4 of those films won Best Picture/Best Director, the other two won Best Picture/Best Editing. As always, it has to circle back to what exactly would Spotlight win besides Best Picture. We've exhausted the discussion on Best Director, it ain't happening. But what about Best Editing...

Tom McArdle (Spotlight) has no major nominations to his name. He's up against the overwhelming favourite Margaret Sixel (Fury Road), Oscar-winner Stephen Mirrione (The Revenant), and multiple Oscar-winner Pietro Scalia (The Martian). Then there's Hank Corwin (The Big Short), a frequent collaborator of both Oliver Stone and Terrance Malick, and Joe Walker (Sicario) who was Oscar-nominated for 12 Years a Slave. Suffice it to say, Mr. McArdle has some stiff competition.

Do people assume that Room is safe for a BP nom? I mean it is just so TINY at the box-office. Apart from Amour, which was foreign-language by a very respected director and had major support across the board, I cannot remember a single other BP nominee in the past 10-15 years that has grossed as little as Room before the eventual Best Picture nomination. Even Winter's Bone and Whiplash did better.

My first instinct is to say yes, enough voters will put it as their #1 based on the strength of Brie Larson's performance and frontrunner status. But there are many recent Best Actress frontrunners who couldn't lift their films into the Best Picture category (Still Alice, Blue Jasmine, Iron Lady). A24 has certainly been aggressive in positioning Room as a real nominee, so I suspect it'll land somewhere in the 7-9 spot.

Best Picture
Best Actress
Best Supporting Actor
Best Adapted Screenplay

That's a solid 4 nominations.

Looking at the list, Blue Jasmine seems like the perfect comparison. It also scored a Screenplay nod, a Best Actress nod (frontrunner) and a slightly surprising Supporting acting nod - the very same scenario as for Room.

Yet it missed Best Picture at the Oscars despite scoring a PGA nod. It also was a much bigger box-office success...

Working backwards, what films do we know for sure are getting in:

Mad Max: Fury Road
Spotlight
The Martian
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
The Revenant
Carol

That's a solid 6

Then there's

Room
The Big Short
Brooklyn
Bridge of Spies
Inside Out

If we're assuming there will be 8 or 9 nominees this year, Room has the best positioning I think out of those second tier films.

I don't see how it has a better positioning than, say, The Big Short. That one not only did really well at the Globes too, scoring the precious Screenplay nod and two acting noms, it also got the very very precious SAG Ensemble nod and out of the five SAG Ensemble nominees, it is the second-strongest after Spotlight. It is also becoming a frontrunner for Best Adapted Screenplay and will most likely be nominated for Editing, which is also a big plus. It is much stronger than Room.

Then it gets murky, yes. But I believe the huge success of Inside Out, coupled with Pixar's return to form and the very likely Screenplay nomination also make it a bigger candidate than Room. I would definitely put these two ahead.

So that gives us eight contenders and that could actually be it. Or there wil be a ninth with Brooklyn, Room, Bridge of Spies and maybe even Straight Outta Compton or The Hateful Eight or Steve Jobs in the mix.

Spotlight
Fury Road
The Big Short
Carol
Room
The Revenant
Brooklyn
The Martian
Bridge of Spies

That's what I see right now.

Star Wars has a chance, but it is sure as he'll not a lock.

I will go to my grave insisting Star Wars is not, and has never been, "a sure thing." You're all being too bullish on its award prospects.

For the record, I am currently predicting:

1. Spotlight
2. The Big Short
3. Carol
4. The Revenant
5. Mad Max: Fury Road
6. Room
7. The Martian
8. Brooklyn
9. Bridge of Spies

Room, Brooklyn, Bridge of Spies, The Big Short and Inside Out are all certainly ahead of SW.

I actually don't believe The Revenant is a sure thing. The experience could be too relentless and tiresome, its impact isn't as strong when viewing the screener as the big screen, and already heard grumbling from the members on seeing the movie to just see Leo suffer so he could win an Oscar.

From the traditional sense of having strong guilds support, the only locks are Spotlight, Carol, and The Big Short, although I do consider The Martian and Mad Max as locks myself.

Is it the 14th yet? I just want to fast forward so the issue of SW can be settled once and for all.

Only one guild has weighed in. You should at least wait for PGA and DGA before using guild support as a metric.

PGA will tell us very little anyway. DGA and SAG are by far the most important guilds as far as nominations go.

Unless something we all expected to show up doesn't show up at PGA, then it'll tell us a lot.

But that rarely happens, since they stick to ten slots. Sure, if TFA or Mad Max or The Martian don't show up, they are dead.

Updated ranking:

1. Spotlight
2. The Big Short
3. The Martian
4. Mad Max: Fury Road
5. The Revenant
6. Carol
7. Inside Out
8. Brooklyn
9. Bridge of Spies
10. Sicario
11. Straight Outta Compton
12. Room
13. Star Wars: The Force Awakens

So you expect 13 nominees? Because Star Wars is a total lock.

You must have missed my post in the PGA thread.

There's only been one SAG+PGA since the expanded field to miss in Bridesmaids, and it missing Best Picture was a genre thing. Straight Outta Compton is strong. I mean it's done literally as well at the guilds as Spotlight and The Big Short. The Big Short getting ACE instead of Spotlight and Compton is made irrelevant by being in comedy

Still waiting for that friendly wager that Spotlight isn't winning.

Still think Mad Max is secretly in a good position to win big.

It looks like The Big Short is totally pulling a The King's Speech on us. Despite receiving zero love from the critics awards, it looks more and more likely to win big.

2010 we had the critical darling The Social Network (this year's Spotlight) and the tech-heavy movie-nerds-favorite Inception (this year's Mad Max), the surprise western hit True Grit (this year's The Revenant), but The King's Speech trumped them all.

The weird thing is, though, that, just like Spotlight, The Big Short does not look to get many noms or wins at all.

The best-case nominations-wise for it are probably five: Picture, Director, Screenplay, Supporting Actor and Editing. And it can win a maxmum of four - though Editing is probably a stretch.

Last time someone won an Oscar for Best Director without a previous BAFTA nom was Clint Eastwood for Million Dollar Baby, but if I remember correctly, the movie was not eligible for the BAFTAs that year and was more or less forgotten the year after.

Last time someone won the BD Oscar without a BAFTA nom under "reular" circumstances was...well, a very long time ago. Definitely not since the 1980s. In other words: this is not looking good at all for George Miller or Tom McCarthy. The Martian missing a BP nod is rather weak too, so I guess it is McKay.

Also, is it just me or did Inside Out's Oscar buzz kinda completely fizzled. I mean originally I was thinking that there is no way it would miss, but now... Looking back, I am not een sure how Toy Story 3 and Up were nominated. Gotta wonder whether they were 10th spot nominees and wouldn't have made it this day. I mean on paper, 2015 looks like a weaker year than 2009 or 2010 and yet Inside Out's position doesn't look strong.