  We present a detailed investigation of the spacelike pion's electromagnetic
form factor using three-point QCD sum rules that exclusively involve nonlocal
condensates. Our main methodological tools are a spectral density which
includes $O(\alpha_s)$ corrections, a suitably improved Gaussian ansatz to
model the distribution of the average momentum of quarks in the QCD vacuum, and
a perturbative scheme that avoids Landau singularities. Using this framework,
we obtain predictions for the pion form factor together with error estimates
originating from intrinsic theoretical uncertainties owing to the perturbative
expansion and the nonperturbative method applied. We also discuss our results
in comparison with other calculations, in particular, with those following from
the AdS/QCD correspondence. We find good agreement of our predictions with
measurements in the range of momenta covered by the existing experimental data
between 1-10 GeV$^2$.
