SHOULD WIN

The seeming inevitability of a win for Nolan’s probing account of a pivotal moment in warfare history doesn’t make it a wrong choice. This is a towering achievement, combining an intimate character study with largecanvas exploration of scientific obsession, American exceptionalism and political gamesmanship, while also demonstrating that movies tackling knotty subjects don’t need to be dumbed down to draw a rapt audience. SHOULD WIN Oppenheimer

I’ve been hot and cold on Nolan’s work over the years and have to confess a certain ambivalence to his signature mind-benders, not least because of the slew of inferior imitations they spawned. But the flawed genius behind the breakthrough invention in atomic armament represents an ideal match of director and material, allowing Nolan to nerd out over detailed scientific theorization while masterfully building a slow-burn thriller. SHOULD WIN Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer

Murphy’s fine-grained portraiture gives Nolan’s brainy biopic a quietly shattering center — his pale blue eyes reveal the soft-spoken J. Robert Oppenheimer’s lofty intellect as well as his creeping anguish and corrosive moral qualms over the destruction he has set in motion. Still, I wouldn’t be mad at an upset in favor of Jeffrey Wright for the prickly complexity and melancholy vulnerability of his work in American Fiction. SHOULD WIN Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer

The stirring sensitivity of Gladstone would make her a richly deserving winner. The same goes for Hüller, who brings spiky intelligence and a refusal to soften the edges of a writer accused of killing her husband. But there was no more dazzling performance than Stone as a woman who literally rebuilds herself from scratch, throwing off the shackles of polite society and patriarchal order as she acquires knowledge and experience. SHOULD WIN Emma Stone, Poor Things

Not enough attention has been paid to the icy effectiveness of Robert De Niro as the duplicitous monster manipulating his nephew in Killers of the Flower Moon, while Ryan Gosling’s sublime himbo Ken comes very close to walking off with Barbie. But it takes charismatic spark and quicksilver intelligence to pull off what Downey does as the chief antagonist in Oppenheimer, gradually revealing his ruthlessness. SHOULD WIN Robert Downey Jr., Oppenheimer

While Randolph is moving as the prep school cook devastated by grief, her sweep of every significant supporting actress honor this awards season seems like a hive-mind choice. I’m going with The Color Purple’s Brooks, whose radiant vitality as Sofia burned bright enough to be rekindled even after years of dehumanizing cruelty, her joy exploding off the screen. SHOULD WIN Danielle Brooks, The Color Purple

Both Nolan for Oppenheimer and Jonathan Glazer for The Zone of Interest would be worthy winners, though for me nothing beats Tony McNamara’s audacious molding of Alasdair Gray’s novel into a picaresque feminist fairy tale bursting with rude humor, radical eccentricity and exultant sensuality. Was there a funnier line this year than, “I must go punch that baby?” SHOULD WIN Poor Things

It’s almost impossible to decide between Triet’s intricately layered courtroom thriller about an inscrutable author on the stand for the possible murder of her husband and Song’s deep dive into fates intertwined and divergent. I’m choosing the latter simply because the drama’s reflections on roads not taken have not stopped resonating with me since I first saw it more than a year ago.

SHOULD WIN Past Lives

Two films have dominated the conversation — the heartbreaking study of intergenerational trauma in Four Daughters and the immersive account of Russia’s siege of Ukraine in 20 Days in Mariupol. But I can’t recall a more achingly tender consideration of love and selfless devotion than Maite Alberdi’s portrait of two prominent Chilean public figures as one of them slides inexorably into the fog of Alzheimer’s. SHOULD WIN The Eternal Memory

Nothing comes close to Jonathan Glazer’s sui generis Holocaust drama, in which we hear but never witness the atrocities being committed at Auschwitz from the disorienting distance of the camp commandant’s comfortable family home, just over the wall. The director’s control of tonal and visual storytelling, his meticulous attention to detail and his bonechilling use of sound make this a uniquely disturbing experience. SHOULD WIN The Zone of Interest

I get all the love for Spider-Man: Across the Universe: At a time when the superhero movie is in dire need of a genre overhaul, the saga serves up clever action, kinetic energy and dizzyingly inventive visuals. But Miyazaki’s emergence from retirement after 10 years is a rare gift. The painterly beauty in every frame is extraordinary, while the storytelling is enriched by the elegiac tone of a man looking back on an eventful life. SHOULD WIN The Boy and the Heron