Vanyaland predicts the Oscars: Vegas favorites, dark horse picks, and perfect-world selections

Best Director

Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester by the Sea
Damien Chazelle, La La Land
Mel Gibson, Hacksaw Ridge
Barry Jenkins, Moonlight
Denis Villeneuve, Arrival

Vegas Favorite: Chazelle (1/30), who, like his movie, is a pretty heavy favorite. We don’t think there’s much wrong with these odds, given the chance that La La Land could start streaking at any moment and a strong correlation between Best Picture and Best Director wins exists. All in all, he’s sitting in a pretty good spot.

Dark Horse: Jenkins (10/1). There’s also never been a better chance for a director’s movie to win Best Picture and they themselves lose the Best Director award. Until 2012, 21 out of 26 movies fit into that correlation, with splits coming roughly every five years. That all changed when Ang Lee won for Life of Pi but lost to Argo in the Best Picture race, and three of the last four years have seen a split. We think there’s a good chance this might continue, and Moonlight is a swell choice if there’s going to be one. It would also be a history-making one, given that black directors have lost each time they’ve been nominated (only three times in history, which is just awful).

In a Perfect World: Jenkins.