Oscar Winner Predictions: Best Film Editing

The competition: Avatar, District 9, The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, Precious

Previous winners: Slumdog Millionaire, The Bourne Ultimatum, The Departed, Crash, The Aviator
Who should win: The Hurt Locker
Who will win: While most of the time the winner of this category also takes home Best Picture, that’s not always the case. This year, all five nominees are up for Best Picture, but that doesn’t mean the two will sync up. It will almost surely be either “Avatar” or “The Hurt Locker” since the only time that this award hasn’t gone to one of the two frontrunners for Best Picture is when it went to a film that wasn’t even in the running, like in 2007 for “The Bourne Ultimatum.” Any prediction here should really be decided based on the toss of a coin, but I think this is one race where the small-budget war movie can triumph over the humongous juggernaut sci-fi extravaganza. The winner: The Hurt Locker.