Is Little Miss Sunshine the little film that could? Winning the Screen Actors Guild (Sag) award for best ensemble cast last Sunday night - effectively the guild's best picture prize - has propelled the $4 million production to the forefront of the Oscar contenders for best picture.

It helps that it also has won the Producers Guild of America award for best film. Crash took the Sag award for ensemble cast last year and went on to take the best picture Oscar.

Still, The Departed remains the bookies' favourite to win, with odds of 8/11, followed by Little Miss Sunshine (11/4), Babel (3/1), Letters from Iwo Jima (10/1) and The Queen (14/1). The four Sag awards for individual performers went to the front-runners in the Oscars: Helen Mirren, Forest Whitaker, Eddie Murphy and Jennifer Hudson. There isn't much point in betting on Mirren, who is quoted at 1/16 by the bookies, far head of her nearest contender, Meryl Streep (8/1). The odds are 1/8 for Whitaker to take best actor, and Martin Scorsese is 1/3 to finally win the best director Oscar.