Oscar predictions: Do your picks match ours?

While it's too late for academy members to cast their ballots (Oscar voting closed Tuesday), now's just the right time for Academy Awards watchers and movie fans to weigh in on favorites. Here are USA TODAY film critic Claudia Puig's predictions and personal picks for Sunday's 87th Academy Awards (ABC, 7 p.m. ET/4 PT).

BEST ACTRESS

Marion Cotillard, Two Days, One Night

Felicity Jones, The Theory of Everything

Julianne Moore, Still Alice

Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl

Reese Witherspoon, Wild

Will win/should win: Julianne Moore

Moore will edge out the competition with her deftly subtle performance of a 50-year-old professor diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's. Conveying an extraordinary blend of sadness, confusion and intelligence, she gracefully sidesteps melodrama in a role that's bound to resonate with voters. She's one of the most respected actresses of her generation and has been nominated five times, but never won an Oscar. It's her year.

BEST ACTOR

Steve Carell, Foxcatcher

Bradley Cooper, American Sniper

Benedict Cumberbatch, The Imitation Game

Michael Keaton, Birdman

Eddie Redmayne, The Theory of Everything

Will win: Eddie Redmayne

Playing a much-admired real-life figure who has succeeded despite a major physical disability is a well-trod path to an Oscar win. (Think Colin Firth in The King's Speech and Daniel Day-Lewis in My Left Foot.)The British Redmayne humanizes theoretical physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking in a superb performance that has already won every previous major acting prize, including the Screen Actors Guild and the Golden Globe. Every best-actor Oscar winner in the past decade has also won a SAG, so the statistics definitely skew in his favor.

Should win: Michael Keaton

Keaton gives the finest performance of his career as a washed-up former star of a superhero franchise, trying desperately to remain relevant and be taken seriously as an actor. His nerve-jangling and fascinatingly off-kilter embodiment of a damaged fiftysomething man in an existential crisis is moving and absurdly hilarious.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Patricia Arquette, Boyhood

Laura Dern, Wild

Keira Knightley, The Imitation Game

Emma Stone, Birdman

Meryl Streep, Into the Woods

Will win/should win: Patricia Arquette

Arguably a performance that should have gone in the lead actress category, Arquette's multidimensional portrayal of a complicated and loving single mother who changes, grows and comes into her own is easily the best role of her career. She has won every award heading into this final stretch, so it's hard to imagine the Oscar going to anyone else.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Robert Duvall, The Judge

Ethan Hawke, Boyhood

Edward Norton, Birdman

Mark Ruffalo, Foxcatcher

J.K. Simmons, Whiplash

Will win/should win: J.K. Simmons

Much-admired veteran character actor Simmons gives a tour-de-force performance as a merciless teacher at an elite music school, showcasing his demanding character's blend of decimating cruelty, biting humor and Machiavellian charm. His portrayal has drawn kudos from every quarter, not to mention a passel of precursor awards. He's a shoo-in.

BEST DIRECTOR

Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu, Birdman

Richard Linklater, Boyhood

Bennett Miller, Foxcatcher

Wes Anderson, The Grand Budapest Hotel

Morten Tyldum, The Imitation Game

Will win: Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu

The recent Directors Guild of America award went to Iñárritu, which signals a likely win among academy members, given the overlap between memberships. Winners of the DGA have won the directing Oscar for the last 66 years all but seven times. (The film was also the choice of the Producers Guild of America.) The Mexican-born director's technical prowess dazzled industry insiders, especially the way in which he made the film appear as if it were one long tracking shot (with the magic of editing). His bold realist film was a major creative achievement.

Should win: Richard Linklater

With the affection many in the academy feel for Boyhood and the admiration for the mastermind behind it, this could be the eighth time the Oscars deviate from the DGAs. Linklater spent 12 years making his opus, with no guarantee that it would ever be finished. He deserves an Oscar just for his vision, taking a huge gamble and sticking to it. That he made one of the best films of the decade clinches the deal.

BEST PICTURE

American Sniper

Birdman

Boyhood

The Grand Budapest Hotel

The Imitation Game

Selma

The Theory of Everything

Whiplash

Will win/should win:Boyhood

It comes down to a battle between A-grade movies that begin with the letter "B." Though support has grown for Birdman, particularly in recent weeks, and it's possible that votes for Birdman and Boyhood could cancel each other out, catapulting American Sniper into the top spot, the most likely scenario is that Boyhood will take the top award. While this is my favorite movie, possibly of all time, there are indications it might also be a top choice for many academy voters. While it didn't win the equivalent SAG Award, it did win best picture from the British Academy Film Awards, whose best-picture winners have won the top Oscar prize for the last six years. The ambitious and profoundly intimate tale of a boy's growing up is an intensely moving experience, the kind the academy likes to honor. Director Richard Linklater's sprawling and probing exploration of the human condition deserves, and will take, top honors.