By Greg Milam, US correspondent, and Amy Hitchcock, entertainment editor

If you like your Oscars night to be packed with surprises, we have some bad news for you.

It comes from the people who make a living out of crunching the numbers to come up with percentages for the probability of who will win what at the Academy Awards.

This year, they say, the big acting categories are already nailed-on certainties.

Brad Pitt, Laura Dern, Renee Zellwegger and Joaquin Phoenix have cleaned up at this year’s BAFTAs, Golden Globes and the Screen Actors’ Guild Awards.

The experts say the chance they will each take home little gold statuette as well are somewhere north of 90%.

If there is any hope of an upset it could some in the form of Joe Pesci, who pipped Pitt for best supporting actor at the Critic’s Choice Awards.

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At the Oscars, Pesci is going head-to-head not only with Pitt – but also his co-star in Martin Scorsese’s gangster epic The Irishman, fellow veteran Al Pacino.

The pair have duked it out at the Oscars before: back in 1991 Pesci’s performance in Goodfellas sneaking the award over Pacino’s in Dick Tracy.

At 79, this is Pacino’s first nomination since he won for Scent Of A Woman in 1993 – but he told Sky News he still enjoys the buzz.

“It’s a great perk” he said.

“When I was younger, it was a different thing for me than it is now. Now I try to just look at it for what it is, you know.”

The industry is certainly a different place from when he took his first major role, in 1971’s The Panic In Needle Park, but with a new Amazon Prime series Hunters under his belt, he says the Oscars remain fun for him.

“It’s changed a little bit in the sense that our world is different now,” he said.

“And fame is different, but it still has that tradition.”

Another familiar face at the Oscars is the legendary British cinematographer Roger Deakins.

His 15th nomination, for Sam Mendes’ much-talked-about ‘one-shot’ movie 1917, comes a year after his first Oscar success with Blade Runner 2049.

The critics say the Best Picture Oscar is a contest between 1917 and the darkly comic Parasite.

South Korean director Bong Joon-Ho’s film would make history as the first foreign language film to win the top prize.

Deakins told Sky News: “If 1917 wins it would be great for everybody that worked on it.

“But I would be quite happy if any of the others won, especially Parasite, which I thought was a wonderful movie. I don’t know how you make a judgement between them.”

This will be the earliest Oscars ever as the Academy continues its efforts to find a formula to keep the show relevant to an evolving television audience.

With Netflix movies like The Irishman and Marriage Story now taking their place alongside the established studio productions at the top table, the industry is changing too.

Big nomination hauls for the big players also raises questions about how lesser-known names can stand a chance of breaking through at the Oscars.

British hopes rest with Mendes, despite the honourable mentions for Cynthia Erivo for Harriet, Sir Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce for The Two Popes, and Florence Pugh for Little Women in the acting categories.

Awards season has already shown us that the debate about diversity is as important and topical as ever and it is certain to feature in the speeches of the winners.

Expect few surprises at the 92nd Academy Awards.

Sky Cinema’s live and exclusive coverage of the 92nd Annual Academy Awards starts on Sunday night at 12.30am. Want to see the red carpet too? Catch a simulcast of E!’s preview show E! Live From The Red Carpet at 10pm, all on Sky Cinema Oscars