The New Year Honours List 2012 includes figures from the worlds of entertainment, sport, business, politics and culture as well Britain's local heroes.
Comedy star Ronnie Corbett, 81, will receive a CBE for more than five decades of work in entertainment.
Edinburgh-born Corbett won his way into British hearts after he linked up with Ronnie Barker to create the Two Ronnies double act, in what became one of the most successful and long-running sketch shows ever made.
Bonham Carter told the Press Association that she would receive it in honour of her late father, who was left severely disabled after an operation to remove a benign brain tumour in 1979 until his death in 2004.
She said: "I am thrilled though not sure that I deserve it.. I am delighted to accept such a wonderful honour in his memory."
In sport, golfer Rory McIlroy, 22, will receive an MBE after becoming the youngest US Open champion in 88 years. Darren Clarke, who won the Open in 2011 at the age of 42, will also receive an MBE.
Scotland's most-capped rugby player Chris Paterson has also been given an MBE, just over a week after announcing his retirement from the game at international level. The same honour goes to Jamie Peacock, the 34-year-old England Rugby League captain and Leeds Rhinos prop forward.
The chair of the England and Wales Cricket Board Giles Clarke, based in Wrington, Somerset, is made CBE - an honour which comes in the year that England became the number one Test-playing nation.
Retired international umpire Harold "Dickie" Bird, 78, of Barnsley, south Yorkshire, gets an OBE for services to cricket and charity.
Former Formula 1 motor racing world champion Nigel Mansell, 58, who is also president of the charity UK Youth, will receive a CBE for services to children and young people. Football veteran Doug Ellis, who ran Birmingham club Aston Villa for more than two decades, is knighted for charitable services.
In TV, presenter Lorraine Kelly was "thrilled" to be recognised in the New Year Honours list while critic, writer and TV presenter Clive James was awarded a CBE.
Sky News journalist Alex Crawford, who was made an OBE for services to broadcast journalism after her work reporting the conflict in Libya, said she was "staggered and honoured" by the announcement.
Broadcaster Stuart Hall - a familiar voice of sport, news and the madcap gameshow It's A Knockout - said it was "a great accolade" to be honoured with an OBE for his career stretching back more than 50 years.
TV producer Peter Bazalgette, who introduced Big Brother to the UK, will receive a knighthood, as will poet Professor Geoffery William Hill, music director Antonio Pappano and the philanthropist Paul Ruddock.
Film-maker Murray Grigor, credited with more than 60 films, said he feels privileged to receive an OBE for services to architecture and to the film industry and Steve Lillywhite, the record producer who put U2 on the road to fame and worked with some of the biggest names in rock, has been awarded a CBE.
Literary endeavours are recognised with a string of accolades for writers including author and Booker Prize-winner Penelope Lively, 78, who is made a dame.
Illustrator Alex Brychta, who worked on animation for Sesame Street, is made MBE.
A string of names from British fashion are also singled out for their achievements, with John Ayton and his wife Annoushka, the couple behind Links of London, handed MBEs. Meanwhile, Polish-born Barbara Hulanicki, who headed clothing store Biba, is made OBE for services to fashion.
Figures from public life were also recognised, including Lord Carlile of Berriew QC, who served for 10 years under Labour and the coalition as the government's independent reviewer of terrorism legislation and now becomes a CBE for his services to national security.
Several of those involved in the preparations for the 2012 London Olympic Games were also recognised, including John Armitt, chairman of the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA), who is made a knight for services to engineering and construction.
A knighthood also goes to Charles Allen, whose honour recognises his efforts to ensure nationwide benefits as part of his role at the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games.
Howard Shiplee, director of construction at the ODA, is made CBE.
In education there is an MBE for dinner lady Jeanette Orrey, who inspired Jamie Oliver's campaign for healthier school meals through her own work at St Peter's Primary School in East Bridgford near Nottingham.
Members of the royal medical staff were also recognised, including Jonathan Jagger, who is the surgeon oculist to the Queen and was made a Lieutenant of the Royal Victorian Order.
As usual, most of those receiving accolades are unsung heroes.
MBEs go to stonemason Alan Horsfield, who is honoured for services to St Paul's Cathedral; Welsh caretaker Robert Owen, who is recognised for services to the community in Holyhead, Anglesey; Mary Watt, who is rewarded for services to highland dance teaching in Ross-shire, Scotland; and Lyndie Wright, of the Little Angel Theatre in Islington, north London, who receives her accolade for services to the craft of puppetry.
A former drug-dealing gang member related to schoolboy Damilola Taylor's killers is also being honoured with an OBE after turning his life around. Chris Preddie, the cousin of brothers Danny and Ricky Preddie who killed 10-year-old Damilola in 2000, devoted his life to youth work and reducing crime after shunning the gang life to work with young offenders.
And though his name may be linked to the top-secret world of espionage, James Bond's MBE recognises his work as a foster carer at Essex County Council.