Early on in this year’s Academy Awards race, I thought Benedict Cumberbatch was going to win for his lead role in Jane Campion’s “The Power of the Dog.” Things changed, however, when Will Smith won the Screen Actors Guild award for his turn as the patriarch of the Williams sisters in “King Richard.”

Also nominated for Best Actor Oscars are Javier Bardem in “Being the Ricardos,” Andrew Garfield in “Tick, Tick ... Boom!” and Denzel Washington in the Shakespeare adaptation “The Tragedy of Macbeth.” I think Smith will win for his role as the loving dad in “King Richard.”

The Best Actress race has a plethora of characters with various strong turns all around. This includes Jessica Chastain for “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” Olivia Colman for “The Lost Daughter,” Kristen Stewart for “Spen- cer,” Nicole Kidman for “Being the Ricardos” and Penélope Cruz for “Parallel Mothers.” Save for Chastain, all the other nominees have won some sort of Oscar.