There’s something simple and satisfying about end-of-season awards in professional sports, such as most valuable player and rookie of the year: There are reams of statistics to evaluate performances, and all of the candidates are more or less on an even playing field.

Movies are trickier − far more subjective, with views on the same performances and direction veering wildly from one critic to the next. For that reason, in the months leading up to the Oscars, there’s a lot of behind-the-scenes politicking, as studios and producers make the case for why their writers, directors, cinematographers, costume designers and actors should win the top prize in cinema.

When Holy Cross theater professor Scott Malia pitched me an article about how Method acting has become widely misunderstood, it served as a reminder that sometimes it isn’t the best performance that wins an Oscar – it’s the best story about a performance. Malia writes about Bradley Cooper’s and Cillian Murphy’s whirlwind media tours to promote their quests to embody their characters, Leonard Bernstein and J. Robert Oppenheimer, respectively.

Will their efforts ultimately influence voters? Or, as The New Yorker wondered of Cooper, “Can you really want an Oscar too much?”

Of course, the Academy Awards are about a lot more than who wins what. They’re a celebration of artists who have mastered their craft, an occasion to look back at iconic moments in film history, a fashion show − and, yes, a chance to witness a viral slap.

So grab your popcorn and dive into our coverage of Hollywood’s biggest night of the year, from non-English language cinema’s long road to acceptance at the academy to a retrospective of John Williams’ career as arguably the greatest film composer of all time.