It’s official. This is the craziest Oscar season in recent memory. Let’s quickly recap.

We have, in this place, already observed that, over the past five months, The Master, Silver Linings Playbook, Les Misérables, Zero Dark Thirty, Argo and Lincoln have all claimed the status of favourite in the best picture race.

Some sort of endgame seemed to have been achieved when neither Kathryn Bigelow, director of Zero Dark, nor Ben Affleck, from the Argo camp, received nominations for best director.

As you will be sick of hearing, no picture has taken the top prize without a director nod in more than 20 years. With 12 nominations and its two nearest rivals apparently neutered, Lincoln looked to have the race all to itself. A leisurely saunter towards the tape was all that was required.

Unfortunately for Steven Spielberg, the Hollywood community doesn’t seem to have read the script. Over the past two weeks, Argo has won best picture gongs at the Golden Globes, People’s Choice and the Producer’s Guild of America. Last weekend it picked up the equivalent prize – the ensemble award – from the Screen Actors Guild. Those last two prizes are definitely worth heeding. The PGA’s top prize has chimed the Academy’s for the past five years.

At time of writing, most online bookies had pulled Argo back to the favourite spot. Mind you, the way this year is going, the odds will have changed dramatically in the time it took to read this article.

Last we checked, you could get 125/1 on Beasts of the Southern Wild. It’s possible.