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One of the most reliable things about Oscar season is that narratives will emerge. It’s never just about who’s most deserving on a purely artistic level. The human element always factors in, and humans like awards narratives that feel good or important or new. Sometimes this drives purists crazy. Did Al Pacino give the best performance in 1992 for Scent of a Woman? No, but it was a better story for Pacino to finally pick up an Oscar after twenty years and a billion nominations. The Oscars are about big moments; they’re about Roberto Benigni climbing across chairs to the stage, and Louise Fletcher signing her speech to her deaf parents, and Michael Moore getting booed for denouncing the Iraq War, and Vanessa Redgrave getting booed for saying “Zionist hoodlums.”

There are likely to be no “Zionist hoodlums” speeches at this year’s Oscars, and after what happened with the Best Picture envelopes last year, you can bet there will be a Special Forces level of discipline imposed upon presenters to keep anything juicy like a Moonlight/La La Land situation from happening again. But still, there are storylines to look out for.

The mistake that many casual Oscar watchers make is investing too much in the major categories. Best Picture matters a lot, and this year the wide-open race is particularly captivating. And obviously the four acting categories are always thrilling because these are the faces we know and love and have invested emotional capital in. But if you want to get the most out of the Oscar ceremony and not be one of those basic-ass people tweeting about how the ceremony is too long and “who cares about short films?” (you know who you are, and I judge you), here is a quick guide to some narratives and rooting interests in the less glitzy categories. You can still take a bathroom break during the songs and comedy segments, don’t worry.

Best Animated Short Film

Believe it or not, basketball legend Kobe Bryant is nominated for an Oscar this year, in the animated short category, of all places. He and famed animator Glen Keane teamed up for Dear Basketball, a brief animated hagiography about Kobe, his love for the game of basketball, how good it’s been to him, and how great he’s been at playing it. Is it any good? NO! It looks pretty, but it’s less a movie as it is an installation at Kobe’s future niche at the basketball Hall of Fame. It’s a puff piece in animated form. It’s an act of ego with an artistic stamp of approval. It’s the worst movie nominated for an Oscar this year.

And … it could win? Once you get down into these smaller categories, and especially the shorts, you’re dealing with a lot of movies and craftspeople who don’t rise above one another, in terms of notoriety. Having a megawatt celebrity — especially a local sports hero who might have a lot of fans among the Academy membership — can matter. Enough to get Academy members to vote for a bad film? It’s worth keeping an eye on.

Stream Dear Basketball on Go90

Best Cinematography

This has been an Oscar storyline for a while now, but this could finally be the year that celebrated cinematographer Roger Deakins could finally win his first Academy Award on his fourteenth nomination. Deakins is being called the frontrunner for his work behind the camera on the visually dazzling Blade Runner 2049, which would make for the rare and welcome occasion where a long-awaited Oscar is finally won for a project that actually deserves it.

Deakins got his first Oscar nomination for his work on 1994’s The Shawshank Redemption, and through the years, he’s been nominated for all kinds of movies, from Best Picture nominees (No Country for Old Men; Fargo; The Reader) to more offbeat but lush achievements, working with directors like the Coen Brothers (whose movies make up for 5 of Deakins’s 14 nods), Martin Scorsese (Kundun), Sam Mendes (Skyfall), and Angelina Jolie (Unbroken). His nomination for Blade Runner 2049 marks the third time he’s been nominated for his work with director Denis Villeneuve (after nods for Prisoners and Sicario).

For Deakins, one of the all-time great cinematographers, an Oscar will be a long time coming, and cause for celebration from hardcore cinephiles. Still, Oscar-watchers will be holding their breath when the Best Cinematography envelope gets opened.

Where to stream Blade Runner 2049

Best Original Song

Speaking of oft-nominated artists who have never won: Diane Warren. The successful songwriter who’s penned extraordinary pop hits for the likes of Celine Dion, Cher, Toni Braxton, Meat Loaf, LeAnn Rimes, and more is currently enjoying her ninth Oscar nomination. This year, she’s up for “Stand Up for Something,” a song she and Common write for the civil-rights biopic Marshall. Previously, she’s been nominated for songs from Con Air (“How Do I Live”), Armageddon (“I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing”), and Mannequin (“Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now”). She came closest to winning two years ago, when her Lady Gaga song “Til It Happens to You” (from the documentary The Hunting Ground) was poised to win, only to be overtaken by the Sam Smith-warbled “Writing’s On the Wall” from Spectre. Though if you ask me, she should have won in 1996 for Celine Dion’s “Because You Loved Me” from Up Close and Personal, but anyway.

Meanwhile, Mary J. Blige‘s nomination in the same category for the song “Mighty River” from Mudbound currently stands as Netflix’s best chance at winning their very first Oscar for a narrative feature. Mudbound is nominated four times, but they’re a long shot in Adapted Screenplay and Supporting actor, and we’re all agreed on rooting for Roger Deakins in Best Cinematography (though a win for Mudbound‘s Rachel Morrison there would mean the first win by a woman in that category ever, so rooting interests abound), so it’s Mary in Best Original Song as Netflix’s great narrative hope.

Where to stream Marshall

Best Documentary Feature

While we’re on the Netflix beat, this was a big year for the streaming giant at the Oscars. They broke through in the non-documentary categories with four nominations for Mudbound, and they very well might end up winning a second-consecutive award in Best Documentary Feature, where they won their first ever Oscar last year for The White Helmets.

But Netflix has never won an Oscar for a feature film, and Best Documentary Feature may well be there best chance at breaking that particular glass ceiling this year. With two nominees in the category (Netflix’s 6th and 7th nominations in the category since 2013), the numbers are on their side. As is the news, where the just-completed Winter Olympics have meant headlines for their film Icarus, a sports-doping exposé that ended up chronicling the state-sponsored doping scandal that got Russia banned from the Pyeongchang games.

Icarus is currently the frontrunner in the category, though Strong Island, a searing doc about a long-dormant murder and race-motivated police neglect, would be a hugely deserving winner as well.

Stream Icarus on Netflix

Stream Strong Island on Netflix

Best Adapted Screenplay

call-me-by-your-name — Photo: Everett Collection

In the 1980s and early ’90s, the Merchant-Ivory brand was a marker of quality for British literary adaptations that were catnip to the Academy. A Room with a View, Howards End, and The Remains of the Day were all nominated for Best Picture, while The Bostonians and Mr. and Mrs. Bridge got Best Actress nominations for Vanessa Redgrave and Joanne Woodward, respectively. Ismail Merchant served as producer, and his professional- and life-partner James Ivory directed.

But despite a decade or more of Oscar nominations, the Merchant-Ivory films never won a trophy for either Merchant or Ivory, and in 2005, Merchant died at age 68. Now, 31 years after his first Oscar nomination, James Ivory stands poised as the frontrunner to win for his adaptation of André Aciman’s novel Call Me By Your Name. The 89-year-old Ivory would finally be rewarded for a lifetime of filmmaking. It stands to be quite a moment.