Will the 2022 Screen Actors Guild Awards offer an Oscars preview?

Sunday's event will kick off with a 'Hamilton' reunion and feature a lifetime achievement award for Helen Mirren

The Sag Awards take place at the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, California, on February 27, 2022. AFP

The 28th Screen Actors Guild Awards will kick off with a Hamilton reunion, feature a lifetime achievement award for Helen Mirren and, maybe, supply a preview of the Academy Awards.

The Sag Awards, taking place at Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, California, begin at 8pm EST on Sunday and are being broadcast on both TNT and TBS. The show will also be available to stream Monday on HBO Max.

After the January Golden Globes were a non-event, the Screen Actors Guild Awards will be Hollywood's first major, televised, in-person award show — complete with a red carpet and teary-eyed speeches — this year.

While the Academy Awards aren't mandating vaccination for presenters (only attendees), it's required for the Sag Awards, which are voted on by the Hollywood actors’ guild SAG-AFTRA. One actor in the cast of the Paramount series Yellowstone, Forrie J Smith, has said he won't attend because he isn't vaccinated.

Hamilton trio Lin-Manuel Miranda, Leslie Odom Jr and Daveed Diggs will open the ceremony. Kate Winslet is to present the actors' lifetime achievement award to Mirren, a five-time Sag Award winner.

A starry group of nominees — including Will Smith, Lady Gaga, Denzel Washington, Nicole Kidman and Ben Affleck — will make sure the Sag Award don't lack for glamour.

Five films are nominated for the Sag Awards' top honour, best ensemble: Kenneth Branagh's Belfast, Sian Heder's coming-of-age drama CODA, Adam McKay's apocalypse comedy Don't Look Up, Ridley Scott's high-camp House of Gucci and Reinaldo Marcus Green's family tennis drama King Richard.

See photos of the 'House of Gucci' premiere:

The leading Oscar nominee, Jane Campion's The Power of the Dog, failed to land a best ensemble nominations but three of its actors — Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst and Kodi Smit-McPhee — are up for individual awards.

Winning best ensemble doesn't automatically make a movie the Oscar favourite, but actors hold the largest sway because they constitute the largest percentage of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.

Last year, the actors chose Aaron Sorkin's 1960s courtroom drama The Trial of the Chicago 7, while best picture at the Oscars went to Nomadland. The year before, Sag's pick of Parasite presaged the Oscar winner.

In the television categories, Apple TV+'s Ted Lasso comes in with a leading five nominations, closely trailed by HBO's Succession, Apple's The Morning Show and Netflix's much-watched Squid Game — all of which are up for four awards.