Much like erratic swings in the stock market, the fates and fortunes of films in the Oscar race rise and fall with each passing awards show and critic's top 10 list.

A closer look at the winners from the film awards handed out so far this season would seem to indicate a clear favorite for best picture at the Academy Awards on Sunday: "The Hurt Locker."

The Kathryn Bigelow-directed film has been nominated by each of eight major industry guilds and critics groups that we looked at for the chart at left -- and it won half of the top honors.

The next closest competitor: "Up in the Air," with two wins and nominations from all but one group.

"Precious," "Inglourious Basterds" and "Avatar," ranked by number of nominations by the eight groups, round out the top five in the newly expanded field of 10 best picture nominees.

Down at the bottom of the list, with no nods among the eight groups: "The Blind Side," starring acting nominee Sandra Bullock. But just like the whims of the financial markets, you can never count a movie out until the final bell sounds.

-- Brady MacDonald

L.A. Times reviews of the 10 best picture nominees:

Casting can sometimes influence directors who write their own scripts. For Jason Reitman, he lets the movie take shape as he writes but soon recognizes when an actor is right for the part, which then in turn influences the character's development. For Quentin Tarantino, at least with "Inglourious Basterds," he "didn't have a clue who I was going to cast."

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So how important is the auditioning process in the making of a film? It depends on whom you ask. James Cameron certainly has a different approach than Lee Daniels, for instance.

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The five Oscar nominees for best director — Kathryn Bigelow for "The Hurt Locker," James Cameron for "Avatar," Lee Daniels for "Precious," Jason Reitman for "Up in the Air" and Quentin Tarantino for "Inglourious Basterds" — are some very familiar faces indeed. Not only have they been regulars on the award circuit this year, but they also all came to The Times last month to participate in The Envelope Directors Roundtable series.

Still, it's hard not to feel that other directors were overlooked. To find out the name of at least one worthy candidate who was not on the list — and learn who is the odds-on favorite to win — watch the above video of Times film critic Kenneth Turan and writer John Horn.

After all, while the nominees could watch from the comfort of home, Turan and Horn had to be at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills well before the crack of dawn Tuesday.

And keep coming back to 24 Frames for more videos today.

— Scott Sandell

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Marketing campaigns may not be the first thing one thinks of when imagining the creative lives of some of the country's most well-known auteurs. But directors behind this season's biggest movies wrestle to a surprising degree with the issues of selling a movie -- whether it's Quentin Tarantino finding parts of the process "inspirational" or directors like Lee Daniels, Jason Reitman or James Cameron understanding that these Faustian bargains can help expose their film to a wider audience. Hear how these directors feel about one of moviedom's trickiest balances.

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Hollywood may be bombarded by sequels, franchises and toy adaptations -- yet many of the year's most acclaimed films derive from little else besides their makers' imaginations. Five of the directors who've succeeded in creating something wholly original this season contemplate why Hollywood continues to be enamored by decades-old properties, with James Cameron taking the sternest tone. "You can make money on a movie that's not based on something else," he said. The drive for profits "is not an excuse for people to constantly be whining about how the business is failing and we have to do all this commercial stuff in order to pay the payments on our corporate jets."

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Film fans like to watch movies and opine on what should or shouldn't have made the final cut. But sometimes a movie's harshest critic is the person who made it. In this clip from our Envelope Directors Roundtable, filmmakers reveal the scenes they loved but had to let go. Whether it's a startling group-therapy moment in "Precious" or a Hans Landa bon mot in "Inglourious Basterds," these scenes are often strikingly good -- and yet they'll never see the light of day.

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Nearly every director who's ever worked anywhere near Hollywood makes compromises. But many directors also have a defining moment when they drew the line and clung tightly to their principles. For Quentin Tarantino it was declining to cut a potentially graphic scene over Harvey Weinstein's protestations. For Jason Reitman it was insisting on shooting in multiple locations when a studio was asking he shoot only in one. Hear what they and others on our roundtable did to elevate themselves from hired hands to artists.  

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