total:spec - The Oscars

For all the criticism the Oscars gets there is no doubt that all the world's eyes will be on the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood California on Sunday March 5, 2006.

There the red carpet will be laid, by which photographers and journalists from the world over will set up camp, all to cover the 78th Academy Awards ceremony. But long before the arrangements for the ceremony even begin to be made, long before Gwyneth, Kate and Uma begin to try on the various dresses they've been sent by the world's best designers, and long before fashion critics begin to sharpen their claws for their commentary on those dresses, the film industry is already thinking about Oscar night.

It's been a vintage summer blockbuster season, with a plethora of colourful event movies. We've been guided around the galaxy, a chocolate factory and a sinful city; we've been introduced to new film superheroes and seen old ones begin again; there's been violent showdowns aplenty - between a married couple, a Jedi Knight and his mentor and, not least, two worlds; and to cap it all there's been the inevitable TV remakes with the return of a nose-wiggling witch and their lordships the Dukes of Hazzard.

But as the summer season winds down, already Oscar is a golden glint in Hollywood's eye. The bright, shiny colours of the big effects-laden, humour-driven, popcorn-eating summer blockbusters begin to fade as children return to school, autumn begins to fall and cinema-goers prepare to get serious again. For the Oscars - and this is one of the many criticisms laid down against the ceremony - aren't about films that have fun, make people laugh or escape to other worlds. At least very rarely. What attracts Oscar's sombre gaze are films that are far more serious - films about real life, our history; that have tragic stories and worthy subject matter.

Film companies have got the routine down pat. They know that when the time comes for the Academy members to put pen to paper and place their votes for each award category, they're going to remember the films of the last six months much better than those released earlier in the year. As such the autumn and winter seasons see cinemas showing films that are more about filling film-goers heads with thoughts than their stomachs with popcorn.

This year it started early. As far back as August we saw the release of Crash, an ensemble drama set on the streets of Los Angeles that follows the events in the two days following, natch, a car crash. The crash brings together the lives of a cross section of the multi-ethnic populace of the city, played by the likes of Sandra Bullock, Don Cheadle (who was nominated for Best Actor for Hotel Rwanda at this year's Oscars), Matt Dillon, Brendan Fraser, Thandie Newton and Ryan Phillippe. Written and directed by Paul Haggis, who was nominated for Best Screenplay for the otherwise multi-Oscar-winning Million Dollar Baby this year, Crash has everything the Academy seems to like in a film - drug problems, lengthy and thoughtful dialogue, marriage problems, race issues and violence. And will we see an Oscar nomination for the before now ignored Sandra Bullock?

More likely to get one is Russell Crowe. Despite his difficult reputation behind the camera, in front of it the Australian-born actor is highly respected and has good Oscar form, most notably with director Ron Howard, who he works with again on boxing drama Cinderella Man. The pair's last project, A Beautiful Mind - in which Crowe played real life character John Nash, a brilliant but asocial mathematician - might have been deemed unworthy of Oscar attention by many, but it cleaned up in 2002, getting Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress for Jennifer Connelly.

Crowe and Howard returned to a real-life, historical character for Cinderella Man. In the film, which came out in September, Crowe plays Depression-era fighter and common-man hero Jim Braddock, who defeated heavyweight champ Max Baer in a 15 round fight in 1935. Again it has those elements that Oscar seems to love - historical, personal and emotional drama. And to give it added Oscar opportunity, Crowe's female lead is no less than Renee Zellweger, herself no stranger to the golden statuette, having been nominated twice for Best Actress and winning Best Supporting Actress in 2004 for Cold Mountain.

Also a sure thing for at least a handful of nominations is Terrence Malick's The New World. The highly-regarded writer and director has made a rare return to film-making this year with his re-telling of the legend of John Smith (played by Colin Farrell) and Pochahontas (newcomer Q'Orianka Kilcher). The reclusive Malick was nominated for two Oscars for his last feature, 1998's The Thin Red Line, which he'd made after a 20 year sabbatical taken after an impressive start to his career in the 70s with the critically-acclaimed films Badlands and Days Of Heaven. Whatever happens for Malick at the 2006 ceremony, an Academy award must be inevitable for the director at some point - his next project is a biopic of Che Guevara with Oscar-friendly actors Benicio Del Toro and Javier Bardem.

Also worth watching is Malick's star - Colin Farrell. The hype surrounding the actor's Hollywood career might have helped Farrell establish himself as a leading man, but so far Oscar night glory has evaded him. Maybe 2006 is his year?

Another new boy on the block who might be getting his first golden statue next year is Jake Gyllenhaal. The young actor will certainly be dusting down his tux for the night - he has no less than three films out throughout the autumn and winter seasons that he could be representing. In Proof, out in November, he plays second fiddle to Gwyneth Paltrow and Anthony Hopkins. This already Oscar-laden pair play daughter and father respectively, Paltrow's character Catherine coming to the aid of her dying father, a brilliant maths professor who has lost his grip on reality.

