While none have been as anticipated as far in advance as last year's trio of The Dark Knight Rises, The Hobbit an Unexpected Journey, and the Avengers, 2013 still has a number of widely anticipated movies. Ranging from big blockbusters with 200 million dollar budgets to small, personal films that had to struggle just to exist, 2013 has a potentially incredible selection of films and is shaping up to be a fine year for cinema. This list attempts to highlight the releases this year that have a chance to become great movies as well as predict just how good they will be related to other releases. While every "best movie of the year" prediction list I've ever seen has been horribly wrong, hopefully this list will get other people excited about this years releases or even bring awareness of a certain movie to people who might not have known about it otherwise. A quick disclaimer: If Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel ends up with a 2013 release date it would end up in the top 5, but currently it has no release date....
20. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDnYMbYB-nU The first entry in the Hobbit trilogy was a little bit underwhelming but it had enough positives to keep the second entry, Desolation of Smaug, among the most anticipated movies of 2013. Without the need to set up all the characters, the second film in the trilogy will be able to focus more on the story and character development, something Unexpected Journey didn't really have the time for. Of course a lot of the quality of the movie will depend on how well the creative team brings Smaug the dragon to life as he is going to be the centerpiece of the film. Voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch and based off of Guillrmo Del Toro's design, there's no reason to expect that Smaug will be anything less than spectacular. Desolation of Smaug will hopefully have enough time in production to eliminate some of the flaws that plagued Unexpected Journey (unnecessary CGI, too many references to the original, too many scenes that should have been saved for the extended edition, etc.) and get closer to the level of quality that a Hobbit film needs to be at.