by Julia Pierrepont III, Gao Shan

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 22 (Xinhua) -- This Hollywood Awards season has been a mishmash of conflicting tastes and winners across all the Guilds and Award Ceremonies, with virtually every award show going its own way to a wide range of winners.

Recent membership drives by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, traditionally a bastion of older, white men, has brought in a lot of fresh new faces that are younger and more ethnically-balanced.

This has skewed the betting pool on who the probable Academy-winners might be, making the 91th Academy Awards perhaps the most interesting Academy Awards, or Oscars, in years. Even AwardsCircuit.com, which has an impressive record of accurately predicting winners well above the norm, thinks this year is a free-for-all.

The closest thing to a normal predictor may be the Directors Guild Awards, which awarded their top Best Feature Director Award to Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuaron for "Roma", who appears to be closest thing to a front-runner in this unpredictable Oscar race.

The 2019 Oscars will be handed out at a ceremony on Sunday in Hollywood. So what do industry pundits and arbiters of cinematic excellence predict?

BEST PICTURE

"Roma" faces strong competition from "Black Panther," "BlacKkKlansman," "Bohemian Rhapsody," "The Favourite," "Green Book," "A Star Is Born" and "Vice." This is a hotly contested category, with industry insiders split between front-runners including "Roma," "Green Book," "Black Panther" and "Bohemian Rhapsody."

The Spanish language drama "Roma" picked up 10 nominations over all and leads the race for the Oscars. Written and directed by Cuaron, the critically-lauded autobiographical drama follows the life of a live-in housekeeper to an upper-middle class family in Colonia Roma, a neighborhood in the City of Mexico, in the 1970s.

Directed by Peter Farrelly and set in the 1960s, the racial-charged dramedy "Green Book" follows African-American classical and jazz pianist Don Shirley and Tony Vallelonga, an Italian-American bouncer who serves as Shirley's driver and bodyguard, on a tour through the racially-divided South.

Disney/Marvel Studios' breakout hit, "Black Panther," is the only superhero action picture to feature a virtually all-black cast and also the first superhero film to earn a Best Picture nomination in the history of the Oscars.

Directed by Bryan Singer, music biopic "Bohemian Rhapsody" is a foot-stomping celebration of the British rock band, Queen, their music, and their extraordinary lead singer, Freddie Mercury, tracing the meteoric rise of the band through their iconic songs and revolutionary sound.

There are strikes against each one: "Black Panther" is an action picture, which is notoriously shunned by the Academy in the Best Picture category, since they prefer to recognize more artistic dramas like last year's "Moonlight"; "Roma" is a foreign language film and "Best Picture" has never been awarded to a foreign language film. Plus "Roma" is distributed by Netflix, who was barred from competition at the Cannes Film Festival for not being a theatrical film distributor.

CNN and Variety are predicting "Green Book" will take home the gold statuette, while Imdb.com, Entertainment Tonight (ET), and The New York Times (NYT), are holding out for "Roma."

BEST DIRECTOR

Cuaron is up against intense competition from Yorgos Lanthimos ("The Favourite"), Spike Lee ("BlacKkKlansman"), Adam McKay ("Vice") and Pawel Pawlikowski ("Cold War").

Cuaron tops the picks of Variety, CNN, ET and NYT, and seems as close to a "shoo in" as this erratic award season has to offer.

BEST ACTRESS

This category is also a hotly-contested race, with "The Favorite"'s Olivia Colman and "The Wife"'s Glenn Close both favored to win. Variety, ET, NYT all think it is high time that 7-time Oscar nominee, Close, goes home with a well-deserved statue for her decades of superlative performances, including this most recent one.

BEST ACTOR

Though many love Bradley Cooper and Viggo Mortensen's superb performances in "A Star is Born" and "Green Book," respectively, the NYT, Variety, imdb.com, and ET believes Rami Malek will reign supreme and take the "Best Actor" throne for his incandescent performance as Queen's lead singer in "Bohemian Rhapsody," making him the first Egyptian-American to win the Oscars' top acting prize.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Though Richard E. Grant, of "Can You Ever Forgive Me?" fame is giving him a run for his money, Mahershala Ali of "Green Book" is likely to drive away with the Oscar, Variety, ET and CNN predict, which would make him only the second black actor after Denzel Washington to take home two top acting Oscars.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Another likely winner, according to Variety, NYT, CNN, and imdb, is Regina King of "If Beale Street Could Talk," who is widely predicted to take the gold on Sunday.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

Sony's superhero film "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse" received positive reviews from moviegoers and critics alike. Racking up plaudits in this Hollywood awards season, the film has been a frontrunner in the Oscar race following its victory as Best Animated Feature at the 76th Golden Globe Awards, the 24th Critics' Choice Awards, the 30th annual Producers Guild of America (PGA) Awards.

BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM

Much to the delight of Chinese moviegoers, Chinese-centric "Bao," has the best in this category. The Pixar short is directed by China-born, Canadian director Domee Shi.

"Bao" explores the life of a Chinese immigrant mom living in Toronto with her inattentive husband who is struggling to cope with loneliness after her beloved son flies the nest. Remarkably, the mom's deep, empty-nester angst turns to joy when a cute, leftover dumpling (a bao) comes alive in true Pinocchio fashion. Shi is the first woman and first Chinese writer/director of a Pixar short.

"Bao" will compete with fellow nominees: "Animal Behaviour," "Late Afternoon," "One Small Step" and "Weekends."

BEST FEATURE DOCUMENTARY

There has been a lot of press generated for the stunning rock-climbing doc, "Free Solo," and Chinese-American Liu Bing-helmed, "Mind the Gap."

"Mind the Gap" follows three young men who bond together to escape their volatile families in a small, Rust Belt hometown in the Midwest. As they face adult responsibilities, unexpected revelations threaten their decade-long friendship.

But many insiders are predicting a win for "RBG" on the life of progressive Supreme Court Justice and former female rights advocate, Ruth Bader Ginsberg.

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

"Roma," "Capernaum" (Lebanon), "Cold War" (Poland), "Never Look Away" (Germany) and "Shoplifters" (Japan) are on the list in the Best foreign film competition. Again, the odds-on favorite is "Roma," which may become the first film in history to win the Foreign Language Film category and the Best Picture category.