The Iron Lady (6th January)
The Talent: Director Phyllida Lloyd, stars Meryl Streep and Jim Broadbent.
The Pitch: The career of Margaret Thatcher, recounted in flashback as the elderly ex-PM, gripped with dementia, struggles to remember her life.
The Hook: She's the most polarising figure in British politics, and the film is set to follow suit. Thatcher's Tory colleagues have lambasted the film's accuracy… but her most vociferous critics have accused it of being a whitewash.
Defining Feature: Streep's spookily accurate impersonation of Thatcher. Awards will be won.
War Horse (13th January)
The Talent: Director Steven Spielberg, stars Jeremy Irvine and a horse.
The Pitch: First the classic kids' novel. Then the prize-winning West End play. Now the big-screen epic about a horse sent to fight in Europe during WWI.
The Hook: When Spielberg makes films back-to-back, the serious tear-jerker tends to follow the blockbusting adventure. Which makes this the Schindler's List to Tintin 's Jurassic Park .
Defining Feature: The play captured imaginations using a life-size puppet. Can Spielberg's mix of real horses and CGI create an equally adored equine hero?
Shame (13th January)
The Talent: Director Steve McQueen, stars Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan.
The Pitch: Brandon (Fassbender) has a successful career in New York but a guilty secret - he's a sex addict. When his sister comes to stay, it precipitates a downward spiral.
The Hook: An uncompromisingly adult drama, explicit not only in terms of nudity but also in stripping Brandon bare emotionally.
Defining Feature: Fassbender's virtuoso performance, which has already won awards and must surely be an Oscar front-runner.
Coriolanus (20th January)
The Talent: Star/director Ralph Fiennes, supported by Vanessa Redgrave and Gerard Butler.
The Pitch: Full-throttle adaptation of one of Shakespeare's best-kept secrets, a Roman tragedy about a vengeful general.
The Hook: Fiennes has relocated the action to the present-day to deliver Shakespeare as combat movie.
Defining Feature: The shaky, handheld camerawork, shot by The Hurt Locker 's Barry Ackroyd.
J. Edgar (20th January)
The Talent: Director Clint Eastwood, stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Naomi Watts.
The Pitch: The life of J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI's controversial founding director.
The Hook: The season's big prestige biopic, with Eastwood collaborating with fellow Oscar winner Dustin Lance Black ( Milk ) for an ambitious decades-spanning portrayal of Hoover.
Defining Feature: The make-up required to age DiCaprio into an old man, which has proved a distracting deal-breaker for some viewers.
Haywire (20th January)
The Talent: Director Steven Soderbergh, star Gina Carano.
The Pitch: Thriller about a covert ops assassin betrayed by her handlers and out for revenge.
The Hook: Soderbergh throwing himself into the mainstream by helming a Hollywood vehicle for mixed martial arts superstar Carano.
Defining Feature: The amazing supporting cast - Michael Douglas, Ewan McGregor, Antonio Banderas and Michael Fassbender.
The Descendants (27th January)
The Talent: Director Alexander Payne, star George Clooney.
The Pitch: Pampered Matt King (Clooney) has to fulfil the father role he's always neglected when his wife falls into a coma and he has to look after their two daughters.
The Hook: Payne's first film since Sideways has been a long time coming, and his flair for comedy-drama is matched by Clooney playing, well, Clooney.
Defining Feature: Newcomer Shailene Woodley's already Golden Globe-nominated performance as Clooney's eldest daughter.
Carnage (3rd February)
The Talent: Director Roman Polanski, stars Kate Winslet, Jodie Foster, John C. Reilly and Christoph Waltz.
The Pitch: Two couples get together to discuss an altercation between their kids, but find themselves at blows after drinking too much.
The Hook: Polanski is a master of minimalist stage adaptations - remember Death And The Maiden - and here he gets to turn the screws on a superb cast.
Defining Feature: Winslet's drunk act. Be warned.
Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace (9th February)
The Talent: Director George Lucas, stars Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor and Jar Jar Binks.
The Pitch: A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...Lucas fumbled the ball.
The Hook: The first of six annual re-releases of the Star Wars saga, newly converted into 3D.
Defining Feature: The podrace is likely to be the biggest beneficiary of the extra dimension.
A Dangerous Method (10th February)
The Talent: Director David Cronenberg, stars Viggo Mortensen, Michael Fassbender and Keira Knightley.
The Pitch: Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, friends and psychoanalysis pioneers, fall out when a woman comes between them.
The Hook: Cronenberg's body horror has always had its Freudian subtexts - so his chilly, psychologically acute style is well matched to what is effectively an origins story for his filmmaking.
Defining Feature: Cronenberg's third collaboration in a row with Mortensen. They're becoming one of the great director/star pairings.
The Muppets (10th February)
The Talent: Director James Bobin, stars Jason Segel, Amy Adams, Kermit The Frog and Miss Piggy.
The Pitch: Two Muppet Show fans have to reunite the old gang in order to save the Muppet Theater from being demolished.
The Hook: It's time to play the music, it's time to light the lights. A classic, reinvented.
Defining Feature: Fanboy scripters Segel and Nicholas Stoller (remember the vampire musical in Forgetting Sarah Marshall ) getting to play with their heroes.
The Woman In Black (10th February)
The Talent: Director James Watkins, star Daniel Radcliffe.
The Pitch: Adaptation of Susan Hill's ghost story (already turned into a hit stage play and an acclaimed TV drama) about a solicitor being haunted by the titular black-clad lady.
The Hook: Radcliffe's first starring role since hanging up Harry Potter's wand. It's fair to say expectations are high.
Defining Feature: The biggest release from the recently-relaunched Hammer Studios, this could mark their return to scaring the bejeezus out of the public once more.
Young Adult (10th February)
The Talent: Director Jason Reitman, stars Charlize Theron and Patton Oswalt.
The Pitch: Teen-lit author Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron) mistakes fiction for reality when she tries to recapture her own high school glory days.
The Hook: Reitman's reunion with Juno screenwriter Diablo Cody promises another bittersweet cocktail of sharp dialogue and sweet emotion.
Defining Feature: Theron is back in a big way this year, but take a look at the rare live-action leading role for Oswalt, aka Remy from Ratatouille .
This Means War (17th February)
The Talent: Director McG, stars Tom Hardy, Chris Pine and Reese Witherspoon.
The Pitch: Two CIA agents come to blows when they realise they're dating the same woman.
The Hook: The most ludicrous premise for an action comedy in years gets a director who doesn't know restraint. Switch off brain and enjoy the pyrotechnics.
Defining Feature: 2012 will be Tom Hardy's year. This is where it starts.
John Carter (9th March)
The Talent: Director Andrew Stanton, stars Taylor Kitsch, Samantha Morton and Willem Dafoe.
The Pitch: Edgar Rice Burroughs' epic after an American Civil War soldier who must unite the tribes of Mars. Burroughs wrote loads of John Carter stories: will this be a franchise?
The Hook: Part 2 in Pixar's colonisation of live-action, after Brad Bird helming Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol .
Defining Feature: The original title was John Carter Of Mars . The planet's name was dropped in order to maximise the movie's reach beyond the sci-fi crowd - smart marketing, or running scared?
We Bought A Zoo (16th March)
The Talent: Director Cameron Crowe, stars Matt Damon and Scarlett Johansen.
The Pitch: Based on Benjamin Mee's memoir, this is the story of a guy who buys a zoo. Funny, that.
The Hook: Crowe's first film in years is an unashamedly soft-hearted family movie with a cool cast.
Defining Feature: Crowe has impeccable music taste. His selection of Sigur Rós frontman Jónsi Birgisson on soundtrack duties is very exciting.
The Hunger Games (23rd March)
The Talent: Director Gary Ross, stars Jennifer Lawrence and Liam Hemsworth.
