2. Alfonso Cuaron: Best Director

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiTiKOy59o4&w=584&h=390]

Best Director will be this year’s hardest race to call, between Steve McQueen for 12 Years a Slave and Cuaron’s bravura work in Gravity. Although McQueen is gunning for history, I wouldn’t be sad to see Cuaron win, for the sheer triumph of his vision. Cuaron’s film proved you could do the impossible, taking cinema to places of which no one ever dared dream. An Oscar is a paltry reward for such accomplishments.