Which films and performances have been gaining the most Oscar buzz of late? Below are the early favourites for Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress and Best Picture.

BEST ACTOR:

Leonardo DiCaprio – J. Edgar (directed by Clint Eastwood)

Gary Oldman – Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Michael Fassbender – A Dangerous Method

George Clooney – The Descendants

Jean DuJardin – The Artist (a silent film!)

Joseph Gordon-Levitt – 50/50

Michael Shannon – Take Shelter

Ryan Gosling – The Ides of March

COMMENTS: 50/50 deals with a 27-year-old man’s cancer diagnosis and his struggle to beat the disease. The trailer for Take Shelter, with Michael Shannon, looks surreal. Shannon plays an individual who may or may not have schizophrenia – which could work to the actor’s advantage like it did for Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind (2001). Shannon is a previous nominee for Revolutionary Road (2008). The ads for the two George Clooney films make me feel that one of them could be left out come nomination morning. At the moment, it seems The Descendants is gaining momentum while The Ides of March appears to be floundering. David Cronenberg returns with A Dangerous Method, which deals with a subject matter worthy of major Oscar contention. It revolves around Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud. However, I have greater expectations for Leonardo DiCaprio as FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. It’s a meaty role, written by Dustin Lance Black (Milk). If anything like the Sean Penn film, Leo is guaranteed a nomination. Still, the never-been-nominated Gary Oldman as George Smiley in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy may be the one to beat.

BEST ACTRESS:

Meryl Streep – The Iron Lady

Glenn Close – Albert Nobbs

Tilda Swinton – We Need to Talk About Kevin

Rooney Mara – The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Elizabeth Olsen – Martha Marcy May Marlene

COMMENTS: In The Iron Lady, Streep portrays Margaret Thatcher. I don’t hold out much hope for its Oscar chances given a lacklustre clip which appeared on the Awards Breach website. In a complete 180 degree turn, Glenn Close takes on a gender bending part as Albert Nobbs, a woman who poses as a man to gain employment and security. Some of the clips I have seen from We Need to Talk About Kevin make me feel it’s not my cup of tea. For instance, in one scene, Swinton takes her new-born baby to a building site where drilling is taking place. She goes there to drown out the sound of her child crying. David Fincher’s rapidly put-into-production remake of the 2009 film The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo will probably be relegated to the technical categories, if at all. I feel the dark horse of the Best Actress race could be Elizabeth Olsen. The trailer for her film Martha Marcy May Marlene is offbeat, but then offbeat can work for the Academy as Pollock (2000) and many other films have shown.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR:

Kenneth Branagh – My Week with Marilyn

Christopher Plummer – Beginners

Albert Brooks – Drive

Viggo Mortensen – A Dangerous Method

Philip Seymour Hoffman – The Ides of March

Tom Hardy – Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

John Hawkes – Martha Marcy May Marlene

Armie Hammer – J. Edgar

COMMENTS: I would absolutely love to see either Branagh or Plummer getting their due. The latter should have won for The Insider (1999) more than ten years ago and Branagh’s part as Laurence Olivier is pure Oscar bait. At this time, I think Albert Brooks seems guaranteed a nod for the promising Drive. This could be his Little Miss Sunshine (2006) role because, like Alan Arkin, he was nominated decades ago for Broadcast News (1987), a critical favourite. It could be a golden opportunity to award a veteran. His only serious threat from others on the radar is Viggo Mortensen, a previous nominee for Eastern Promises (2007). It could go either way.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:

Viola Davis – The Help

Naomi Watts – J. Edgar

Emily Watson – War Horse

Vanessa Redgrave – Coriolanus

Keira Knightley – A Dangerous Method

Kate Winslet – Carnage

Octavia Spencer – The Help

COMMENTS: Not much can be said about Best Supporting Actress because Viola Davis seems to have it in the bag at this point. Vanessa Redgrave and Kate Winslet are previous winners, so they probably won’t gain much mileage with those 6,000 Academy voters. There could be a real surprise with Keira Knightley, who scored some big points with her Oscar nominated turn in Pride and Prejudice (2005) six years ago. Stay tuned on this one.

BEST PICTURE

War Horse

J. Edgar

Hugo

The Ides of March

A Dangerous Method

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

The Tree of Life

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

The Artist

Midnight in Paris

The Descendants

COMMENTS: Until reviews come out and early awards are bestowed, this one could be anybody’s game. Steven Spielberg has War Horse, Clint Eastwood has J. Edgar and even Woody Allen will be vying for a place with Midnight in Paris. Anything can happen here. After all, most people believed The Social Network had Best Picture and Best Director sown up last year. We all know how that ended.

(Listen to Richard Jack Smith, Diana Saenger, A.J. Hakari and James Colt Harrison discuss "Early Oscar Buzz" on Movie Addict Headquarters during the upcoming episode airing at 4 p.m. Eastern Time on BlogTalkRadio. Click here on or after September 13, 2011.)