Sunday Special: Coming down the Oscar stretch

With one week until the Academy Awards, you still have time to get your money down in New Jersey and Indiana. (Why not Nevada, we ask?) Although its odds have narrowed significantly, The Power of the Dog (DraftKings -280/BetMGM -250) is still the picture to beat. If you feel like playing long shots (and we’re not talking about hopelessly out-of-it ones like +8,000 Nightmare Alley), there’s a serious chance the Academy could go with predictable CODA (+400/+450), which has usurped Belfast‘s feel-good mojo, moving way, way up from +2,500 (Belfast: +650/+600).

Proudly mediocre, CODA is the best Lifetime Channel Original Movie ever made but Oscar voters could split the ticket much as they did when they anointed mushy The Green Book over Best Director/Best International Film winner Roma. At this point, Power of the Dog writer/director Jane Campion remains a prohibitive (-3,500/-3,000) favorite to take home the Best Director prize, besting Belfast‘s Kenneth Branagh (+1,400/+1,400) and sentimental choice Steven Spielberg (+2,000/+1,200), who’s forsaking cinemas for streaming services after West Side Story. If there’s any movement toward an upset in this category it’s Licorice Pizza helmer Paul Thomas Anderson, tiptoeing up to +2,000/+3,300.

Best Actress is a tough call. Should-win candidate Jessica Chastain is riding the momentum of the SAG Awards and Critics Choice Awards to a leading -150/-165 for The Eyes of Tammy Faye. Nicole Kidman (Being the Ricardos, +250/+300) and Olivia Colman (The Lost Daughter, +500/+600) have strong candidacies that landed them a Golden Globe and Independent Spirit Award respectively. But they’ve won Oscars already, which could work against them. If you want to bet on a stomach-churning long shot, there’s Kristen Stewart, unintelligible as Princess Diana in the somnolent Spencer (+500/+700). Penelope Cruz (Parallel Mothers) deserves better than her +1,600/+2,500 odds would indicate.

It would take an upset of monumental proportions to unseat Will Smith from King Richard‘s throne (-800/-1,000). Smith’s run the table this awards season so why stop now? Benedict Cumberbatch (The Power of the Dog, +450/+500) and Andrew Garfield (tick … tick … BOOM!, +1,100/+1,400) have been touted as possible upset candidates but we don’t like their odds. For Denzel Washington (The Tragedy of Macbeth, +2,500/+5,000) and Javier Bardem (Being the Ricardos, +4,000/+5,000) being nominated was the real honor.

In other categories, CODA‘s Troy Kotsur has come from behind to be the expected winner of the Best Supporting Actor statuette and nothing has budged West Side Story‘s Ariana DeBose from presumptive-winner status as Best Supporting Actress. CODA has also elbowed aside Power of the Dog as favorite for Best Adapted Screenplay (blech!), which it could get as a consolation prize in lieu of Best Picture—or harbinger of an upset, while Paul Thomas Anderson seems to have an overdue Oscar locked down for Original Screenplay for Licorice Pizza, with only Belfast a serious odds rival. The only other possible upset of consequence is Best Documentary Feature, where Flee (BetMGM: +230) is creeping up on good-vibe Summer of Soul (-300), although we’d give it to the utterly shattering Attica (+1,000), which sadly does not seem to have picked up any momentum from its Directors Guild Awards triumph.