After years of cookie-cutter Oscar nominations — mostly controversial by omission — there’s a whiff of excitement to this year’s awards.

Maybe it’s the diverse range of nominees in all categories — surely a direct response to the hammering the Academy took in 2016 over its monochromatic membership and whitewashed nominees; It could also be the pleasure of seeing genre fare this well represented, via the superlative The Shape of Water’s astonishing 13 nominations, or the large presence of Get Out.

Or it could be being the chance to cheer on the burgeoning, brilliant talents of Jordan Peele and Greta Gerwig, or the presence of so many films driven by women on the Best Picture list, or all the films concerned with the importance of sticking things out when all around us is at its lowest ebb – a particularly relevant through-line in 2018.

There’s always been a sprinkling of stardust about the Academy Awards, but the best thing about this year’s batch is that they more closely reflect the world we live in while losing none of their magic.

Here’s a cheat sheet for the main categories, and some other things to look out for as well:

Best Picture

The nominees: Call Me By Your Name

Darkest Hour

Dunkirk

Get Out

Lady Bird

Phantom Thread

The Post

The Shape of Water

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

The headline: After all these years, they’ve mostly got it right.

The background: Having both Get Out and The Shape of Water on that list is a rare victory for genre films, which the Academy is generally leery about. But there are a lot of questions here — will they cannibalise each others’ votes, allowing a gem like Lady Bird to sneak in? And, in the case of Get Out, could the Academy really give the top gong two years in a row to two films that so exquisitely detail the minority experience, after last year’s much-deserved victory for Moonlight?

The nominations are probably as far as it gets for Three Billboards, which does a lot of things very well but handles race in a way that is somewhere between inelegant and inadequate; likewise for Darkest Hour, which is the sort of overblown fluff that saw The King’s Speech inexplicably win in 2010 from a field that included Black Swan, The Social Network and Toy Story 3. It’s still hard to accept that one.

The heart says: Get Out is a staggering, genre-bending achievement that was our pick for the best film of the year, and that hasn’t changed. But there is a lot of goodness on that list: Lady Bird is tender and touching; The Phantom Thread is as sumptuous as it is surprising; The Post is proof that even minor Spielberg is better than most; and The Shape Of Water is simply glorious, a creature feature wrapped in a fairy tale that also happens to be the most human film of the year.

The head says: The Shape of Water is the bookmakers’ favourite, but Phantom Thread just might surprise us all.

Best Actress

The nominees: Sally Hawkins, The Shape of Water

Frances McDormand, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Margot Robbie, I, Tonya

Saoirse Ronan, Lady Bird

Meryl Streep, The Post

The headline: Meryl Streep breaks her own record to become the most nominated human being in the history of the Academy Awards, and those nominations for The Shape of Water keep adding up.

The background: That’s just the 21 nods for Streep, then, since her first nomination for The Deer Hunter in 1979. She seems to turn out performances on an annual basis that other actors take their lifetimes to prepare for, and will draw level with Katharine Hepburn with the most Oscar wins for an actor if she takes home her fourth this year.

The heart says: Sally Hawkins is an actual genius, and if you haven’t seen Happy-Go-Lucky please stop reading and rectify this immediately. It is hard to articulate just how good she is in The Shape of Water; the film hangs off her performance, first the contours of the chasm of loneliness she carries inside her, and then her surprise and delight as it slowly fills up.

The head says: This is Saoirse Ronan’s third nomination, and she’s 23 years old, having played everything from vampires to assassins since her first-ever nod for Atonement all the way back in 2007.  “Third time lucky” would be a disservice; there’s nothing remotely lucky about her performance in Lady Bird — it’s all fire and flaws and freshness breathed into the well-worn outline of a coming-of-age story.

Best Actor

The nominees: Timothée Chalamet, Call Me By Your Name

Daniel Day-Lewis, Phantom Thread

Daniel Kaluuya, Get Out

Gary Oldman, Darkest Hour

Denzel Washington, Roman J. Israel, Esq.

The headline: No James Franco, no Tom Hanks, yes Daniel Kaluuya.

The background: Franco is the big name missing from this list, after taking home the corresponding Golden Globe for The Disaster Artist. But the recent sexual harassment allegations he’s faced, as well as some very public call-outs for being a visible participant in the #timesup movement, look to have scuppered his chances. Gary Oldman is the favourite, despite lingering allegations of violence and intolerance that make for disturbing reading. Daniel Kaluuya, meanwhile, looks to have nicked in ahead of Tom Hanks in the race for best actor, which is really bloody surprising to say the least.

The heart says: Kaluuya, for the sort of soulful, internal performance that seldom gets rewarded at this level. Sure, Get Out ends big and bloody, but that’s just the cathartic final blowout of the accumulated microagressions Kaluuya has to bear through the film’s runtime – many of which he bears with little more than a wry, knowing smile that he never allows to reach the hurt in his eyes.

