NO ONE will forget the chaotic final moments of last year’s Academy Awards when the wrong film was announced as the best picture winner.

The cast and crew of retro-musical La La Land were on the stage making acceptance speeches when they realised the real winner was Moonlight.

This year, organisers will hope the ceremony goes off without a hitch in what is shaping up to be one of the most predictable award seasons.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri has scooped Golden Globes, British Academy of Film awards and Screen Actors Guild awards and is likely to continue the trend at the Oscars on Monday (WA time).

Gary Oldman’s amazing transformation to play Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour and Allison Janney’s portrayal of Tonya Harding’s mother La-Vona Golden in I, Tonya have been getting the recognition they deserve and should also pick up Academy Awards.

The one major category that is not so predictable is the Oscar for best director.

Jordan Peele (Get Out) and Greta Gerwig (Lady Bird) have been nominated for their first feature films. Either would be a worthy winner in what is traditionally a category dominated by white men.

Peele has become the first African-American to be nominated for best director, best screenplay and best picture in one year.

Gerwig is the fifth woman to be nominated in the best director category but only Kathryn Bigelow has won, for The Hurt Locker in 2010.

But if Gerwig or Peele are going to create history they’ll have to beat Christopher Nolan (Dunkirk), Paul Thomas Anderson (Phantom Thread) and frontrunner Guillermo del Toro (The Shape of Water).