The Pitch: A sci-fi Battle Royale , as tribespeople in future America are forced to fight in organised combat.
The Hook: Suzanne Collins' novels are what the cool kids started to read once they'd finished Harry Potter and Twilight . No pressure there, then.
Defining Feature: Jennifer Lawrence's first lead role since Winter's Bone , which will surely cement her reputation as Hollywood's brightest hope.
The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists (28th March)
The Talent: Director Peter Lord, stars Hugh Grant, Salma Hayek and David Tennant.
The Pitch: The Pirate Captain joins forces with Charles Darwin to win the Pirate Of The Year Award.
The Hook: Aardman's first stop-motion movie since The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit - what more incentive do you need?
Defining Feature: Hugh Grant working with Aardman makes for possibly the most English animated movie since, well, Wallace and Gromit .
The Innkeepers (Spring, TBC)
The Talent: Director Ti West, stars Kelly McGillis and Sara Paxton.
The Pitch: Two ghost hunters brave a supposedly haunted hotel as it prepares to close its doors.
The Hook: Ti West is the name to drop amongst horror fans. Already a hit at this year's Frightfest, The Innkeepers could be the one to bring him to a wider audience.
Defining Feature: Yes, that Kelly McGillis.
American Pie: Reunion (6th April)
The Talent: Directors John Hurwitz and Hayden Scholssberg, stars Jim, Kevin, Oz, Finch and Stifler.
The Pitch: It does what it says on the tin. The original cast of American Pie , reunited now they're middle-aged but still prone to sex-based disasters.
The Hook: A return to cinemas after the American Pie franchise had taken a cul-de-sac into straight-to-DVD cash-ins.
Defining Feature: A collective Proustian flashback to the time when Tara Reid, Chris Klein and Jason Biggs had promising careers ahead.
Headhunters (6th April)
The Talent: Director Morten Tyldum, stars Aksel Hennie and Synnove Macody Lund.
The Pitch: Danish thriller about a corporate headhunter who moonlights as an art thief to keep his shallow wife in the lifestyle she's accustomed to.
The Hook: A character drama that becomes a bonkers action film, this is the foreign-language film most likely to break out of the art-house ghetto to become a cult hit.
Defining Feature: Scandinavian style, back in vogue after fellow Dane Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive .
Titanic 3D
The Talent: Director James Cameron, stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet.
The Pitch: History's most famous sinking, as told via the medium of CGI-assisted teenage romance.
The Hook: Cameron's using 3D to try and get his ex-highest grossing film ever to overtake his current highest grossing film ever.
Defining Feature: Cameron has been a vocal critic of bad 3D conversion jobs, so there's a lot riding on whether he can perfect the technology.
The Cabin In The Woods (13th April)
The Talent: Director Drew Goddard, star Chris Hemsworth.
The Pitch: A bunch of youngsters head off for the titular holiday home. Guess what? Doesn't go according to plan.
The Hook: With Cloverfield writer Drew Goddard working with old Buffy The Vampire Slayer colleague Joss Whedon, expect fresh twists on a familiar formula.
Defining Feature: Studio shenanigans have kept this in the locker for a while; in the meantime, Hemsworth has become a star.
Battleship (20th April)
The Talent: Director Peter Berg, stars Taylor Kitsch, Rihanna and Liam Neeson.
The Pitch: The U.S. Navy has a close encounter - can they stop the aliens sinking their battleship?
The Hook: You've played the game, now watch the film - although we don't quite remember the game being quite like this.
Defining Feature: The "In Association With Hasbro" credit. Expect more of this type of thing.
The Avengers (27th April)
The Talent: Joss Whedon, directing the Marvel Universe all-stars.
The Pitch: Iron Man, the Hulk, Captain America and Thor, together at last under the command of Nick Fury.
The Hook: A stellar line-up like that doesn't happen overnight. Marvel has been building multiple franchises in order to make this a smorgasbord of superhero entertainment.
