Oscar: Best picture, director, actor and actress possibilities

This year, there's more drama in the Oscar derby than on the silver screen. Best actress contenders must not only square off against mighty Meryl Streep -- who hasn't been this scary since "The Devil Wears Prada" -- but poor Kate Winslet must also take on herself (she's in two films this season). Meantime, Richard Nixon's never looked creepier, a spooky "Dark Knight" looms over everything, and a sly "Slumdog" threatens to upset.

BEST PICTURE

Favorites
"Australia"
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
"The Dark Knight"
"Defiance"
"Doubt"
"Frost/Nixon"
"Gran Torino"
"Milk"
"The Reader"
"Revolutionary Road"
"Slumdog Millionaire"

Spotlight: No superhero film has yet landed, cape fluttering, in this category but some past nominees were similar: "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy were popcorn fantasies with exceptional heroes. "The Dark Knight" not only came to the rescue of Hollywood's slumping box office, earning the second-highest dollars in film history, but the tragic death of Heath Ledger made its importance -- and creepiness -- feel very real.

Possible
"Changeling"
"Happy-Go-Lucky"
"I've Loved You So Long"
"Rachel Getting Married"
"Seven Pounds"
"The Wrestler"

Spotlight: "Rachel Getting Married" may benefit from Oscar voters' love of little films about hugely dysfunctional families: nominees like "In the Bedroom" and winners "American Beauty" and "Ordinary People." It helps that an earlier movie by director Jonathan Demme pulled off a big surprise in this race (the thriller "The Silence of the Lambs" won best picture for 1991).

Long shots
"Synecdoche, New York"
"Vicky Cristina Barcelona"
"The Visitor"
"Wall-E"

Spotlight: "Wall-E" may be beloved by film critics (highest score so far this year at Metacritic.com at 93) and moviegoers too ($451 million worldwide), but that didn't help its equivalent last year. "Ratatouille" had to settle for winning the Oscar for animated feature, a category created in 2001 because only one cartoon had previously been nominated for best picture ("Beauty and the Beast," 1991). Voters even risked the wrath of Grumpy and Doc by snubbing poor "Snow White" in 1937!

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