And the Oscar Goes to ...

Sunday, February 24th, Academy voters will determine who walks home with this year's coveted Oscar, and as it turns out, the competition is fierce.

Let's look at five contenders.

There's Lincoln, up for the lion's share of awards including best movie and director with veteran Stephen Spielberg at the helm and Daniel Day Lewis giving audiences more than a glimpse into the very soul of a beloved and hated commander in chief. Day's intimate portrayal of the Civil War president agonizing over a young nation is worthy of Best Actor.

Though Les Miserables is a musical and has way too much music with no song and dance, its cast did well and are up for Best Actor (Hugh Jackman) and Best Original Song. Prognosticators say it's a shoe in for Anne Hathaway (Princess Diaries, The Devil Wears Prada) to grab Best Supporting Actress. That the film's mostly a Debbie Downer could play against the odds were it not for an underlying thread of redemption that runs its characters ragged yet inspired.

Kathryn Bigelow's at it again, directing another war thriller nominated for an Oscar. In 2010, her moving account of soldiers deployed to Iraq to snub out explosives nabbed the Oscar for Best Picture with The Hurt Locker. This time it's Zero Dark Thirty, a dramatization of a decade's worth of highbrow snooping to locate al Qaida leader and instigator of 9/11, Osama bin Laden, and bring him to justice. The film's protaganist, Jessica Chastain, is up for Best Actress, and shows her acting chops in this film from ditzy gal in "The Help" to a CIA intelligence officer with killer instincts whose research gets the Navy Seals on board for a wild ride to Pakistan to seal the deal.

Let's include Ben Affleck in this amazing mix of filmmakers with his Argo movie, a declassified tale of how the CIA posed as fake film producers to smuggle six stray American diplomats, holed up in the Canadian Embassy, from the clutches of revolutionary Iranians during the Iran Crisis. This film could take home the Oscar for its suspense so raw and well crafted that audiences were watching the entire film on the edge of their seats. The only flaw comes during the credits when President Carter recaps the end of the Hostage Crisis with no mention of how newly inaugurated Ronald Reagan orchestrated release of those hostages by intimidating their captors.

And then there's the hyped Silver Linings Playbook, a movie I saved for last, skeptical that it'd be preachy or repetitious of other films about mental illness. Forget all that. Playbook is magical. Largely in part to Best Actress nominee Jennifer Lawrence (The Hunger Games), who plays opposite Bradley Cooper (The Words, Hangover), up for Best Actor. Lawrence captivates Cooper and moviegoers from the moment she's on screen. It's this year's Cinderella story about two wounded souls who understand what it's like to try to recapture some semblance of normalcy when the rug's been pulled from underneath. This movie's a smart, sexy love story with off putting characters full of endearing qualities and intense chemistry despite their dysfunctional DNA.