Defining Feature: Most of the cast are known quantities. So all eyes are on whether Mark Ruffalo can eclipse Eric Bana and Ed Norton as the Hulk.
Wettest County (4th May)
The Talent: Director John Hillcoat, co-writer Nick Cave, stars Shia LaBeouf, Tom Hardy and Gary Oldman.
The Pitch: Three hillbilly bootleggers get caught in the crossfire during the Prohibition.
The Hook: Boardwalk Empire has made bootlegging cool again. Now it's the big screen's turn.
Defining Feature: The Road 's Hillcoat is fast becoming the go-to guy for grizzled genre movies. The prospect of him doing gangsters is tantalising.
Dark Shadows (11th May)
The Talent: Director Tim Burton, stars Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter.
The Pitch: Adaptation of the 1960s cult gothic soap opera about a weird family and their vampire son.
The Hook: Burton in his natural milieu, working with his regular collaborators and material close to his heart.
Defining Feature: The prospect of this being the most Burton-esque thing Burton has ever done.
The Dictator (18th May)
The Talent: Director Larry Charles, star Sacha Baron-Cohen.
The Pitch: Baron-Cohen takes on the title role in a film based on novel Zabibah And The King , allegedly written by Saddam Hussein.
The Hook: The first Baron-Cohen star vehicle not directly based on one of his TV characters promises to be his most controversial yet.
Defining Feature: Adapting Saddam? Chances are this won't be entirely a straight version of the book.
Men In Black 3 (25th May)
The Talent: Director Barry Sonnenfeld, stars Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones and Josh Brolin.
The Pitch: Return of the alien enforcement comedy, now with added time-travel as Agent J (Smith) meets with the young Agent K (Brolin, channeling Jones).
The Hook: It's a decade since the lacklusture MiB 2 . Can a threequel reinvigorate the franchise? Never bet against the Fresh Prince.
Defining Feature: Brolin playing Jones - a lovely piece of casting considering their cat-and-mouse roles in No Country For Old Men .
Prometheus (1st June)
The Talent: Director Ridley Scott, stars Noomi Rapace, Charlize Theron and Michael Fassbender.
The Pitch: The prequel to Alien . Or not. Let's just say, as Fassbender put it, " Prometheus is absolutely connected to Alien ... There's a definite connecting vein."
The Hook: The return of Ridley Scott to save the world he created, after several decades of disappointing sequels and appalling cash-ins.
Defining Feature: The fact that so little is known. This could be the sleeper hit of the summer.
Snow White And The Huntsman (1st June)
The Talent: Director Rupert Sanders, stars Kristen Stewart, Charlize Theron and Chris Hemsworth.
The Pitch: New twist on an old legend, as the Evil Queen hires a huntsman to find the "fairest of them all."
The Hook: The first of competing Snow White adaptations - before Mirror, Mirror - boasts the better cast and the bigger buzz.
Defining Feature: Never mind Stewart exploring new options after Twilight . Theron is going to be the actress of 2012.
The Amazing Spider-man (4th July)
The Talent: Director Marc Webb, stars Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone and Rhys Ifans.
The Pitch: Long live Raimi and Maguire, all hail the new Spidey team as Peter Parker's story starts again.
The Hook: With Nolan's Batman series coming to a close and Man Of Steel another year away, Spidey is leading his superhero peers in how to survive franchise bloat - simply start again.
Defining Feature: Too soon for a reboot? Comics do this all the time, and Garfield looks spot-on.
The Dark Knight Rises (20th July)
The Talent: Director Christopher Nolan, stars Christian Bale, Anne Hathaway and Tom Hardy.
The Pitch: The third Batman, as Bruce Wayne faces new foes Bane and Catwoman.
The Hook: Does it need a hook? 2012's most anticipated film reunites a director who can do no wrong with his existing ensemble, plus some exciting new faces.
Defining Feature: Depending on your fanboy allegiances or sexual preferences, it's either Hathaway-as-Catwoman or Hardy-as-Bane.
