As is now customary, the first two months of the year will be dominated by a slew of high-profile titles either in contention for film awards, or hoping to be so.
These range from Asian tsunami drama The Impossible and the film of Les Miserables to Quentin Tarantino's western Django Unchained and Kathryn Bigelow's dramatisation of the Bin Laden manhunt, Zero Dark Thirty.
Daniel Day-Lewis is believed to be an Oscar frontrunner for his role as 'Honest Abe' in Steven Spielberg's Lincoln, while Sir Anthony Hopkins is generating similar buzz for playing the title character in Hitchcock.
Away from awards season, there appears to be no end to the appetite for comic book blockbusters about masked superheroes, as the success of Avengers Assemble, The Amazing Spider-Man and The Dark Knight Rises showed this year.Following hot on their booted heels are fresh adventures for Robert Downey Jr's Iron Man, his Marvel stable-mate Thor and clawed X-Men character Wolverine, played as ever - without a mask - by Hugh Jackman.
Superman returns in Man of Steel in the guise of Britain's Henry Cavill, while Aaron Taylor-Johnson will doubtless give the DC Comics icon a run for his money in Kick-Ass 2.
But its not just comic books that are spawning mega franchises. Every animation house has got to have one, too.
Witness the emergence in 2013 of Monsters University, a prequel to the Pixar studio's 2001 success Monsters, Inc; Planes, a spin-off set in the same universe as Pixar's Cars films; and second visits to the worlds of Despicable Me and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.
Newcomers to this crowded field include Wreck-It Ralph, a Disney comedy about an unloved arcade game character, and Epic, a fantasy set against a leafy forest backdrop.
In the live-action realm, there will be a third instalment of The Hangover, a second Sin City and a follow-up to 2009's Star Trek reboot - with Sherlock actor Benedict Cumberbatch as its chief villain - sure to be embraced by those who appreciated their predecessors.The end of the year also brings second instalments in the Hobbit and Hunger Games film series, as well as a return for Tom Clancy's CIA analyst Jack Ryan.
Before then we'll see James Franco play the young Wizard of Oz in Sam Raimi's Oz: The Great and Powerful, and Johnny Depp play Tonto beside Armie Hammer's Lone Ranger.
Steve Coogan, meanwhile, will bring his most famous comic creation to the big screen at last in Alan Partridge: The Movie.
Arnold Schwarzenegger? He'll "be back" as a sheriff defending the US-Mexican border in The Last Stand. Sly Stallone? He'll be back as well, in graphic novel adaptation Bullet to the Head.
Bruce Willis, meanwhile, will be rarely off our cinema screens, whether reviving John McClane in A Good Day to Die Hard, reuniting with Dame Helen Mirren in Red 2, or bolstering the toy-inspired heroes of GI Joe: Retaliation.
Tom Cruise and Will Smith will bring us futuristic action in Oblivion and After Earth respectively, while Brad Pitt faces a zombie outbreak in World War Z.But maybe the most enticing prospects of 2013 will come, not from the stars, but from idiosyncratic film-makers used to forging their own distinctive paths.
Terrence Malick (To the Wonder), Gus Van Sant (Promised Land) and Baz Luhrmann (The Great Gatsby) are among the big names with new work to share.
Ron Howard, meanwhile, recreates the rivalry between James Hunt and Niki Lauda in Formula One biopic Rush, while District 9's Neill Blomkamp heads to the future in sci-fi parable Elysium.
And after the acclaim he received for the London 2012 Olympic opening ceremony, it will be fascinating to see what Danny Boyle conceives next in art heist thriller Trance.
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