The 90th annual Academy Awards are just around the corner, and this year, it seems like most of the major categories (Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor and Actress) have large frontrunners and little debate about who should/will win (except for Best Picture, but that will be circled back around to at the end). What will make or break your Oscar pool this year will likely be the technical categories and short films. Here are the odds, underdogs and picks you should make to beat friends and co-workers and win your Oscars pool.

Cinematography: “The Shape of Water” is likely to win a handful of statuettes come Sunday night, but the Cinematography Oscar might slip right through its weird fish hands. Roger Deakins has been a perennial Oscars bridesmaid. In the 35 years he has been working as a cinematographer, he has garnered an impressive 14 Oscar nominations and no wins. Look for that to change Sunday when he gets his long-deserved Oscar win for his work on “Blade Runner 2049.”

Film Editing: The Film Editing category comes down to a race between two movies: “Dunkirk” and “Baby Driver.” “Dunkirk” seems to be a big favorite in this category. The movie likely only has a chance in the technical awards, so perhaps the Academy will reward Christopher Nolan’s World War II epic with as many technical awards as they can give it. But this category has favored the kinetic twitchiness of recent winners like “Whiplash” and “The Bourne Ultimatum,” so Edgar Wright’s music-video style action throughout “Baby Driver” may give it the edge. “Baby Driver” might be the underdog with 7-2 odds, but there is a  fair confidence it can pull an upset here.

Sound Mixing/Sound Editing: If “Dunkirk” does not win film editing, expect it to win both of the technical sound awards. However, if “Dunkirk” does win Film Editing, these two categories will split, with “Mixing” going to “Dunkirk” and “Editing” going to “Baby Driver.” But if predictions about Film Editing are right, these two awards should both belong to “Dunkirk.”

Production Design: Some viewers may be ballsy and want to be all in on “Blade Runner 2049” as a long-shot underdog in this category. Best Production Design will be one of the many awards that “The Shape of Water” will take home on Oscars night.

Costume Design: This is an easy lock for Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Phantom Thread,” and anyone who has seen the film will have this as one of the easier categories to guess. Unfortunately, not many people have seen it, so people should pick this to win and soar above the rest of your friends who pick “Beauty and the Beast” to win.

The Acting Categories: Usually these categories are the subject of many water-cooler debates, with most of the nominees in a probable position to take home their awards. This year, the acting categories are mostly all locks with Allison Janney, Sam Rockwell, Francis McDormand and

 all poised to win Best Supporting Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Actress and Best Actor, respectively. Gary Oldman is the biggest favorite of the bunch with 1-10 odds of taking home Best Actor.

Best Picture: “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” is currently the favorite to win Best Picture, with “The Shape of Water” not too far behind. But the voting process for Best Picture uses an instant runoff method, which seems to favor non-polarizing films that many voters list as their second or third favorites. A “Three Billboards” voter might list “Shape of Water” toward the bottom of their ballot, and a “Shape of Water” voter might have “Three Billboards” toward the bottom of theirs, but both voters probably have “Lady Bird” as their No. 2/3. For that reason, many like “Lady Bird” to pull the upset of the night and take home that coveted Best Picture win. Also helping this theory is the fact that the past five years at the Oscars have seen the Best Director winner go on to lose Best Picture. With Guillermo Del Toro basically a lock for a Best Director win, recent history suggests “The Shape of Water” will not also take home Best Picture gold.

At 9-1 odds, “Lady Bird” can win you some money and can ensure that the biggest win of the Academy Awards is you taking home that coveted Oscars Pool glory.

Image from Jimmy Kimmel Live via YouTube.com