Amour)

Naomi Watts (The Impossible)

I hate leaving Quvenzhane Wallis out of this category, but it looks like her Beasts of the Southern Wild performance will go without being nominated. After the Academy ignored Shailene Woodley's performance in The Descendants last year, I think it's getting harder and harder for younger actresses to get noticed.

Best Supporting Actor
Alan Arkin (Argo)
Robert De Niro (Silver Linings Playbook)

Leonardo DiCaprio (Django Unchained)

Philip Seymour Hoffman (The Master)

Tommy Lee Jones (Lincoln)

If Javier Bardem gets nominated for his Skyfall performance, I'll be extremely happy even though it'll mean I missed a prediction. Some of the critics groups honored his villainous turn, but the Academy doesn't have a great history of giving James Bond films their due.

Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams (The Master)
Ann Dowd (Compliance)

Sally Fields (Lincoln)

Anne Hathaway (Les Miserables)

Helen Hunt (The Sessions)

Every year, at least one actor or actress slips in as a surprise nominee. Compliance's Ann Dowd will be this year's surprise nomination.

Best Original Screenplay
Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino)
Looper (Rian Johnson)

The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson)

Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola)

Zero Dark Thirty (Mark Boal)

Rian Johnson's screenplay for Looper better get nominated. 

Best Adapted Screenplay
Argo (Chris Terrio)
Beasts of the Southern Wild (Lucy Alibar and Benh Zeitlin)

Life of Pi (David Magee)

Lincoln (Tony Kushner)

Silver Linings Playbook (David O. Russell)

Considering the fact that the main thing I've heard about Les Miserables (besides the fact that Russell Crowe can't sing) is that it doesn't quite live up to the musical, I can't see the adapted screenplay getting any Oscar love.

Best Animated Feature
Brave
Frankenweenie
ParaNorman
Rise of the Guardians
Wreck-It Ralph

Picking the nominees for Best Animated Feature is pretty easy. The only wildcard would be if a foreign animated film slips in.

Best Foreign Language Film
Amour
Beyond the Hills
The Intouchables
No
A Royal Affair

The Academy really only needs to nominate Amour here. Everyone else should just be happy they get to attend the Oscars.