19th Annual Screen Actors Guild Award Winners

The Golden Globes turned out to be more of a prognosticator for awards season as this weekend reaped more awards for Ben Affleck's "Argo." The Best Picture nominee which, after Oscar nomination morning in the wake of Affleck's Best Director snub looked down for the count, is now the easy front-runner to win. And this comes after the film's win from the Producers Guild of America and Sunday night's Best Ensemble win at the 19th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards.

While a Best Ensemble win at the SAGs doesn't always mean a boost for Best Picture potential (see last year's win for "The Help"), it certainly does mean something when the picture is busy picking up other accolades, as well. And also when it was widely expected that other more actor-oriented films like "Lincoln" or "Silver Linings Playbook" would've nabbed the top SAG prize. "Argo" is giant right now and could likely become the first film in a very long time to win Best Picture without its director not only winning but not even earning a nomination.

Now it's pretty much guaranteed Ben Affleck will also be winning the Directors Guild of America, too. Where does that leave the Oscar director race? David O. Russell? Steven Spielberg? Ang Lee? Hard to say.

Three acting categories are locks after Sunday's ceremony. Anne Hathaway for "Les Miserables" will take Best Supporting Actress, Jennifer Lawrence for "Silver Linings Playbook" will win Best Actress (in a tight race against running-mate Jessica Chastain for "Zero Dark Thirty") and Daniel Day-Lewis for "Lincoln" will win Best Actor.

Tommy Lee Jones winning Best Supporting Actor for "Lincoln" gives him a boost while Christoph Waltz for "Django Unchained" (not nominated for a SAG) won the Golden Globe. It's pretty much a toss-up between the two as I could see the academy going for either.

I'm thrilled about the awards success of "Argo." It's a great movie, Ben Affleck deserves the praise as a young and talented actor-turned-director (especially in light of that impossible-to-ignore Oscar snub) and it makes for a wild comeback story for Oscar history.

Check here for a full list of winners from the 19th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards.

19th Annual SAG Award Nominations

David O. Russell's "Silver Linings Playbook" made an impressive appearance this morning with four SAG award nominations during the announcement for the 19th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards. Both of its leads, Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper, as well as a supporting nod for Robert De Niro and a Best Ensemble nomination made up the four total. Tying at four was Spielberg's "Lincoln" with nominations in the same categories for Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, Tommy Lee Jones and the cast.

Along with "Silver Linings" for Best Ensemble, the nominated films were "Lincoln," "Les Miserables," "Argo" and "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" which gives the latter film a slight edge toward a possible (but still long shot) Best Picture nomination. The obvious snub here is for "Zero Dark Thirty" which has otherwise been getting plenty of accolades.

The Best Actor nominations here pretty much affirm what we'll see for the category at the Oscars. That is, the usual suspects with John Hawkes for "The Sessions" and Hugh Jackman for "Les Miserables" getting in over the likes of previous contendor Joaquin Phoenix for "The Master."

Best Actress got a bit of a shake-up with Helen Mirren for "Hitchcock" and Naomi Watts for "The Impossible" re-emerging over two major snubs for Quvenzhane Wallis for "Beasts of the Southern Wild" and Emmuanelle Riva for "Amour." Somehow I can't see this overlook happening come Oscar nomination morning.

And it looks like we may have our very first Bond villain make its way to an Oscar nomination in the Best Supporting Actor category. Then again, never before has a Bond villain been played by the entirely capable Javier Bardem. The actor received another nod for his turn in "Skyfall," extending his reach to Oscar potential. This, however, meant that Matthew McConaughey for "Magic Mike" got edged out.

Sneaking their way into Best Supporting Actress were Maggie Smith for "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel," which is a fine inclusion to the category, but then also Nicole Kidman for her raunchy, twisted turn in "The Paperboy." That's a tiny miracle for the film, and there must've been a big campaign behind her. This meant not including the possible contendor of Ann Dowd for "Compliance," but more notably a pretty big snub for Amy Adams in "The Master."

The biggest thing we can walk away with here is that "Zero Dark Thirty" suddenly just hit a wall with only one nomination for its lead, Jessica Chastain. This, however, could all get rectified come Globe nominations tomorrow morning.

Check out the full list of nominations, and be sure to tune in to the 19th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards on Sunday, January 27 at 8 p.m. on TNT and TBS.