With just a few days left before awards season officially comes to a close, the Oscars race is closer than ever. We put the top categories to the test to determine who should be honored with an Academy Award, versus the films that will walk away with a statue this Sunday. Want to weigh in yourself? Cast your own vote in CNN's Oscar ballot.
Editor's note: Jim Cullen is chairman of the history department at the Fieldston School in New York and author of "Sensing the Past: Hollywood Stars and Historical Visions" (Oxford University Press).
(CNN) -- If, as many observers believe, Daniel-Day Lewis wins the Academy Award for best actor on Sunday, he will become the first man to win three (Meryl Streep has done this; Maggie Smith might match her if she wins for her turn in Quartet). Such an honor would ratify Day-Lewis' standing not simply as one of the greatest actors of his time, but for all time.
Like Robert De Niro, Day-Lewis is seen as the quintessential method actor, a commitment he has taken to extremes in his well-known penchant for embodying his characters even when the cameras aren't rolling. Day-Lewis also is notable for the extraordinary breadth of roles he has played.
He first came to global attention in 1985 when he appeared simultaneously as the priggish Cecil Vyse in the Merchant-Ivory film adaptation of E.M. Forster's 1907 novel "Room with a View" as well as Johnny, the gay East End punk, in Stephen Frears' brilliantly brash "My Beautiful Launderette."
But it has been in playing Americans where Day-Lewis has made his most distinctive impact. Between 1988 and 2007 he played a string of American figures that ranged from a 17th century Puritan ("The Crucible") to a contemporary art collector (the otherwise forgettable "Stars and Bars"). His turn as the lead character in the 1992 film version of James Fenimore Cooper's 1825 novel "Last of the Mohicans" has become a classic, while his role as the driven oil prospector Daniel Plainview in "There Will Be Blood" won him his second Academy Award for best actor in 2008.
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For all the range of the characters, however, there is a surprising degree of continuity in this gallery of Americans.
The quintessential Day-Lewis character is a frontiersman, even when that frontiersman is disguised as a gang member staking out a territory ("Gangs of New York"), or an iconoclastic Manhattan attorney chafing against social convention ("The Age of Innocence") on the same New York streets. Day-Lewis always plays a man apart -- someone at odds with the institutional arrangements that surround him. If he is to survive, which in many cases he does not, his protagonists must move to the margins, finding a place on the outskirts of society.
It's in this context that one can begin to appreciate how Day-Lewis's latest Oscar-nominated performance as Abraham Lincoln breaks fresh ground. For the first time, he's not playing an estranged outsider, but rather a man at the epicenter of his society, exercising the levers of power to -- successfully -- bend a system toward his will. And that will is not of a personal and/or self-destructive variety; instead, it's a collective moral vision codified in a 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to end slavery.
The novelty of the performance doesn't end there. We all know about figures who attain greatness in public life but whose private lives are a mess, repellent, or both. Abraham Lincoln has rarely been portrayed as a tyrant (except by die-hard Confederates), but often as inscrutable.
But more than any other actor, even Henry Fonda's folksy "Young Mr. Lincoln" (1939), Day-Lewis' version seems like a likable, three-dimensional human being. He seems equally at ease chatting with troops, black and white, as he is in spinning a yarn for his Cabinet. He argues with his wife and son to the point of losing his temper (there's a memorable slap at Robert Lincoln, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt). Much has been made of Day-Lewis' rendition of Lincoln's voice, free of the stentorian tones one might expect of a man of his literal or figurative stature; contemporaries reported it as high and reedy, which is how the actor renders it here.
This Lincoln is a man of moderation. Though clearly trying to lead public opinion in the face of significant political opposition, he's no radical; his foil in the film is Rep. Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones) who indeed was part of a Republican-party faction impatient with Lincoln's pace on emancipation. Stevens is portrayed far more kindly in "Lincoln" than he was almost a century ago as the villain of D.W. Griffith's 1915 epic "Birth of a Nation," but the film ultimately affirms Lincoln's recognition that compromise (including possible moral compromise) is an indispensable element of statecraft.
Yet for all the novelty of this performance, the role is of a piece with Day-Lewis' larger body of work. For while his Lincoln is far more integrated into the fabric of his society than any of his other characters, he remains a man who struggles against a sense of isolation, whether personal or political, amid the maelstrom. Unable to escape the fierce hatreds that rage around him, he becomes a casualty in a war he is determined to prosecute toward a just end.
The truest Americans, Day-Lewis seems to be telling us, are those who can never be fully at home in the world: Our collective character is a restless one. It's an insight with which Day-Lewis may make some history of his own.
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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Jim Cullen.
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What a difference a few awards shows make! In the weeks since the Golden Globes, the Oscar outlook has shifted dramatically. The tight competition between "Lincoln" and "Zero Dark Thirty" has made way for "Argo" to come from behind as the movie most likely to win Best Picture (even if Ben Affleck was snubbed with no nomination for himself as Best Director). "The thing about this movie, we're solving a really horrible problem creatively using our imagination instead of bullets," said co-star Tate Donovan (who plays the leader of the "houseguests").
That is opposed to "Zero Dark Thirty," under fire for its depiction of torture. "Argo," a lesser-known CIA story, has had less scrutiny for its version of the truth and benefits from a pro-Hollywood stance. Still, the much more gripping "Zero Dark Thirty" is the superior exercise and should win. Other contenders include "Amour," "Beasts of the Southern Wild," "Django Unchained," "Les Miserables," "Life of Pi" and "Silver Linings Playbook."
