Cate Blanchett expected to win her first Oscar today

A screen shows best supporting actress nominee Cate Blanchett during last minute preparations for the Oscars at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood. Picture / Reuters

LOS ANGELES - Katharine Hepburn's 50-year love affair with Academy Award voters is expected to carry Cate Blanchett to her first Oscar today.

Blanchett woke up this morning in her Beverly Hills hotel suite a hotter favourite to win the best supporting actress Oscar than when she went to bed.

Bookmakers around the world overnight sliced Blanchett's odds to a slim 3/10, while her main rivals, Virginia Madsen, nominated for Sideways, and Natalie Portman, for Closer, were drifting at 7/2 and 9/1 respectively.

Film critics, however, are split on who will win.

The Los Angeles Times and two critics from the New York Times have picked American actress Madsen, a star in the 1980s but whose career suffered in the 1990s with poor roles, to upset Blanchett and win the Academy Award.

Damien Bona, a New York-based Academy Awards expert and the author of Inside Oscar, says Blanchett will win the Oscar.

Bona said Blanchett, nominated for her portrayal of Hepburn in The Aviator, will be helped by the love the 5,808 Academy voters have for screen great Hepburn.

Blanchett, who has never won an Oscar, will also be rewarded for her strong body of work, including Oscar-worthy performances in Elizabeth, Veronica Guerin, The Missing and The Shipping News.

"Cate has been giving wonderful performances for a decade now, while Virginia Madsen is a B actress who got lucky with a well-written role," Bona told AAP.

"Some purists say Cate didn't seem much like Hepburn, but to me I think it's much more interesting what Blanchett does is to get the essence of Hepburn."

Hepburn, an Academy darling for more than 50 years, won a record four Oscars and collected 12 nominations during her esteemed career.

Blanchett is aware of the irony that the ghost of Hepburn could help her to an Oscar.

"The Academy has obviously honoured her, and rightly so, so many times," Blanchett recently mused.

"From the grave, she's still being nominated."

Australia has two other nominees at today's 77th Annual Academy Awards ceremony, Sydney short animated filmmakers Sejong Park and Andrew Gregory.

Their nine-minute movie, Birthday Boy, is the favourite to win the short animated Oscar, beating out Walt Disney's nominee, Lorenzo.

The darkhorse for the category is Canadian animator Chris Landreth's short, Ryan.

In the other key Oscar categories, bookmakers have no doubt who they think will win.

In the best picture race, according to UK betting agency Total Bet, The Aviator is the short-priced favourite at 4/9, Million Dollar Baby is second at 15/8, then Sideways (8/1), Ray (33/1) and Finding Neverland is given little hope at 40/1.

Bookies also have the best actor Oscar a one-actor race, with Ray's Jamie Foxx almost unbackable at 1/14, then Leonardo DiCaprio (The Aviator) in second, but with outsider's odds of 7/1. The other acting nominees are Million Dollar Baby's Clint Eastwood (25/1), Finding Neverland's Johnny Depp (20/1) and Don Cheadle, for Hotel Rwanda, at 25/1.

Hilary Swank looks to have the best actress Oscar with odds of 1/4 for her demanding performance in Million Dollar Baby, then Being Julia's Annette Bening (3/1), Vera Drake's Imelda Staunton (10/1), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind's Kate Winslet (33/1) and Maria Full of Grace's Catalina Sandino Moreno is the outsider (40/1).

The outsiders in Blanchett's best supporting actress category are Hotel Rwanda's Sophie Okonedo (33/1) and Kinsey's Laura Linney (33/1).

- AAP