The Best Picture race usually has such a pleasant shape: it starts plump, then tapers to a flourishing end point, like an ink stroke from a master calligrapher’s brush. This year, think toddler’s fist jammed into a pot of Nutella. It’s all over the place, and it still remains highly unclear who’s going to clean up.  Before turning to the three grubbiest handprints, let’s first thank Bridge of Spies, Brooklyn, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Martian and Room for playing: nice try folks, lovely to see you all, you really brightened the place up for a bit. This might not have been the strongest Best Picture field of recent times, but it was certainly a lively one, with two hit blockbusters, a comedy and couple of Irish co-productions to be found among the more expected Hollywood Taste the Difference produce.  In fact, Spotlight’s early dominance of the race (it was being touted as a frontrunner as long ago as September) partly came down to the fact it was one of the few plausible Oscar Movies to materialise. Thomas McCarthy’s unshowy journalism procedural ticked lots of important boxes: moving true story, strong ensemble cast, triumphant struggle-against-the-odds structure.  But the titles many expected to be among its obvious rivals – high-profile festival premieres like Carol, Black Mass, The Walk, The Danish Girl, Freeheld, Sicario, Trumbo and Youth – all failed to inveigle themselves into the Best Picture conversation, for various and occasionally exasperating reasons.  It was only towards the end of last year that Spotlight’s real competition pulled up to the starting grid. The first was Adam McKay’s scabrous financial crisis caper The Big Short, whose fractured, twitchy style hasn’t stopped it striking a chord with Academy voters – perhaps for its crusading spirit, throwback loopiness and punchy topicality.  The second was Alejandro González Iñárritu’s The Revenant, which immediately became more than the Leonardo DiCaprio Best Actor Express when the generally awestruck reactions – and box-office receipts – started rolling in.  If The Revenant wins, it would make Iñárritu the first director of back-to-back Best Picture winners in the Academy’s 88-year history. (Birdman, last year’s winner, was also his.) Voters will be keenly aware of this, but the wells of support for this film run deep: with 12 nominations, it’s by far the most broadly adored of this year’s serious contenders. (Spotlight has six, The Big Short five.)  It also has the distinction of being different. While The Big Short and Spotlight are both people-sitting-in-offices films, The Revenant has the world’s biggest movie star riding a horse off a cliff. Factor in the Best Film Bafta, the Director’s Guild award and the Golden Globe and you would be forgiven for thinking this was a done deal.  But the Best Picture race has a twist. It’s the only category to use instant-runoff voting, a complex ranked ballot that boosts the chances of films that tend to be people’s second and third choices. The Revenant’s pulverising style has a certain Marmitey whiff – so if it can’t muster the required 50 percent of the votes (plus one, to tip it over) in the first count, which it almost certainly can’t, then as votes for less-popular films are redistributed, its lead may start to rapidly ebb.  If The Big Short can pull ahead – which its Producers’ Guild award, a reliable Oscars bellwether, suggests it can – DiCaprio’s Incredible Journey may find itself pipped at the post.  Should win: Mad Max: Fury Road, a bowl-you-over kinetic masterpiece that’s the best film here by such a wide margin, you could drive a flame-belching 18-wheel war rig between it and the competition.  Might win: The Big Short (and it really might)
Is it still a bear market for The Revenant? Or will Adam McKay's financial crash drama leave it out in the cold?