This year Gives oscar best film cliffhanger

LOS ANGELES: Hollywood’s awards season reaches a climax at Sunday’s Oscars with a cliffhanger over the top prize after a topsy-turvy best picture race marked by the fading of early favorites and the tantalizing question of whether Netflix can trump traditional movie studios.

While Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron’s sentimental Netflix movie Roma and historical romp The Favourite from Fox Searchlight go into the ceremony with a leading 10 nominations each, there’s no guarantee they will come out on top.

“This year’s Oscar best picture race is as wide open as I have ever seen it,” said Matthew Belloni, editorial director of the Hollywood Reporter. “If Roma wins best picture, it will be a watershed moment for Netflix. It will announce the day they have arrived,” he added. No streaming service has ever won the Academy Award for best picture.

The Academy Awards will be handed out on Sunday in a live ceremony televised by ABC starting at 5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET (0100 GMT on Monday).

Award watchers say Universal Pictures’ Green Book, a road trip set in the segregated US South in the 1960s, and the studio’s Ku Klux Klan comedy-drama Blackkklansman from director Spike Lee are also serious contenders for the best picture statuette. Sentiment for Lee is rising, they say, and he could become the first African-american ever to win a best director Oscar with his film tapping into historical and contemporary US racial tensions.