SAG Awards: What They Mean For The Oscars

The Screen Actors Guild Awards may not seem very interesting in and of themselves, but one reason we pay attention to them is to see who's up and who's down for the Oscars. Historically, the SAG Awards have a pretty good record of predicting who will go on to win the acting Oscars. Last year's Oscar winners, for example — Colin Firth, Natalie Portman, Christian Bale and Melissa Leo — all won the SAG in their categories.

So what did we just learn about this year's race? First off, George Clooney may have to fight off The Artist's Jean Dujardin for Best Actor. Dujardin and Clooney both won Golden Globes, as they were split into comedy and drama categories by the Hollywood Foreign Press, but Dujardin's SAG win makes him the new frontrunner.

Meryl Streep, meanwhile, will likely see her 17th nomination become a win for Viola Davis, who beat her for the SAG Sunday night. Earlier, Streep had beat Davis at the Globes, so it could be a knock-down drag-out, with the odds slightly in Davis' favor (despite a record-breaking number of nominations, Streep has not won an Oscar since 1983.)

This year's Best Supporting Actor and Actress awards are done. Christopher Plummer and Octavia Spencer have already won the Critics Choice, the Globe, and the SAG. You can't devise a joke more cruel than to deny them the Oscar as the cherry on top of all this praise.

There is yet one SAG award, though, that is hard to make sense of in terms of its relevance for Oscar. The Help, winning in the Best Ensemble category, is an unlikely winner for Oscar's Best Picture, given the fact that it did not secure a Best Director nomination (or a Best Editing, another clear indicator). It's hard to say, then, if The Artist or Hugo will take the big trophy, or if some other film will step up.

For a full list of Oscar nominees, go here. The Oscars will air on February 26, hosted by Billy Crystal.

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