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Best Director
The top three seem locked and the other two could believably be inhabited by any number of others. I'm picking Scorsese because I don't think Silence could get shut out entirely and the director is so beloved he could make it in here. Directing nominations without Best Picture ones have become increasingly rare; Bennett Miller for Foxcatcher was the most recent one. But if anyone could do it, it's Scorsese. The DGA nominations give Villeneuve and Davis an edge over Washington and Scorsese, but this category still feels like one of the more unpredictable.
Best Original Screenplay
Zootopia isn't being predicted by many here, but I think there's enough love for the film for it to sneak in, with the help of the various events Disney has recently held in support of its campaigns. This category is less competitive than its Adapted counterpart.
Best Adapted Screenplay
The Academy's classification of Moonlight as adapted (it was based on an unproduced play) probably cleared the path for its victory. The other four nominees, including Nocturnal Animals which conceivably could not show up elsewhere or anywhere at all, seem like pretty safe bets, especially since Love and Friendship's commercial and critical success has amounted to shockingly little, even if it would appear to be in the Academy's wheelhouse.
Best Film Editing
You have to assume the three frontrunners make the cut here and the Academy usually is receptive towards action editing, which bodes well for Hacksaw Ridge. Any of the others could fill the fifth slot, but I wonder if voters could use this as an opportunity to recognize Jackie, a film that seems to be inspiring more like than love, beyond just Best Actress.
Best Animated Feature
Every year, this category's nominations surprise some pundits, who have yet to realize that an obscure foreign production crashes the field more often than not. This year's seems to be either My Life as a Zucchini (which was also shortlisted for Best Foreign Language Film) or The Red Turtle, which hails from Japan's oft-recognized Studio Ghibli. If the acclaimed and well-attended Finding Dory misses a nomination as many are predicting, it would likely be some bizarre response to Disney and Pixar's domination of this category over the past several years.
Best Foreign Language Film
With a shortlist of just nine still in contention, this category has gotten its biggest surprises out of the way already.
Best Documentary Feature
Another category with a shortlist -- this one holding fifteen -- gives us a decent idea of what to expect. The nearly 8-hour OJ: Made in America, much easier to think of as an ESPN miniseries than a theatrical feature, could become the longest film to win an Oscar, for it could beat the USSR's 1968 Foreign Language Film winner War and Peace.
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