Who should (and who will) win this year’s Oscars?

If you like great film stories — especially great Texas film stories — it’s almost impossible to not like Richard Linklater.

He’s self-taught, having entered the filmmaking world after his dreams of playing baseball died. He’s as down to earth as his movies. His characters are blessed with the gift of philosophical gab. He began as a true independent, flirted with Hollywood and then returned to his roots as an independent and experimental storyteller.

Now the Austin-based filmmaker is poised to win a directing Oscar on Sunday night forBoyhood, which is also a front-runner for best picture. Both are among my picks and predictions in the major Oscar categories:

BEST PICTURE

American Sniper, Birdman, Boyhood, The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Imitation Game, Selma,The Theory of Everything, Whiplash

Should win: Boyhood

Will win: Birdman

From the original reviews:

Boyhood: For 12 years, Richard Linklater shot a linear story with the same cast, encompassing the hopes, fears and gloriously mundane passages of an early 21st-century Texas family. We see Mason (Ellar Coltrane) age before our eyes, from 5 to 18. The result is a loosely worn wonder, as close a facsimile to lived life as I've ever seen in a narrative film. If the title weren't already taken for the Roger Ebert documentary,Boyhood could be called Life Itself.

To say Boyhood wouldn't be that special if it were shot in a conventional manner is kind of like saying that elephant in the zoo wouldn't be so big if it weren't so big. When you see Mason enter junior high school, you gasp with recognition: Good lord, did he get tall all of a sudden. Boyhood overflows with such moments, but they're never stunts. In steering his characters and cast through more than a decade of setbacks and triumphs, musical trends and fashion statements, Linklater climbs into the mechanism of time and somehow condenses it and stretches it. (A)

Birdman: Some films are easier to admire than to love. Enter Birdman, an inventive, surreal backstage drama that wears its virtuosity on its sleeve, piles on meta-references and gradually gets a little chilly to the touch.

I want to like Birdman more, but I don't have to; it's already so pleased with itself. Watching the film is a little like hanging out with the smartest kid in class who knows exactly how smart he is. (Its subtitle is The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance.) (B)

DIRECTOR

Wes Anderson, The Grand Budapest Hotel; Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Birdman; Richard Linklater, Boyhood; Bennett Miller, Foxcatcher; Morten Tyldum, The Imitation Game

Should win: Richard Linklater

Will win: Richard Linklater

The Academy acknowledges Linklater for the determination needed to spend 12 years on a labor of love.

ACTOR

Steve Carell, Foxcatcher; Bradley Cooper, American Sniper; Benedict Cumberbatch, The Imitation Game; Michael Keaton, Birdman; Eddie Redmayne, The Theory of Everything

Should win: Bradley Cooper

Will win: Eddie Redmayne

It sounds crass to say disabilities win acting Oscars, but it's also true. Cooper was responsible for most of the nuance and humanity in American Sniper.

ACTRESS

Marion Cotillard, Two Days, One Night; Felicity Jones, The Theory of Everything; Julianne Moore, Still Alice; Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl; Reese Witherspoon, Wild

Should win: Julianne Moore

Will win: Julianne Moore

I don't think Still Alice represents Moore's best work; she's arguably even better in the upcoming Maps to the Stars. But it's close enough. The moments of early Alzheimer's panic are gut-punch powerful, even though the film is merely good.

SUPPORTING ACTOR

Robert Duvall, The Judge; Ethan Hawke, Boyhood; Edward Norton, Birdman; Mark Ruffalo, Foxcatcher; J.K. Simmons, Whiplash

Should win: J.K. Simmons

Will win: J.K. Simmons

He owns the screen every second he’s on, and he’s a well-liked character actor who has paid his dues.

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Patricia Arquette, Boyhood; Laura Dern, Wild; Keira Knightley, The Imitation Game; Emma Stone, Birdman; Meryl Streep, Into the Woods

Should win: Patricia Arquette

Will win: Patrica Arquette

Arquette is the emotional heart of the year’s best movie. Like Simmons, she’s a popular industry veteran.

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Birdman, Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Jr. and Armando Bo; Boyhood, Richard Linklater; Foxcatcher, E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman; The Grand Budapest Hotel, screenplay by Wes Anderson; story by Wes Anderson and Hugo Guinness; Nightcrawler, Dan Gilroy

Should win: The Grand Budapest Hotel

Will win: The Grand Budapest Hotel

It’s a lovely, writerly confection that melds Old Europe and classic Hollywood. Those nine nominations have to be good for something.

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

American Sniper, Jason Hall; The Imitation Game, Graham Moore; Inherent Vice, Paul Thomas Anderson; The Theory of Everything, Anthony McCarten; Whiplash, Damien Chazelle

Should win: The Imitation Game

Will win: The Imitation Game

Elegantly constructed and economical, Graham Moore’s screenplay is the driving force behind one of the year’s best movies.

MORE NOMINEES

ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

Big Hero 6, The Boxtrolls, How To Train Your Dragon 2, Song of the Sea, The Tale of The Princess Kaguya

Should win: Song of the Sea

Will win: How to Train Your Dragon 2

In a field where Disney's Big Hero 6 is kicking off a franchise and Dreamworks' How to Train Your Dragon 2 is continuing one, the vote may go with Dragon's bittersweet coming-of-age tale for a boy whose physical disability proves no deterrent to leadership. Song of the Sea should win because it's a ravishingly hand-drawn, poetically realized tale that bypasses predictable plot turns and goes straight for the heart with its reminder that children must make their own choices and if we try to protect them from sadness, they won't be able to feel joy.

Nancy Churnin

FOREIGN LANGUAGE

Ida (Poland), Leviathan (Russia), Tangerines (Estonia), Timbuktu (Mauritania), Wild Tales(Argentina)

DOCUMENTARY

Citizenfour, Finding Vivian Maier, Last Days in Vietnam, The Salt of the Earth, Virunga

87th Academy Awards

7:30 tonight, ABC (Channel 8). Approx. 3 hrs. Countdown to Oscars, 12:30 p.m. on E!; red-carpet coverage on E! at 4:30 p.m. and on ABC at 7 p.m.