There's a strong argument for declaring the holiday movie season kicked off with the November release of Jon M Chu's juggernaut Wicked. But that's a musical — though a terrific one — targeted at a specific audience. As school semesters end and we take much-needed breaks from the office, cinemas are filling up with something for everyone.

Of the high-profile family (read: Disney) IP, the first out of the gate, on Dec 5, is Moana 2, directed by David G Derrick Jr, Jason Hand and Dana Ledoux Miller. Auli'i Cravalho and Dwayne Johnson return as the voices of Moana and Maui respectively, setting off on an adventure with a new crew to break a curse. Out are the 2016 film's directors, their organic vision and the Lin-Manuel Miranda soundtrack. In are new characters Nalo and Matangi, an underworld goddess.

The next big family entry is a prequel to one of Disney's most popular films ever. Mufasa: The Lion King (Dec 19) tells the story of Scar's and Mufasa's Tanzania childhoods. Oscar-winner Barry Jenkins (Moonlight) directs emerging star Aaron Pierre in the role originally voiced by the legendary James Earl Jones. Both have enormous shoes to fill, but if anyone can spin an engaging story about characters wrestling with their destinies, it's Jenkins. And the art is going to be spectacular.

If anything straddles the line between family and adult entertainment it's J R R Tolkien, and The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim (Dec 24) could be the film that brings everyone together. Writer-animator Kenji Kamiyama, who cut his teeth as an artist on the 1988 anime classic Akira, directs a Middle-Earth tale set nearly 200 years before the events of Peter Jackson's 2001-03 trilogy, pivoting on the Rohan king for whom Helm's Deep was named. Rohirrim gives the Rings franchise a fresh look and perspective, and fans won't want to miss it on the big screen.

Winter is often associated with grown-up content and awards contenders, and on that front, JT Mollner's Strange Darling (Dec 5) and Edward Berger's Conclave (Dec 19) fit the bill. The former is a bloody serial-killer thriller - but one with the smartest and most challenging premise of the year. Using a non-linear structure, the film makes demands of viewers' own perceptions, and the less you know going in the better. Conclave is a thriller about choosing a new pope. Berger, an Oscar-winner for All Quiet on the Western Front, builds a white-knuckle paranoid mystery by positing the Vatican as a workplace like any other, and the papal conclave an election like any other. Ralph Fiennes leads an all-star cast in a stylish potboiler about faith, tolerance and mythology.

Hong Kong's big-ticket winter entries are already out, but from the Chinese mainland comes Jia Zhangke's Caught by the Tides (Dec 5), a typically lyrical Jia examination of the effect of rapid change on the country since 2001, starring Zhao Tao. From Taiwan, Huang Xi's Daughter's Daughter (Dec 12) stars Sylvia Chang as a woman faced with a dilemma when she becomes the legal custodian of her dead daughter's frozen embryo.

Finally, though it seems far off now, Paddington in Peru, the third film of a surprisingly deft and genuinely funny series about the bear in a blue duffle coat, lands in January - just in time for Lunar New Year. Music video and commercials director Dougal Wilson steps in for original director Paul King, and Antonio Banderas does his best to reach the hilarious heights Hugh Grant did in the second film. It's Paddington - so it can't be all bad.