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2nd August)
The Talent: Director Timur Bekmambetov, stars Benjamin Walker, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Dominic Cooper.
The Pitch: Adaptation of Seth Grahame-Smith's cheeky 'what if?' novel imagining that the slavery-hating Pres also like hammering stakes through vampires' hearts in his spare time.
The Hook: A mad premise that will either be the most enjoyable B-movie of the summer or 2012's Cowboys And Aliens .
Defining Feature: The return of Bekmambetov, who proved with Wanted that the last thing needed in an action movie is restraint.
Brave (17th August)
The Talent: Director Mark Andrews, stars Kelly Macdonald and Billy Connolly.
The Pitch: Pixar does Braveheart .
The Hook: After catching sequelitis for a few years, Pixar returns to original material by taking on the fairytale genre usually associated with parent company Disney.
Defining Feature: Macdonald, fresh off Boardwalk Empire , as Pixar's first female lead - don't expect a Disney princess.
The Bourne Legacy (17th August)
The Talent: Director Tony Gilroy, stars Jeremy Renner, Rachel Weisz and Edward Norton.
The Pitch: Bourne… without Bourne, as Renner's Aaron Cross deals with the amnesiac assassin's legacy.
The Hook: Can a franchise survive without its star? This so-called "sidequel" from Michael Clayton director Gilroy (who wrote the earlier Bourne films) offers a new spin on franchise building.
Defining Feature: All eyes are on whether Renner will be a satisfactory replacement for Matt Damon.
The Expendables 2 (17th August)
The Talent: Director Simon West, stars Sylvester Stallone and his action hero all-stars.
The Pitch: Barney Ross and his team of mercenaries go up against a rival team led by Jean Vilain (who, we're guessing, is a villain).
The Hook: The arrival of JCVD (as Vilain) and Chuck Norris cements Stallone's efforts to make a lucrative retirement fund for his 80s action hero buddies.
Defining Feature: Stallone has handed directorial duties to Con Air helmer Simon West, allowing him to concentrate on busting heads.
Total Recall (22nd August)
The Talent: Director Len Wiseman, stars Colin Farrell and Kate Beckinsale.
The Pitch: New version of the Philip K. Dick story 'We Can Remember It For You Wholesale,' already filmed in 1990 by Paul Verhoeven and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The Hook: Farrell as Arnie? With such a vastly different type of actor in the lead, this might be closer to Dick's dystopian vision… albeit through Wiseman's kick-ass action sensibility.
Defining Feature: Remakes are now into the 1990s! Too soon?
The Sweeney (21st September)
The Talent: Director Nick Love, stars Ray Winstone and Ben 'Plan B' Drew.
The Pitch: The 70s UK police show gets a makeover. Da-dada, da-dada, da da da-da daaa da da-dada.
The Hook: British cinema doesn't really do cops 'n' robbers, but The Football Factory director Nick Love has the geezer sensibility to keep it shouty.
Defining Feature: Winstone's an obvious call for John Thaw's Regan, but can Plan B do Dennis Waterman? Hopefully, he'll write the theme tune, sing the theme tune.
Looper (28th September)
The Talent: Director Rian Johnson, stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis and Emily Blunt.
The Pitch: Timey-wimey action, as an assassin hired to kill future convicts who escape into the past recognises his latest target - himself.
The Hook: Johnson reunites with Brick star Gordon-Levitt. Expect more of the same mind-bending twists, with added 12 Monkeys weirdness courtesy of Willis.
Defining Feature: Gordon-Levitt and Willis playing the same guy?
Taken 2 (5th October)
The Talent: Director Olivier Megaton, stars Liam Neeson and Maggie Grace.
The Pitch: Retired black ops agent Bryan Mills is forced to come to the rescue once again.
The Hook: The sequel to the hit nobody was expecting, this will rival The Expendables 2 as the year's most exciting guilty pleasure.
