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Oscars Predictions: Who Will Win the 2016 Race?

Oscars Predictions: Who Will Win the 2016 Race?

By Nicole Sperling

Updated March 14, 2016 at 07:29 PM EDT

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It's a perilous year to predict who will score Oscars at the 88th Academy Awards. But we've got your back. Check out our guide to who will walk away with the gold and why.

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Best Live Action Short: Shok

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Best Documentary Short: A Girl in the River

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Best Documentary: Amy

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Best Animated Short: World of Tomorrow

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Pixar

Best Animated Feature: Inside Out

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Best Foreign Language Film: Son of Saul

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Monty Brinton/CBS via Getty Images

Best Original Song: "Til It Happens to You," The Hunting Ground

Should this win happen, Lady Gaga's co-writer, Diane Warren — an eight-time nominee — will go home with an Oscar for the first time.

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Andrew Cooper

Best Original Score: Ennio Morricone, The Hateful Eight

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Jasin Boland

Best Sound Mixing: Mad Max: Fury Road

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Jasin Boland

Best Sound Editing: Mad Max: Fury Road

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Best Visual Effects: Mad Max: Fury Road

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Jasin Boland

Best Makeup and Hairstyling: Mad Max: Fury Road

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Wilson Webb

Best Costume Design: Sandy Powell, Carol

The three-time Oscar winner is the costume designer behind both front-runners, Carol and Cinderella.

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Best Production Design: Mad Max: Fury Road

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Kimberley French

Best Cinematography: Emmanuel Lubezki, The Revenant

If Lubezki walks away with the prize, it will be his third consecutive Oscar in this category, following his work on Gravity and Birdman.

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Jasin Boland

Best Editing: Margaret Sixel, Mad Max: Fury Road

Sixel previously worked with director (and husband) George Miller on 1998's Babe: Pig in the City and 2006's Happy Feet.

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Jaap Buitendijk

Best Adapted Screenplay: Charles Randolph and Adam McKay, The Big Short

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Kerry Hayes

Best Original Screenplay: Josh Singer & Tom McCarthy, Spotlight

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Best Supporting Actress: Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl

Will it be captivating upstart Alicia Vikander or Oscar darling-turned-veteran Kate Winslet? Winslet's mastery of Aaron Sorkin's dialogue — and a very specific accent — in Steve Jobs is laudable, but the Screen Actors Guild awarded Vikander's delicate performance as an artist whose husband is discovering his true gender in The Danish Girl, and so the Academy is likely to follow suit. Eighty percent of SAG supporting-actress winners in the past 10 years have also won the Oscar.

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Best Supporting Actor: Sylvester Stallone, Creed

Some may see it as an Academy make-good for overlooking him for Rocky in 1977. Or as a consolation prize for the otherwise unnominated Creed. But the power of Sylvester Stallone's perfomance is undeniable as he unveils Rocky's vulnerability in the face of a cancer diagnosis. (His win at this year's Golden Globes bodes well too — in the past decade, supporting-actor winners there have nabbed Oscar gold 90 percent of the time.) For a guy who keeps getting knocked down, Oscar night looks like Rocky's triumph.

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Best Actress: Brie Larson, Room

Oscar loves to honor an ingenue in the Best Actress category, and though she's been steadily working in Hollywood for 20 years, Brie Larson's aching, unbowed performance as a mother held captive in Room is revelatory — enough to edge out the other strong women in this category. She's already picked up a slew of awards, including a Golden Globe and a SAG actor, the latter of which has been 70 percent predictive of an Oscar win in this category in the past 10 years. Count on Larson to capture the big prize.

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Kimberley French

Best Actor: Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant

The 41-year-old's near-silent performance as 19th-century fur trapper Hugh Glass in The Revenant has the right balance of visible pain and internal anguish, and Leonardo DiCaprio's early wins at the Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild awards make him a virtual lock come Oscar night. (SAG has been 100 percent predictive in this category in the past 10 years.) Plus, he benefits from the narrative that carried Julianne Moore to the stage last year: He's due. Nominated for the sixth time, Leo will reel in the big fish this year.

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Kimberley French

Best Director: Alejandro G. Iñárritu, The Revenant

Only two directors in history have won the Best Director Oscar twice in a row (John Ford and Joseph L. Mankiewicz). Now that Alejandro G. Iñárritu nabbed the Directors Guild prize — which has been 90 percent predictive of the Oscar in the past 10 years — it looks like he's going to become the third for his majestic work on The Revenant. The only thing standing in his way? The appealing narrative of rewarding 70-year-old George Miller for reinventing the action-adventure, again.

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Jaap Buitendijk

Best Picture: The Big Short

The Best Picture race is the biggest question mark of the night. Will Academy voters follow the Producers Guild as they have done for eight of the past 10 years and go with The Big Short, Adam McKay's treatise on the American housing crisis? Or will they lean the way of the Screen Actors Guild, as they have for six out of the past 10 years, and reward the journalism drama Spotlight? Maybe they'll ignore both and tramp into the uncharted landscapes of Mad Max: Fury Road or The Revenant, two movies that take filmmaking to another — and an almost dialogue-free — level. The data says The Big Short is the most likely winner, but a word of caution: This up-in-the-air category could deliver the shocker of the night.

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By Nicole Sperling

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Oscars Predictions: Who Will Win the 2016 Race?

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