Oscar Winner Predictions: Best Original Score

Last year’s nominees: Avatar, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Hurt Locker, Sherlock Holmes, Up

This year’s locks: Inception (Hans Zimmer), The King’s Speech (Alexandre Desplat)

Very likely: None

Possible: The Social Network (Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross), 127 Hours (A.R. Rahman), Never Let Me Go (Rachel Portman), Alice in Wonderland (Danny Elfman), How to Train Your Dragon (John Powell), The Ghost Writer (Alexandre Desplat), The Illusionist (Sylvain Chomet), Tron: Legacy (Daft Punk)

Unlikely: Get Low (Jan A.P. Kaczmarek), The Way Back (Burkhard von Dallwitz), Secretariat (Nick Glennie-Smith), Hereafter (Clint Eastwood)

Not eligible: Black Swan, The Fighter, The Kids Are All Right, Toy Story 3, True Grit

The rundown: A list of 77 scores includes plenty of non-contenders and a decent number of strong contenders listed above. Though it hasn’t popped up anywhere, “The Way Back” could end up here just like “Defiance” did (here and only here) in the same circumstances two years ago. “The Social Network,” despite being a frontrunner in nearly every other category, isn’t a sure thing here, and that’s pretty much true for every other score, save for the two abovementioned locks. “127 Hours” is pretty likely due to its composer being A.R. Rahman, who won big for “Slumdog Millionaire” two years ago. “Never Let Me Go” hasn’t popped up nearly as much as it should have, and so three-time nominee and one-time winner Rachel Portman isn’t a lock. Though it did well at the Golden Globes, “Alice in Wonderland” may still prove too divisive to scare up a music nod. After that, there are some distinguished, interesting stylings that could all manage to pop up here, along with 63 others.

Forecasted winner: Probably Inception but it might be “The King’s Speech.”