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Who Will Win The Oscars For Best Supporting Actress And Actor?

To launch Oscar winner predictions, we start with a category that is stupendously obvious. And another that is...not.

Adam B. Vary
by Adam B. Vary

BuzzFeed News Reporter

Best Supporting Actress

Universal Pictures

Even with the constant, patience-trying earnestness of the frontrunner this season, there is arguably no category that is more of an iron-clad lock than this one.

Nominees:

Amy Adams, The Master

Sally Field, Lincoln

Anne Hathaway, Les Misérables

Helen Hunt, The Sessions

Jacki Weaver, Silver Linings Playbook

Should win: Even those who didn't care for director Tom Hooper's cramped approach to Les Miz could agree that Hathaway's performance — especially her devastating delivery of "I Dreamed a Dream" in a single take — is the best thing in the film. But if we're taking the category literally, Sally Field's sharp and sorrowful Mary Todd Lincoln supports Lincoln by keeping the film and the man from wandering too far into the swamp of Washington politicking.

Will win: This is easy: Anne Hathaway.

Best Supporting Actor

The Weinstein Company; Andrew Cooper, SMPSP; David James

By contrast, there may be no tighter race at the Oscars this year than the one among this quintet of past winners.

Nominees:

Alan Arkin, Argo

Robert De Niro, Silver Linings Playbook

Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Master

Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln

Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained

Should win: Two-time winner De Niro hasn't been this good in ages — which may be why he hasn't been nominated since 1991's Cape Fear. But it's Tommy Lee Jones' deftly fulminating performance as radical abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens that has stayed with us the most.

Will win: It would be an air-tight two-man race between beloved curmudgeons De Niro and Jones, but the most recent winner, Waltz, has actually walked away with the most hardware so far this year. Still, since Lincoln appears to have the most broad Academy support among these actors' films, we're going to peg Tommy Lee Jones the winner, in a squeaker. (But do not be surprised if De Niro, or even Waltz takes the stage instead.)