It took a great deal of blood, sweat and tweets, but in 2016 the Academy finally took notice and started to embrace both diversity and modernity. The #OscarsSoWhite furore over two straight years of all-white nominees (Michael B Jordan’s Creed snub was in my opinion the cruelest) led to a dramatic shake-up and one that has continued ever since with more women, people of colour and international voters added to what had been an overwhelmingly homogenous base.

It has all led to an Oscars race that is increasingly harder to predict using old-fashioned thinking in ways that have become rather thrilling over time, the idea of an “Oscar movie” now far more slippery. Films such as Parasite, Anora, Moonlight, Anatomy of a Fall, Nomadland, Get Out and The Zone of Interest have now found their way into the major categories in past years, and this year’s crop showcases further progression – from foreign language picks to outsider narratives to pricklier characters than ever before.

With just days to go, it’s yet another year that’s excitingly tough to call, one of many reasons why this year’s discourse has been more exhaustingly toxic than usual, and it’s led to a more determined scour for clues that might shine light on what Sunday shall bring. The annual batch of anonymous Oscar ballots (a tradition that endures despite the expulsion risk attached) should always be taken with an entire pinch pot of salt, especially as the Academy has grown larger, but with so many categories still up in the air, what can be learned?

Jessie Buckley has it in the bag

OK, so maybe we didn’t need to do much sifting to figure this one out (she is the only sure thing out of this year’s acting categories, having won every precursor there is) – but a read of the ballots is a reminder that any perceived backlash to Hamnet or Jessie Buckley’s performance has been online and online only. One Academy member called it “the performance of the year”, another said it was on “a whole other level” while she was also chosen by five of Variety’s eight voters and three of Entertainment Weekly’s group of four. If one were to make a bet, it’d be the safest one to make.

Amy Madigan might be a secret weapon

The best supporting actress category is set to be a close one, maybe one of the closest of the acting categories. So far, One Battle After Another’s Teyana Taylor has won the Golden Globe, Sinners’ Wunmi Mosaku has won the Bafta and Weapons’ Amy Madigan has the Critics Choice and Actor awards. There is plenty of support for both Taylor and Mosaku among voters, and it would make more sense for the winner to come from a film with other nominations (the last time a winner in this category was the sole nominee from a film was Penélope Cruz in Vicky Cristina Barcelona) – but there’s enough enthusiasm to suggest it could possibly be Madigan’s night. She scored with two of the four Entertainment Weekly voters (“it’s wonderful for a veteran actor”), Variety’s summary claims she carries “substantial goodwill” from the LA contingent, another picks her while praising her character and career, someone else calls it a “classic” turn, while another picks her for a “showy, nutty, crazy” performance. Sorry to the Sentimental Value actors, but this looks to be a three-way battle.

Sinners has the edge over One Battle After Another

It’s gradually become a two-horse race between two auteur-led projects that are both from the same studio and both, for once, genuinely great. The precursors would suggest that One Battle After Another is in for a better night (it has scored wins with the PGA, Golden Globes, Baftas and Critics Choice awards), but a late surge for Sinners after Actor awards success has caused many to change bets. On honest ballots alone, it would seem like the smarter choice. It had the slight edge in both Variety and EW roundups (with one voter describing as a “masterpiece” and another saying it “made me remember what a theater is for”), an unnamed producer said they saw it three times on the big screen and picked it for almost every category it was in, another gave it a similar sweep referring to the “euphoric” feeling it gave them and another also said they would be “voting for it with all my heart down the line”. A number of voters also refer to a desire to “spread the wealth” though, so it might not be a sweep for one or the other.

But it might not be a two-horse race after all …

There were still plenty of voters who showed support for One Battle After Another, if markedly less than for Sinners, but also a smattering of other picks that suggested it might not be quite as simple as we had thought. There was an impassioned lover of Sentimental Value (“exquisite, nearly perfect”), a ride-or-die for Marty Supreme (“the most fun rollercoaster ride experience”), a Hamnet stan (“punched me in the gut”), a Bugonia supporter (“haven’t stopped thinking about it”) and even a Train Dreams believer (“I loved everything about it”). Not many F1-heads, though …

It could finally be Paul Thomas Anderson’s year

There are still plenty of One Battle After Another naysayers (one called it “the most problematic movie for the Black community since maybe Green Book”) but there’s also a great deal of support for its director Paul Thomas Anderson. Like a lot of the main races, it’s set to be a One Battle v Sinners standoff with Ryan Coogler, his closest competition, and there are enough votes for both to suggest it will be close. The PTA contingent discuss why it is long overdue for the director (“it’s his time,” says one; “it’s Paul’s time!” says another) and how he’s at the top of his game with his latest (“no director like him”), while another praised him in stark comparison to his competition (“the only film-maker who made a movie I’ll remember 15 to 20 years from now”). While voters traditionally preferred to split picture and director between two different movies, the last six years have seen one film taking both awards, so whoever wins this could tell us all we need to know about the night’s biggest award.

Wagner Moura could be a best actor spoiler

The best actor Oscar had seemed like Timothée Chalamet’s to lose for most of the season. He’d won the Golden Globe and Critics Choice awards and his in-your-face campaigning seemed to be paying off with everyone talking about, and praising, his performance in surprise box office hit Marty Supreme. But his manic energy and dogged persistence slowly started to lead to a souring, at least for the terminally online (as many seem to have ignored, his ballet and opera comments sparked anger after voting closed). It could still be his, with a bunch of voters picking him, but the rest seem to go for either Sinners’ Michael B Jordan (who is the current favourite) or The Secret Agent’s Wagner Moura (with some votes still for One Battle’s Leonardo DiCaprio, who has drifted to the outside). Jordan may well have the edge, but Moura has some surprise steam, with two of the EW ballots picking him (“it’s impossible to imagine the movie without him”), another choosing him and noting there’s “even more of an attraction to a foreign language role” with the new Academy, and a voter remarking that they “loved the movie, and he just hit all the notes”. Another impossibly close race.

The new rules haven’t gone down well

For the first time ever, Academy members are required to have seen every film in a category before they place their vote. It’s all tracked for compliance via the digital Academy screening room, a theoretically just implementation that should force members to give things a fairer shake – but there have been enough anonymous quibbles to suggest that it has not gone down all that well. One voter confesses they “just didn’t have time” and refused to vote in some categories (including best supporting actress), another called it “noble” with a laugh but said “when the movies are 13 hours long, everybody’s lying this year”. One said “I know my colleagues don’t watch all of the movies” while an Oscar-nominated director went as far as not voting at all, calling the awards “irrelevant” and the films too weak to watch all the way through.