Earlier this week, you were treated to my bottom 5 ScienceFiction.com films of 2012. Also, you were able to glimpse into the future and see what sci-fi/horror/fantasy movies are in the pipeline for this New Year. In this article, I’m going to take the two ideas and mash them up to get something completely new and original: A most anticipated list!

Yeah, it’s not all that original, but if it’s not broke, don’t fix it, right? Either way, no matter how I show it to you, I’m pretty stoked for some movies that are coming out this year. There’s a whole mess of good ones, so know that I had quite a hard time narrowing down my list to five.

Now, without further ado, my most anticipated ScienceFiction.com films of 2013!

5. ‘All Superheroes Must Die’ (or ‘Vs’)

If you’ve been following my articles over the past year, you’ll know that I love superheroes. Naturally, when someone decides to twist the genre, my interest is piqued. In ‘All Superheroes Must Die’, a villain reassembles a disbanded super team, strips them of their powers, and forces them to play his twisted game that ends with the world’s destruction if they lose. In my research for this list, I stumbled upon this movie that premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in 2011 and became intrigued by the idea of ‘Saw’ meets ‘Avengers Arena’. While not exactly a universally acknowledged highly anticipated release, I’m definitely interested in seeing it. It’s getting an extremely limited theatrical release and then being released on DVD on January 29th. Probably not a good sign in regards to the quality, but I’ll watch it anyway.

4. ‘The Hunger Games: Catching Fire’

Whenever anyone talks about ‘The Hunger Games’, the conversation almost usually goes to Peeta and Katniss. While I am a huge Jennifer Lawrence fan and enjoy discussing her at length, I want to see what happens to Gale. The poor dude watched his girlfriend canoodle with another guy in front of all Panem. That’s gotta be tough for him, and I want to see how it all plays out in the next installment of the trilogy, ‘Catching Fire’. Yeah, there’s a lot of other reasons why I want to check out this one too I guess, but mostly I’m looking forward to Peeta vs. Gale. There’s gotta be some smackdown laid over this, and if Liam Hemsworth’s recent altercations on the streets of Philadelphia are any indication, Peeta better watch himself.

3. ‘After Earth’

Never, ever, ever, EVER did I think that an M. Night Shyamalan film would make it onto my most anticipated list, but here we are. The controversial director has put out some less than favorable films since his strong first and second outings, but his new sci-fi thriller ‘After Earth’ has me intrigued. Will Smith doesn’t hop on for any old project. A certain quality comes with an actor of his caliber, so for him to be doing an M. Night picture must mean that there’s something worthwhile about it. I want to find out what that something is and I hope that the twist in this film (because there has inevitably got to be one) isn’t something too cringe-worthy, like the trees being the cause of the whole thing.

2. ‘This Is The End’/ ‘The World’s End’

I couldn’t pick just one of these films to fill this spot because I’m pretty excited for both. While there have been plenty of end of days films over the past few years with all this Mayan calendar nonsense, these films are comedic takes on the end of the world, an approach that surprisingly hasn’t been done enough. Now it’s being done by some of the funniest people in Hollywood. On one hand, you have James Franco, Jonah Hill, Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel, and more playing themselves in ‘This Is The End’. On the other hand, there’s Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, and director Edgar Wright completing their Blood & Ice Cream trilogy with ‘The World’s End’. Both look really funny and have the potential to be among the favorite films of the year in some circles.

1. ‘Iron Man 3’

As I mentioned previously, I’m a huge superhero fan. More specifically, I’m a Marvel fan. And so as to not flood this list with movies from that genre, I limited myself to one Marvel movie. Yes, I’m excited for ‘Thor: The Dark World’, ‘The Wolverine’, and (technically) ‘Kick-Ass 2’, but ‘Iron Man 3’ is the start of a whole new phase in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s the first step towards ‘The Avengers 2’. Also, it’s Robert Downey Jr. alongside an amazing cast including Ben Kingsley as the villainous Mandarin. Big things are in store for Phase Two, and it all begins here. May cannot come soon enough.

Honorable Mention: ‘Much Ado About Nothing’

This black and white indie film isn’t actually something that ScienceFiction.com would cover, however, some of our genres’ staples are featured in this film. Directed by Joss Whedon at his house in Santa Monica while on a break from shooting ‘The Avengers’, this Shakespearian adaptation stars Nathan Fillion, Clark Gregg, Sean Maher, Fran Kranz, Amy Acker, Alexis Denisof, and more. The whole thing was a secret until it was finished and basically something that Joss did while on vacation for 12 days. Not only do I admire his work ethic and inability to just sit and relax, but also Whedon picked a great story to adapt. I can’t wait to see what he does with it.

What films are you looking forward to in this New Year? Share your picks in the comments below!