Best Supporting Actor - Jared Leto (Dallas Buyers Club)
Nominees: Jared Leto (Dallas Buyers Club), Bradley Cooper (American Hustle), Barkhad Abdi (Captain Phillips), Jonah Hill (The Wolf of Wall Street), Michael Fassbender (12 Years a Slave) Jared Leto may be a dark horse as far as mainstream awards shows are concerned, but his creepily believable turn in Dallas Buyers Club is deserving of the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. This is a tight race, with Leto, Cooper, and Fassbender arguably the three top dogs, but Leto deserves the go-ahead for his seamless transition into character.
Second Most Likely Winner: Bradley Cooper (American Hustle)
Best Cinematography - Gravity (Emmanuel Lubezki)
Nominees: Gravity, The Grandmaster, Inside Llewyn Davis, Nebraska, Prisoners Gravity will likely take home many of the "visual" awards, and Best Cinematography is no exception. This, too, is a tight race, with all five movies staking claims as beautifully shot works of art. But the extraordinary planning that went into some of the shots in Gravity is something we rarely see in modern film, and the final result is stunning.
Second Most Likely Winner: Prisoners (Roger Deakins)
Best Makeup And Hairstyling - Dallas Buyers Club (Adruitha Lee, Robin Mathews)
Nominees: Dallas Buyers Club, Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa, The Lone Ranger Unlike the first two entries on this list of predictions, this one is a bit simpler. Makeup artists everywhere will throw down their mascara pens in disgust if Bad Grandpa or The Lone Ranger take home an Academy Award, and Dallas Buyers Club is deserving of the nod for the work on Jared Leto's visage alone. But why wasn't American Hustle nominated?
Second Most Likely Winner: The Lone Ranger
Best Visual Effects - Gravity
Nominees: Gravity, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, Iron Man 3, The Lone Ranger, Star Trek Into Darkness Using a carefully crafted panel featuring nearly two million individually-controlled LED lights, the effects team on Gravity was able to simulate the unfiltered light of space in a way that has been lauded by astronaut filmgoers the world over. It will be a sick joke if Gravity doesn't take this one home. The dragon Smaug was very impressive, but other parts of the second Hobbit film were poorly animated. Gravity will take this category easily.
Second Most Likely Winner: The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug