Of all the lines ever written for movies, there are four words everyone in Hollywood longs to hear in the same breath that mentions their name: “And the winner is …”

Sunday night, those simple words will honor the best achievements in film — and change a few careers as well — at the 84th Annual Academy Awards. For those who love movies, this is the best night of the year. The Oscars gather the stars for an evening of anticipation, ecstasy and dashed hopes.

Just for fun, we decided to poll a few movie professionals with Hawaii connections on their personal Oscar picks: James Sereno, a producer-director with Kinetic Productions who impressed audiences at the 2011 Hawaii International Film Festival with his dark look at life in the islands, “Paradise Broken”; Joel Moffett, an independent filmmaker who teaches screenwriting and directing at the University of Hawaii’s Academy for Creative Media; Katie Doyle, a Hawaii casting director who found 4,300 people for “Battleship” and is helping with a TV pilot for ABC called “Last Resort”; and Barry Rivers, founder of the Maui Film Festival and the FirstLight Academy Screenings on Maui.

BEST PICTURE

Sereno: “Moneyball.”

“It is a great film to me because it is about story. It’s an American Dream film. It’s a guy who goes against the grain and does what he thinks is right and to me, that is an American story.”

Moffett: “The Artist.”

“If I had my way, ‘The Artist’ would sweep all the big awards. This film will stand the test of time.”

Doyle: Tie, “The Help” and “Hugo”

“These two did it. ‘The Help’ is politically important and incredibly well-shot. The characterization is fully developed and it really captures that time. ‘Hugo’ was all spectacle. It was magic. And it is just beautiful. It has something for all ages.

Rivers: “The Descendants.”

“The acting is uniformly brilliant, the writing is great, the direction is understated. And (George) Clooney is great. They were absolutely down the center of the bull’s-eye of what goes on here. It touched me in a way I didn’t think it would.”

BEST ACTOR

Sereno: George Clooney (“The Descendants”)

“To me, it was a different Clooney performance. He had to balance strengths and weaknesses and I had never seen him do that. His characters aren’t usually strong and weak like that.”

Moffett: George Clooney (“The Descendants”)

“Despite the lack of any kind of pidgin influence in his speaking voice, his performance was one of his best, and the Academy loves him.”

Doyle: Gary Oldman (“Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”)

“Every time he opens his mouth he is so good he could even read the phone book. He transforms himself. He is like a chameleon, physically and vocally. He really becomes the characters he plays.”

Rivers: Demián Bichir (“A Better Life”)

“I think he came out of nowhere. The film wasn’t well-received at the box office and through all the awards season campaigns he somehow managed to impress people.”

BEST ACTRESS

Sereno: Rooney Mara (“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”)

“I have never seen a character performance like that, that has haunted me for weeks after I saw the film. The character just stayed in me.”

Moffett: Meryl Streep (“The Iron Lady”)

“Glenn Close (‘Albert Nobbs’) is my secret favorite in this category but Meryl Streep is an Academy favorite and she hasn’t won an Oscar in 30 years.”

Doyle: Tie, Viola Davis (“The Help”) and Meryl Streep (“The Iron Lady”)

“Meryl Streep on principle; she is brilliant. And with Viola, that whole movie just stayed with me and everything about her performance.”

Rivers: Viola Davis (“The Help”)

“She had a subtle and incendiary quality to her acting that comes from a deep and fiery place.”

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Sereno: Christopher Plummer (“Beginners”)

Moffett: Christopher Plummer (“Beginners”)

“Guaranteed shoo-in.”

Doyle: Christopher Plummer (“Beginners”)

“He makes it all look effortless. This could have been a throwaway performance. But he is a master of making these roles stand out.”

Rivers: Christopher Plummer (“Beginners”)

“It was so heartfelt and so real, you could reach out and grab it. He has displayed remarkable range for a long time but this one is impressive and he hit some tender notes.”

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Sereno: Jessica Chastain (“The Help”)

Moffett: Octavia Spencer (“The Help”)

“Made me cry.”

Doyle: Tie, Janet McTeer (“Albert Nobbs”) and Octavia Spencer (“The Help”)

“With Janet McTeer, whenever you are doing a gender-bending role it is interesting. She not only held her own, but literally hollered her physical presence. And Octavia Spencer: Power. It was a powerhouse performance.”

Rivers: Bérénice Bejo (“The Artist”)

“She was just so endearing and so adorable and so well-cast. She fit perfect all the way through. That’s a tough thing to do. And there was dancing at the end. It was magical.”

BEST DIRECTOR

Sereno: Martin Scorsese (“Hugo”)

“I think what Scorsese brings is a style, a director’s point of view. He paints with the camera — in all of his films — and he brought that to ‘Hugo’ but with a whole other color palette. He would paint before with blacks and greens and now he is painting with magenta. It gave it a whole different feel. Maybe the brush strokes are the same but the colors are different.”

Moffett: Martin Scorsese (“Hugo”)

“It’s between Scorsese and (Michel) Hazanavicius (‘The Artist’) but I think Academy members will go with Scorsese.”

Doyle: Martin Scorsese (“Hugo”)

“It was a spectacle of moviemaking magic.”

Rivers: Martin Scorsese (“Hugo”)

“It’s a tour de force performance as a director. The re-creation of an era. The tenderness of a story. It was a remarkable film.”