The film reunites Paltrow with director John Madden, a coupling that already caught the attention of Oscar in 1999 with the multi-award-winning Shakespeare In Love. Hopkins has, of course, won one Oscar (for The Silence Of The Lambs) and been nominated for a further three, but Gyllenhaal also has war drama Jarhead to rely on for a possible nomination. Based on former Marine Anthony Swofford's best-selling 2003 book about his pre-Desert Storm experiences in Saudi Arabia and about his experiences fighting in Kuwait, the film has Gyllenhaal in his first adult lead as Swofford.

Backed by director Sam Mendes (Best Director for American Beauty in 2000) and co-star Jamie Foxx (Best Actor for Ray this year) the film seems a sure thing for a slew of nominations in March. But Gyllenhaal's final contender could either be his trump card or his albatross. The highly anticipated Brokeback Mountain is Hollywood's first attempt at serious drama with two gay characters as the protagonists. Based on the short story by E. Annie Proulx, who also wrote The Shipping News, the film stars Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger as two ranch hands who meet in the summer of 1963 and fall in love.

Hollywood has been famously reticent about including gay characters in mainstream movies, and when they are it's either in a supporting role or in a comedy - In And Out for example, or The Birdcage. Whether Brokeback Mountain will mark a breakthrough in this area remains to be seen, but with director Ang Lee at the helm (his Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon garnered two Oscar nominations in 2001) the Academy will certainly be casting their eyes over the film.

Another novel making its way to the silver screen this year is Arthur Golden's more high profile Memoirs Of A Geisha. The screen adaptation of the best-selling book has been long awaited, with Madonna long saying she would love to star in the film and Steven Spielberg, who acquired the rights to the book nearly a decade ago, keeping the project on the back burner since he announced he would direct it in 1998. With other projects taking precedence he finally gave up on the idea of directing it himself and last year gave the reigns to Chicago director Rob Marshall, with himself in a producer role.

The film, which is out in January, follows the extraordinary tale of geisha Nitta Sayuri (played by Crouching Tiger's Zhang Ziyi) through 20 years of Japan's turbulent history. Oscar attention is assured, not least because of the film's highly-regarded source material, but also because of Marshall's own past form. In 2003 his film version of the hit stage musical Chicago cleaned up at the Academy Awards with six wins and a further seven nominations, including one for Marshall himself for Best Director.

It may be a musical that takes centre stage again in 2006. Also tipped for Oscar glory is the new film version of Mel Brook's relentlessly award-winning stage show The Producers. Titled The Producers: A Movie Musical for its return to the silver screen (it was also made into an Oscar-winning film back in 1968) this December, the film stars Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick who reprise their stage roles as shyster theatre producers. Uma Thurman joins them as sexy secretary Ulla, demonstrating her singing skills for the first time on screen. That there will be nominations is highly likely. Where those nominations will land is unclear. Will new director Susan Storman, better known for her choreography, get a nod?

Also out in December is King Kong, the effects-driven remake of the 1933 monster movie classic. Not a likely Oscar-contender you may think, but with Lord Of The Rings director Peter Jackson at the helm we may see a fantasy film clearing up on Oscar night once again. Such a thing was unheard of before Jackson's Lord Of The Rings trilogy hit cinema screens, but such was the overwhelming positive reaction to Jackson's loving adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien's famous books that Oscar couldn't ignore them and in 2004 the final part of the trilogy, The Return Of The King, won a staggering 11 Academy awards.

Jackson has wanted to remake King Kong, the famous tale of a gigantic gorilla captured in the wild and taken to New York, for some time and the trailer suggests he's given it the same attention to detail and intricate camera work he did Lord Of The Rings. It may be that on March 6 next year one hairy individual will be at the top of a building roaring with joy.

But of course Oscar is far more keen on subjects like politics than giant gorillas and Steve Zaillian's new film version of the Robert Penn Warren novel All The King's Men is sure to get a look-in on Oscar night. It's only Zaillian's third film as a director but as a writer he has been nominated for two Academy awards and won one in 1994 for his screenplay for Schindler's List. The story itself - the life of populist politician Willie Stark, here played by Sean Penn - has a good history. The 1949 film version won three Oscars out of seven nominations. And with Oscar-friendly actors such as Penn, Kate Winslet and Jude Law on board, All The King's Men can't go wrong.

Except there's one film stood in its way. The front-runner for the 2006 Oscars is not Zaillian's remake, nor any of the other films we have already mentioned, but the new film from a certain Steven Spielberg. America's top film critics have claimed that Spielberg's as-yet-untitled film (it has the working title of Vengeance) about the 1972 Munich Olympics is the favourite to get Best Picture. In typical Spielberg fashion, the director has gone from the popcorn pyrotechnics of War Of The Worlds to a heart-rending real-life drama - it tells of the 1972 summer games in Munich at which a group of Palestinian militants kidnapped 11 Israeli athletes. Eric Bana plays the Mossad agent sent to track them down.

With its emotive subject and tragic ending (the athletes perished in a fire fight between police and the kidnappers) the film is perfect Oscar material, and as long as Spielberg can finish the film before the extremely tight December 23 opening it has scheduled in the US, Vengeance could be another Schindler's List (seven wins out of 12 nominations) for the director.