I think there will be some real "WTF?" acting nominations this year
Last year's acting nominations were fairly predictable... Like Best Actor had only 7 real contenders competing for 5 slots, and Jesse Plemons and Joel Edgerton drew the shortest straws. Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress were similar with (especially) Chase Infiniti and (less so) Ariana Grande perhaps the only notable snubs. Even in Best Supporting Actor, Delroy Lindo was the most surprising acting nominee, but wasn't really that big of a shocker over Paul Mescal or his own co-star Miles Canton.
But I think this year is a free-for-all that will have several "surprise" nominees prevailing who are barely in the Top 10 most likely contenders.
It's just too late in the year with no real consensus at all beyond Malkovich, Moore, and Damon. By contrast, all of the 10 Best Picture nominees had been screened by this point last year, and favorites for 4 out of 5 acting slots had emerged in nearly every category. That's obviously not true this year, with the race fluid as hell (all-year-long "favorites" like "Digger," "Prima Facie," and "The Social Network" have all imploded in recent weeks while out-of-nowhere picks like "You Can See Everything" have risen), and a handful of major contenders like "Dune 3," "Cliff Booth," or "Werwulf" having not been seen yet, and another handful like "Artificial" or "Ink" barely seen.
Although people deny it, I know people use this board and follow this so closely because they're betting money, and although you could feel somewhat confident last year, I just don't think this is the year to do that at all. Buyer beware