The head says: Timothée Chalamet, for an aching, heartbreaking, sweet and wise performance. He’s the purest distillation of the gravity and grace that suffuse Call Me By Your Name.

Best Director

The Nominees: Christopher Nolan, Dunkirk

Greta Gerwig, Lady Bird

Guillermo del Toro, The Shape of Water

Jordan Peele, Get Out

Paul Thomas Anderson, Phantom Thread

The headline: Greta Gerwig breaks an eight-year all-male streak with her nomination. It’s also the first time that every best director nominee directed their own script, testament to just how stacked this category is – which means del Toro, Peele and Gerwig will again lock horns in the tussle for best original screenplay.

The background: Jordan Peele is the first person of colour to be nominated for writing, directing and producing, and only the third person in history to get nominated for all three with his directorial debut. Greta Gerwig is nominated for her solo directing debut, after years building a resume of glittering indie jewels. And Guillermo del Toro, who for decades has brought compassion and heart to a menagerie of monsters human and otherwise, has given us a real treat.

The heart says: The heart is currently engaged in an internal tug-of-war between del Toro and Peele, and will be delighted and disappointed in equal measure no matter who wins. A win for Gerwig would be wonderful, too.

The head says: Nothing for Nolan, who has been nominated twice before, for The Dark Knight in 2008 and Inception in 2010. Del Toro is the odds-on favourite here, but Gerwig is well in the running. Sorry, this one is just too damn tight.

Best Supporting Actress

Mary J. Blige, Mudbound

Allison Janney, I, Tonya

Lesley Manville, Phantom Thread

Laurie Metcalf, Lady Bird

Octavia Spencer, The Shape of Water

The headline: Mary J. Blige gets a nod for Mudbound, as well as as a nomination for her song Mighty River, from the same film.

The background: The glaring absence from Get Out’s swag of nominations was Betty Gabriel, who had a hell of a lot of heavy lifting to do it and did it with nimble aplomb. She’s been rightly lauded for a scene – you know the one – in front of a mirror, when she foreshadows the film’s reveal; here is someone trapped in her own head by the world we live in and the people who wear their privilege like someone else’s skin. Another surprising omission was Holly Hunter, who lit up the screen in The Big Sick.

The heart says: Laurie Metcalf, who is one of the greatest things about Lady Bird, and that is a film with very many great things about it.

The head says: It’s likely to go down to the wire between Alison Janney and Laurie Metcalf.

Best Supporting Actor

Willem Dafoe, The Florida Project

Woody Harrelson, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Richard Jenkins, The Shape of Water

Christopher Plummer, All the Money in the World

Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

The headline: Christopher Plummer, who won in 2010 for the lovely Beginners, gets All the Money in the World’s only nod after being brought in by director Ridley Scott to replace the disgraced Kevin Spacey. Which was all very well until news of the seriously massive pay disparity between stars Mark Wahlberg and Michelle Williams broke, though that looks to have ended fairly well.

The background: The cynical decision to position Armie Hammer for this category, so as not to split the votes with his Call Me By Your Name co-star Timothée Chalamet, proved fruitless. And the underseen The Florida Project picked up its only nod here.

The heart says: Richard Jenkins was an absolute joy in The Shape of Water.

The head says: Willem Dafoe or Sam Rockwell, with the latter just shading it. 

And A Few Quick Notes On The Rest

Original Screenplay:

I desperately want Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani to win this for The Big Sick, because they are just the best. But this is the toughest category to pick for a reason. Lady Bird has its nose in front, but Get Out is very close behind.

It’s only now settling in. Wow.

Emily & I met when she heckled me at a comedy show in the back of a diner in 2006. We wrote a movie about it & 12 years later we’re nominated for an Oscar.

I will never get over this. https://t.co/iaFN8mq7iu

— Kumail Nanjiani (@kumailn) January 23, 2018

Adapted Screenplay:

Dee Rees, who wrote Mudbound with Virgil Williams, is the first black woman to be nominated in this category. Also noteworthy is Logan, a stripped-back Western with all the violence and tragedy that implies, which is the first ever live-action superhero film to be nominated in a writing category.

Cinematography: 

The legendary Roger Deakins picked up his 14th nomination for cinematography for Blade Runner 2049, a film that for all its flaws deserves to be seen on the biggest screen possible; a win will somehow be his first. Mudbound, meanwhile, earned a nod for Rachel Morrison, the first ever female director of photography to get one.

Costume Design:

It will be a travesty if Phantom Thread doesn’t take this for its luxuriant depiction of dressmaking, a love sewn into its very lining.

Sound Mixing/Sound Editing:

Likewise, the meta force is strong with Baby Driver for these categories.

Original Song:

Win or not, but watching Sufjan Stevens get up on stage to sing Mystery of Love from Call Me By Your Name is going to be the most ethereally beautiful thing to happen at the Oscars since Elliott Smith performed Miss Misery in 1998. The winner that year? That famed karaoke staple, Celine Dion’s My Heart Will Go On, of course.