When the Best Director category nominations were announced, it was all about the snubs: No Ben Affleck! No Kathryn Bigelow! No Tom Hooper! No Quentin Tarantino! Instead, we got Michael Haneke for "Amour," first-time director Benh Zeitlin for "Beasts of the Southern Wild," Ang Lee for "Life of Pi," Steven Spielberg for "Lincoln" and David O. Russell for "Silver Linings Playbook." Now that the tide has turned in favor of "Argo" for Best Picture, this is Steven Spielberg's category to lose ...
... perhaps to "Silver Linings Playbook," the first film in 31 years to be nominated in all four acting categories (the last one was "Reds" in 1981). That achievement should be recognized by honoring its director and his work with his cast. "The movie's your child, all the actors are your children, and you want to stay invested for them," Russell said. "All the rest ultimately doesn't matter."
Best Original Screenplay is a tough category to predict this year. Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained" is a strong contender, given his Golden Globe trophy, but that was an upset. This might be the category that allows "Zero Dark Thirty" to be honored in lieu of Best Picture, in recognition of Mark Boal's extensive original reporting for the film (even if what he dug up remains in dispute regarding the use of torture). "If anyone's asking, we stand by the film," Boal said. "The film allows us to look back at the past in a way that gives us a clear-sighted appraisal of the future." In his favor: Boal won Sunday night at the Writers Guild Awards.
Adapting a screenplay is not necessarily easier than writing something new, especially when it comes to making a taut thriller out of a memoir (Chris Terrio's "Argo"), a fantasy from a play (Zeitlin and Lucy Alibar's "Beasts of the Southern Wild," from Alibar's earlier work), a fable from a work of magical realism (David Magee's "Life of Pi," from Yann Martel's novel), a procedural from a dense history (Tony Kushner's "Lincoln," from Doris Kearns Goodwin's biography) and a dramedy from a first-person novel (David O. Russell's "Silver Linings Playbook," from Matthew Quick's book). Kushner is the likely winner, with Russell close behind.
But it would be nice if the modest "Beasts" could take it home. "I truthfully had no expectation for this movie other than to make it, and even then, I wasn't sure even that would happen," Alibar said. "I'm still high on my movie getting made, and I'm not expecting anything."
Daniel Day-Lewis could make history with his third Best Actor Oscar win with "Lincoln," and the other actors in his category don't stand a chance of breaking his streak. To think Day-Lewis originally turned down the part a few times! "If you didn't know what a f***ing idiot I was before, you know now," the actor joked at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards, as he had to be convinced to play the 16th president. In any other year, this would be a tight race, considering Bradley Cooper's amazing portrayal of a man battling bipolar disorder in "Silver Linings Playbook," Hugh Jackman's musical performance in "Les Miserables," Joaquin Phoenix's role as an unbalanced veteran in "The Master" and Denzel Washington's alcoholic pilot in "Flight."
If -- and it's a big if -- Day-Lewis doesn't take home Oscar, it should go to Phoenix, who is just as Method and devoted to his craft as the man playing Lincoln. In any other year, he would.
The race for Best Actress seems a foregone conclusion, with Jennifer Lawrence as the favorite to win for "Silver Linings Playbook." "Amour's" Emmanuelle Riva (86 on Oscar night) and "Beasts' " Quvenzhane Wallis (6 when she shot the film) are the oldest and youngest nominees ever in this category, and Riva -- who won at the BAFTAs -- might be the upset. Still, Lawrence will and should win. "My first scene was screaming and crying a million different versions of the same speech," she said. "It was really intense. I've never worked this way before, where the director is shouting at you, 'No, say this!' But there's never a moment where you're dead behind the eyes."
The award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role is much harder to predict. All five nominees are Oscar winners, the first time that's happened in an acting category. And there's no clear-cut favorite: Tommy Lee Jones, who was the former front-runner, won for "Lincoln" at the SAG Awards; Christoph Waltz won for "Django Unchained" at the Golden Globes and BAFTAs; and Philip Seymour Hoffman won for "The Master" at the Critics Choice Awards. Alan Arkin, however, hasn't won anything for "Argo," and neither has Robert De Niro for "Silver Linings Playbook." Yet De Niro, who hasn't had an Oscar nod since "Cape Fear" in 1991, remains a strong possibility.
It's impossible to say who will win, only who should: Waltz. His "Django" bounty hunter, despite being a foreigner, proves more witty and articulate than anyone else in the film -- and the other films.
Anne Hathaway is widely considered a lock for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, even though her competition includes Amy Adams for "The Master," Sally Field for "Lincoln," Helen Hunt for "The Sessions" and Jacki Weaver for "Silver Linings Playbook." Hathaway has been sweeping the Golden Globes, SAG, Critics' Choice and BAFTA Awards, but she's not entirely unbeatable: She did not win the other critics' group awards (which honored Field and Adams instead). And Hathaway is nervous. "I mean, getting up in front of the entire world, trying not to look like a fool?" she said. "Nothing outside the ordinary!"
But wouldn't it be extraordinary if someone who actually had more screen time in her own film could be an upset in this category? Field played a character (Mary Todd Lincoln) who knew that history might regard her as unlikeable. Wouldn't it be something if it turned out 
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