In the zigzagging march of awards season, the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas can be confounding to the layperson. While the public is dutifully awaiting holiday releases, a jumble of groups, each with its own arcane voting system, begins doling out awards—think of caucuses and superdelegates during primary season, with their baffling cries of “Ted Cruz!” Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Phantom Thread” comes out on Christmas Day, but it’s already won the New York Film Critics Circle’s prize for Best Screenplay. Audiences still have seven days until Steven Spielberg’s “The Post” storms theatres, and yet the National Board of Review has already given top honors to the film and its stars, Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep. What is the National Board of Review? No one has any idea.

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Even if you’ve been keeping up on new releases, you may still have fallen behind on undulating Oscar “narratives.” Earlier this month, there was talk of a slump for “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” Martin McDonagh’s foul-mouthed comedy-drama, which was shut out of N.B.R.’s list of the year’s best films and perhaps left a bad aftertaste the longer that audiences smacked their lips. But this week it led the nominations for the Screen Actors Guild Awards (which snubbed Meryl Streep and Daniel Day-Lewis) and the Golden Globes (which gave McDonagh a Best Director slot over Greta Gerwig and Jordan Peele). What gives? Meanwhile, Luca Guadagnino’s “Call Me by Your Name,” which won the Gotham Award and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association prize, got left out of Outstanding Cast (the Best Picture equivalent) at the SAGs, and Best Director and Best Screenplay at the Globes. Are vengeful Midwestern women up and peach-loving gay teen-agers down?

The answer is: Who knows? So far, this is a year without a clear consensus. I haven’t even mentioned Gerwig’s “Lady Bird” (the N.Y.F.C.C. winner for Best Picture), Sean Baker’s “The Florida Project” (Best Director from the New York critics, runner-up for Best Picture from the L.A. critics), Guillermo del Toro’s “The Shape of Water” (Best Director from the L.A. critics, tied with Guadagnino), or Peele’s “Get Out” (N.B.R.’s Best Directorial Début). None of these groups has the same constituency as the Academy, which may very well do its own thing. While it’s fun to watch, the Globes, awarded by the ninety-ish members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, is notorious for throwing curveballs. This year, it gave a Best Supporting Actor nomination to Christopher Plummer, who replaced Kevin Spacey about two minutes ago in Ridley Scott’s “All the Money in the World,” which barely anyone has seen.

But who needs consensus? Awards season is more fun without one, and, besides, front-runners exist to be taken down. (A year ago, “La La Land” was waltzing at the front of the line.) What the ancillary awards do is clarify the pool of films that are consistently “in the conversation,” meaning that Academy members are more likely to pull them out of the screener pile. Even so, it’s a large pool. One way to break it down is by genre: there are the big studio movies that fit the traditional Oscar mold (“The Post,” “Dunkirk”), the scrappy indie darlings (“Lady Bird,” “Call Me by Your Name,” “Three Billboards,” “The Florida Project”), the auteurist experiments that defy genre (“Get Out,” “The Shape of Water,” “Phantom Thread”). Also in the pool, or circling around it, are the Depression drama “Mudbound,” the Churchill bio-pic “Darkest Hour,” the Tonya Harding apologia “I, Tonya,” the indie rom-com “The Big Sick,” and the truly uncategorizable “The Disaster Artist.” Some movies seem to have disappeared from the pool altogether: what was the last you heard of “Mother!”?

Another way to decode the contenders is by politics—rarely absent from Oscar subtext but unavoidable in our hyper-politicized times. “The Post” is Hollywood’s full-throated rebuke to the Trump Administration, offering a reassuring fantasy based in fact: watch America’s mom and dad, Streep and Hanks, team up to save the Republic, to the swells of a John Williams score! “Dunkirk” and “Darkest Hour” hark back to the moral clarity of the Second World War. Other films prick at a variety of social concerns: rape (“Three Billboards”), poverty (“The Florida Project”), racism new (“Get Out”) and old (“Mudbound”), scientific inquiry (“The Shape of Water”), gay rights (“Call Me by Your Name”). Alexander Payne’s “Downsizing,” which comes out next weekend, is a rare beast, a high-concept environmental comedy, though it hasn’t yet made awards headway. And “Lady Bird” offers a ray of feminist sunshine amid news of male misbehavior: a female writer-director telling a deeply felt female-centric coming-of-age story.

The acting categories have more definition. Timothée Chalamet, the twenty-one-year-old star of “Call Me by Your Name,” is the year’s breakout performer, winning Best Actor prizes from the L.A. and New York critics. (He’s also wonderful as a poseur in “Lady Bird.”) His main competition is Gary Oldman, as Churchill, who has the bio-pic advantage and the veteran-who’s-never-won advantage. If the Academy can forgive James Franco for his co-hosting job, in 2011, he has a shot at a nomination for “The Disaster Artist.” And Daniel Day-Lewis can’t be counted out for his last pre-retirement role in “Phantom Thread.” It’s rare for men as young as Chalamet to win Best Actor, but the Best Actress category tends to favor ingénues: Emma Stone, Brie Larson, Jennifer Lawrence. That may be the case again, for Saoirse Ronan (“Lady Bird”), who has already picked up a Gotham Award and an N.Y.F.C.C. Award. But it’s a crowded field. Frances McDormand is a barn-burning heroine for the #shepersisted age in “Three Billboards” (though McDormand, God bless her, is immune to Oscar campaigning). Sally Hawkins made love to a sea monster in “The Shape of Water,” which has to count for something. And there are likely to be strong campaigns for Margot Robbie (“I, Tonya”) and Streep, who truly deserves a nomination this year, after a few (“August: Osage County,” “Florence Foster Jenkins”) that felt obligatory.

The Best Supporting Actor race appears to have the year’s only lock: Willem Dafoe, as the beleaguered motel manager in “The Florida Project.” As with Mahershala Ali in “Moonlight,” Dafoe may be getting traction in part because it’s difficult to honor his castmates, who are mostly unknowns and small children. (Still, every Oscar season needs an adorable kid, and this year it’s Brooklynn Prince.) That leaves room in the category for Sam Rockwell, playing a racist cop in “Three Billboards,” and for Armie Hammer and Michael Stuhlbarg, of “Call Me by Your Name.” Stuhlbarg may have to cede the spotlight to Hammer, but he’s what supporting awards were made for: an actor with one big scene that turns out to be the most unforgettable moment in the film.

Best Supporting Actress is a character-actress bonanza. There are the questionable mothers played by Laurie Metcalf (“Lady Bird”) and Allison Janney (“I, Tonya”), both accomplished stage and television actors making eye-catching turns on film. Metcalf seems to have the edge, probably on the basis of her incredible solo scene in the car, after dropping Lady Bird at the airport: it’s a mini master class. Also in the mix is Mary J. Blige (who won Gotham’s Breakthrough Artist for “Mudbound”), Tiffany Haddish (who won the New York Critics prize for “Girls Trip”), and Hong Chau (“Downsizing”). It may fall upon this category to rescue the Academy from a return to #OscarsSoWhite.

There’s still plenty of time to catch up before the Golden Globes (January 7th) and the Oscar nominations (January 23rd), so go see a movie—or three—over the holidays. If you’re attending with relatives, though, you may want to avoid the ones with man-on-peach and woman-on-monster action. Some things are best enjoyed without aunts.