SUNDAY’S Oscar ceremony is set for a cliffhanger ending after a topsy-turvy awards season that has left the two top prizes — best picture and best director — too close to call.

    With just days to go before the movie industry’s highest honors are handed out Sunday, awards watchers are preparing for one of the most exciting nights in recent Academy Awards history.

    Despite entering the Oscar race with a leading 12 nominations in January, the best picture front-runner status of Steven Spielberg’s presidential drama “Lincoln” has been undermined by a slew of awards picked up by Ben Affleck’s Iran hostage thriller “Argo.”

    But an “Argo” win despite Affleck’s omission from the best-director shortlist would defy the conventional wisdom that says the Oscar for best film usually brings a trophy for its director.

    “Argo” would be the first movie to take home the statuette for best picture without its director winning even a nomination since “Driving Miss Daisy” in 1990.

    “Everything is kind of haywire, so those of us in the (awards prediction) business are all left scratching our heads and saying what does it mean?” said Matt Atchity, editor in chief of movie review website Rotten Tomatoes.

    After beating “Lincoln” at the Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild, directors, producers and writers guilds, “Argo” now has the edge in the best-picture race.

    “Even if ‘Argo’ wins for best picture, which is kind of a foregone conclusion at this point, it still feels exciting because ‘Argo’ has managed to keep this underdog status even though it has been winning every award,” said Dave Karger, chief correspondent for Fandango.com.

    “If ‘Lincoln’ wins, it will be considered an upset even though it has the most nominations. That’s what’s strange about this year — all the rules seems to be turned on their heads,” Karger added.

    A Reuters/Ipsos poll released Wednesday underlined the stiff competition. Some 17 percent of the 1,443 people questioned in the United States between Feb. 15 and 19 thought that “Lincoln” was most likely to win best picture, but the same percentage gave their backing to musical “Les Miserables.”

    “Argo” was thought most likely to take home the Oscar by 8 percent of those questioned, while “Django Unchained” and “Life of Pi” tied with 4 percent. Some 41 percent of those asked in the Reuters/Ipsos poll were unsure which movie would win Sunday. (SD-Agencies)