Defining Feature: Taken defined Liam Neeson's recent reinvention as a hard-man, so this is all about Mr "I will find you and kill you" Mills.
Skyfall (26th October)
The Talent: Director Sam Mendes, stars Daniel Craig and Javier Bardem.
The Pitch: Bond 23 - but not, apparently, a continuation of the Quantum storyline.
The Hook: 007 gets serious, by hiring Oscar-winners Mendes and Bardem as director and villain, respectively.
Defining Feature: Hard to pick just one, but the return of Q (now played by Ben Whishaw) is something to get excited about.
The Gangster Squad (9th November)
The Talent: Director Ruben Fleischer, stars Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone and Sean Penn.
The Pitch: Mobster Mickey Cohen wants to break into LA, but a team of cops is put together to stop him. Think The Untouchables , but with sunshine.
The Hook: An old-school mob movie with some new moves, courtesy of man-of-the-moment Gosling and Zombieland director Fleischer.
Defining Feature: Amazingly, this is the first major movie about Mickey Cohen, after being a supporting character in Bugsy and L.A. Confidential .
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 (16th November)
The Talent: Director Bill Condon, stars Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner.
The Pitch: Edward, newly-fanged Bella and their l'il baby vampire take on the forces of darkness.
The Hook: The Twilight finale. Regardless of the lukewarm reaction to Breaking Dawn, Part 1 , your kid sister will love it.
Defining Feature: Splitting the final story in two a la Harry Potter should at least mean one thing - action!
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (14th December)
The Talent: Director Peter Jackson, stars Martin Freeman Ian McKellen and Richard Armitage.
The Pitch: Long before The Lord Of The Rings , hobbit Bilbo Baggins set out on an adventure with a company of dwarves.
The Hook: After a loooong delay, Jackson returns to Middle Earth with the first in a two-part prequel to his masterwork.
Defining Feature: After helping Spielberg on Tintin , this will be Jackson's first film in 3D.
Life Of Pi (21st December)
The Talent: Director Ang Lee, star Suraj Sharma.
The Pitch: Adaptation of Yann Martel's Booker Prize-winning novel about a boy stuck on a boat with a tiger and other animals.
The Hook: Seeing an impossible project brought to the screen. Shyamalan, Cuaron and Jeunet all failed to make it work. Can genre chameleon Lee do it justice?
Defining Feature: It's all about the tiger. Get that right, and we'll believe anything.
World War Z (21st December, U.S.)
The Talent: Director Marc Forster, star Brad Pitt.
The Pitch: A United Nations operative scours the world, interviewing survivors of the zombie apocalypse.
The Hook: Max Brooks' acclaimed novel - a series of first-person accounts of a zombie war - is the War And Peace of zombie fiction. We're talking epic territory for the film.
Defining Feature: The screenplay is by Babylon 5' s storytelling master Michael J. Straczynski. If anybody can make multiple plotlines cohere, it's him.
The Great Gatsby (25th December, U.S.)
The Talent: Director Baz Luhrmann, stars Leonard DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan and Tobey Maguire.
The Pitch: Adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic story of adultery and excess during the Jazz Age, with Leo as mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby.
The Hook: Showman Baz Luhrmann's films are always an event, and his lavish take on Fitzgerald will either be the Oscar frontrunner, a call to arms for literary lovers, or both.
Defining Feature: The fact that Luhrmann is shooting in 3D. Er, why?
Django Unchained (26th December)
The Talent: Director Quentin Tarantino, stars Jamie Foxx, Leonardo DiCaprio and Samuel L. Jackson.
The Pitch: A freed slave in 19th Century America is trained as a bounty hunter and then decides to get payback on the slave owners.
The Hook: Tarantino's love of Spaghetti Westerns is well known. Here he reinvents genre icon Django for a film that will do for slavery what Inglourious Basterds did for the Nazis.
Defining Feature: Tarantino has a knack for getting career best performances out of his actors. The prospect of DiCaprio as a villain could set Oscar bells ringing.
