2009 is well past halfway done by now, which means we're still two months away from seeing any real Oscar contenders hit theaters. But that just makes it more fun to speculate which films will walk away with the most awards season brass. The new rules that allow for ten Best Picture nominees may shake things up this year, but we all know that no matter how many films get nominated, only an extremely select few will have a true shot at winning. Here are my guesses at which ones will make it into the mix:

Nine

When you're a big, splashy musical, you're pretty much guaranteed to generate some preliminary Oscar buzz (unless you're something ridiculous like Mamma Mia!, which Nine doesn't appear to be). When you have a cast comprised almost entirely of past Oscar winners and nominees (Daniel Day-Lewis, Nicole Kidman, Marion Cotillard, and Penelope Cruz just to name a few), you're almost guaranteed a nomination. And when you've got a director at the helm (Rob Marshall) who's already led a big splashy musical to Oscar glory once before (Chicago), you've got to be considered a front-runner. For now, it's just a waiting game to make sure Nine will live up to its staggering level of pedigree.

The Academy usually leaves one slot open for a gritty indie. This year, with the expansion of the nominees list, it could leave room for more, but considering the fact that the rule change is being touted as a way to boost the chances of more populist fare, it may be even harder for small films to sneak in. That means Academy members will likely be forced to choose between these two festival favorites. Critics have been hailing The Hurt Locker as the best film of the year all summer, but the Sundance hit Precious (formerly known as Push: Based on the novel by Sapphire) is the one getting the all-important November release date. It will be interesting to see if the gripping Iraq war thriller or the harsh urban drama will be carrying the most momentum when awards season finally arrives.

If the new rule works, Up should earn the geniuses at Pixar their first Best Picture nomination. You'd be hard-pressed to find a negative word written about this animated gem anywhere, and if the Academy is really going to start handing out Best Picture nominations to movies people have actually seen, I have a feeling that the Pixar films, which have swept the Best Animated Feature category since its inception, will be easier for them to embrace than an intelligent action film like Star Trek.

It wouldn't be the Oscars without a big prestigious literary adaptation stealing all the biggest prizes, and these two are the most eagerly anticipated of the year. The Road was the more acclaimed novel, but The Lovely Bones has Oscar-friendly names like Peter Jackson, Susan Sarandon, Stanley Tucci, and Rachel Weisz attached to it (although Viggo Mortensen, Charlize Theron, and the Weinstein brothers aren't exactly names to sneeze at, either). Both of these films could easily make it into the race.

The directors of the rest of these films were probably feeling pretty good about their shot at Oscar until news broke that Clint Eastwood was directing a historical drama with Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon about Nelson Mandela's campaign for South Africa to host the 1995 Rugby World Cup. This last-minute surprise is reminiscent of the 2004 race, when Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby came out of nowhere to sweep several of the top Oscar races, including Best Picture. On the other hand, with the world watching him, Eastwood's subsequent Oscar hopes for Flags of Our Fathers, Changeling, and Gran Torino have all come up short. Clint will most likely be a force to be reckoned with in the Oscar race, but until these films actually get released, it's still anyone's game.