Oscar Night. Every movie fanatic's favorite evening may look decidedly different this year in the wake of the writers' strike.

Fortunately, the true movie die hard can take respite in knowing that perhaps the best day of the year will go off completely unscathed: Oscar Morning.

This is the day where the president of the Academy and a movie star, who likely will not get nominated for this year's ceremony, wake up at some ungodly hour, stand in front of a few TV monitors and read off the nominees for each category.

This is the most exciting day of the year, because unlike the big night every single movie is in play. Nominates for the 80th Academy Awards will be announced Tuesday, Jan. 22.

Despite the field being theoretically wide open, usually we have a pretty good idea who and what we'll see on those TV monitors. The following are the likely nominees for the 2008 ceremony as well as those certain to be ignored:

Best Picture

Bet The Farm: "No Country For Old Men", "There Will Be Blood"
Keep a Few Cows: "Juno"
Wager the Winter's Crop: "Into the Wild", "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly", "Michael Clayton", "Atonement"
What Odds Can I Get Against a Used John Deere?: "American Gangster", "Zodiac"
No Bet: "Once"

The phrase "wide-open" gets thrown around a lot at Oscar time, but the phrase is incredibly apt this year. None of the aforementioned films would even surprise me if their names were read off on Tuesday morning, making this one of the deepest races in years.

"No Country" and "Blood" are absolute locks. Their split of most of the critics' awards and love from each of the guilds has made them shoo-ins. "Juno" is as close to a lock, without being a lock, as you can get. It missed on the Directors Guild Of America (DGA) awards (the most accurate predictor of Best Picture), but since this film was mostly (and unjustly) praised for its screenplay it's easy to see how it was overlooked by the directors. It's gotten a lot of great buzz and superb box office returns. It's in.

The last two slots are very difficult. "Gangster" did not get the great reviews it needed so it's probably out. "Zodiac" got incredible buzz during the last few weeks, but it's probably too little too late. "Atonement" won the Golden Globe but that was at a press conference so nobody noticed.

That leaves "Into the Wild", "Michael Clayton" and "The Diving Bell." Each film received both a DGA and Writers Guild of America (WGA) nomination. "Wild" missed a Producers Guild Nomination (in favor of "Juno") but did lead the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards in nominations. The actors are the biggest voting group so that means it's probably in. "Diving Bell" has been a critics' darling all year and reaped the most awards after the two lead dogs. It gets a slight edge over "Clayton" for the fifth slot.

"Once" will not get nominated despite its being perhaps the finest ever onscreen representation of how singer/songwriters produce their work and how that music can connect two people. Brilliantly acted and filmed by a troupe of first-timers, this was one of the most effective films of the year, and it never took the easy way out by becoming formulaic or slipping into Hollywood clichés.