Last November, for the 25,000th time on the stage, the actor playing Sergeant Trotter in The Mousetrap stepped forward during the curtain call and asked members of the audience not to reveal the play's surprise ending to others. To do so would, by implication, spoil the whodunnit for future audiences. Over the years the odd clever-clogs stand-up has disobeyed the injunction. And whoever wrote the play’s Wikipedia entry also gives the game away.

The movie version of the hardboiled, trenchcoated private eye, who, being “being neither tarnished nor afraid,” puts honour before personal gain in California’s 1940s noir cityscapes, was never as enduring as his literary original.

We've pondered and pored over the films of 2012 and, while 2013 might have a lot to live up to, thankfully there's plenty of excitement on the horizon. So here are our picks of the coming months.

Django Unchained (dir. Quentin Tarantino) - 18 January

With poorly heads and nostalgic hearts it’s time to look back over the year that’s passed. And what a year in film it was! For those who like their movies monolithic or miniscule, epic or slender, noisily spectacular or quietly mesmeric, pea-brained or near-impenetrably intellectual - 2012 delivered. In fact it was the year in which there was a 5-star film for everyone.

Yesterday our film writers brought you numbers 10 – 6 in our movies of 2012 countdown. Looking back over that list it’s hard to imagine a clutch of finer films. Yet, testament to a year of remarkable filmmaking, it’s a hell of a race to the finish, taking in sex addiction, murder, spies, hostages and cults. And so we present our final five. Drumroll please…

5 – Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (dir. Nuri Bilge Ceylan)

With the end of 2012 nearly upon us it’s time for a spot of reflection. We’ve polled our film writers for their picks of the year and bring you our top 10 in all its drama and diversity. This is cinema at its very best, representing the numerous shades of the filmic rainbow: spectacular, plucky, horrifying, challenging, comedic, harrowing, joyous and strange. With each of our writers acting as a film’s individual champion, we begin with a rundown of numbers 10 to six (two films tied for eighth spot.) Join us tomorrow for the final five.

Blessed with the finest (and most infuriatingly catchy) soundtrack of any Christmas film, Vincente Minnelli’s 1944 movie-musical Meet Me in St Louis is a festive classic of a simpler, happier time. Small girls roam the streets in safety getting up to all kinds of wholesome mischief, bigger girls sing songs around the piano and fall for the boy next door. As a cinematic metaphor for the virtues of the small-town life it’s enough to make any commuter swap their season ticket for picket-fence.

Michael Haneke’s Amour was the big winner last night in the European Film Awards’ silver jubilee year. As well as Best Film, Haneke won Best Director, as he did for his previous two films The White Ribbon (2009) and Hidden (2005), while his veteran stars Emmanuelle Riva and Jean-Louis Trintignant were named Best Actress and Actor.

Greece is in economic meltdown. Austerity is hitting most of the population very hard. Businesses are closing down. The amount of homeless has increased. There are strikes and huge anti-government demonstrations throughout the country. What better time to hold a huge film festival?

Almaty may have lost its capital status to Astana in 1997, but this city of 1.6m inhabitants, about nine percent of the country's population, remains the commercial and cultural hub of Kazakhstan. The Eurasia Film Festival was first held here in 1998 with the support of the Filmmakers Union as a forum for movies from the CIS and Baltic countries. Though initially intended as an annual event, some years there hasn't been a festival at all - in 2009 it officially closed only to resume again in 2010.