A year ago, in a similar piece on what films to watch out for in 2008, I looked forward excitedly to Bryan Singer's Valkyrie, a retelling of the 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler. Twelve months on and I'm still looking forward to it!

The war drama's release date has been pushed back again and again -- not an encouraging sign -- but we are assured that it will finally open here in February, which will give us a chance to watch Tom Cruise trying to convince as a Prussian aristocrat.

All of which proves that studio release dates are not something you should set your watch by. We can be reasonably certain, however, that most of the films below will open at some point in 2009, and quite an exciting prospect they make. The month of January in particular will be packed with quality releases, as the major studios square up for the annual Oscar bun fight.

Danny Boyle is back on tip-top form with Slumdog Millionaire, which opens on January 9. Based on a novel by Vikas Swarup, the Mumbai-set film brilliantly uses the premise of a former street urchin's appearance on the Indian version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire as the launching pad for an investigation of that country's rapidly evolving society. It's hotly tipped for Oscar recognition, as is David Fincher's film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

Adapted from a short story by F Scott Fitzgerald, it stars Brad Pitt as a man born with the appearance of an 80-year-old, who then proceeds to get younger. Cate Blanchett plays a woman whose love affair with Benjamin is complicated by the fact that they are ageing in opposite directions, and the film has been widely praised in the US, with Pitt considered to be strongly in the running for the Best Actor Oscar.

If so, he's likely to be up against Sean Penn, who at the very least deserves a nomination for his portrayal of 1970s gay activist Harvey Milk. Directed by Gus Van Sant, Milk movingly tells the story of Harvey Milk's long and ultimately successful fight to become America's first openly gay elected official, and features outstanding ensemble acting from Penn, Emile Hirsch, James Franco and Josh Brolin.

Leonardo Di Caprio and Kate Winslet star in Sam Mendes's adaptation of the Richard Yates book Revolutionary Road. Another film with awards written all over it, it follows an initially happy marriage which disintegrates in the smothering atmosphere of 1950s American suburbia.

And another heavyweight opening in late January is the film version of Peter Morgan's award-winning play, Frost/Nixon. It's remarkable that Ron Howard can follow a film as dumb as The Da Vinci Code with as intelligent a drama as this one, but there you are.

Frost/Nixon dramatises the 1977 TV interviews between David Frost and the disgraced president, whom Frank Langella uncannily resuscitates. It opens here on January 23.

Following the success of No Country for Old Men, adaptations of Cormac McCarthy novels are all the rage. The Road was only published in 2006, but a major film version will be released this year, possibly in the spring. Viggo Mortensen and Charlize Theron will star in what is bound to be a gloomy account of a father and son's attempts to survive while wandering in a post-apocalyptic landscape.

Also in March or thereabouts, Robert Downey will star in a rather more uplifting film, The Soloist. Directed by highly regarded English filmmaker Joe Wright (Pride and Prejudice, Atonement), it tells the true story of a mentally-ill musical prodigy played by Jamie Foxx who ends up homeless on the Los Angeles streets, with Downey a journalist who befriends and helps him.

I've seen clips of the upcoming David S Goyer horror film, The Unborn, and it looks pretty darned disturbing. It's about a woman who is tormented by the spirit of her unborn twin, which can only get born by engineering its sister's death. Nice. But the heavy-hitting drama Doubt promises to be even more unsettling. It stars Meryl Streep as a nun who attempts to confront Philip Seymour Hoffman's abusive priest. Amy Adams also stars.

Great excitement surrounds the projected March release of the dark superhero film Watchmen. And perhaps that's because various producers have been trying to turn Alan Moore's cult comic series into a film for over 20 years. Directed by Zack Snyder (300), the film is apparently broadly faithful to Moore's story of an alternative America in 1985, with Richard Nixon still in The White House and a group of grizzled superheroes setting out to prevent a series of state-backed assassinations. Advance clips look very impressive.

Irish actress Saoirse Ronan, who so impressed in Joe Wright's Atonement, lands her biggest role to date in Peter Jackson's adaptation of Alice Sebold's novel The Lovely Bones. She plays a raped and murdered teenager who watches from on high as her parents and friends cope with her death. It's due for release in March.

In April, the British comedy The Boat that Rocked will recreate the mad world of the pirate radio ships which bobbed off the coast in the 1960s merrily broadcasting courtesy of a legal loophole. Richard Curtis directs his own script and a strong cast which includes Bill Nighy, Kenneth Branagh and Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Benicio Del Toro is a busy man this weather. He plays revolutionary icon Che Guevara in Steven Soderberg's historical epic Che, the first part of which opened here yesterday. And in May he'll play a reluctant Victorian werewolf in Joe Johnson's horror remake The Wolfman. Anthony Hopkins and Emily Blunt also star.

The Ugly Truth, meanwhile, is likely to be among the biggest rom coms of the year. It stars the current darling of the genre, Katherine Heigl, as a TV producer who's persuaded by Gerard Butler into participating in a series of outrageous tests aimed to prove his chauvinistic theories about relationships.

Also in May, the Star Trek franchise will be relaunched by Lost creator JJ Abrams in a major new film which aims to get back to the basic characters and solid storylines of the original series.

The follow-up to The Da Vinci Code, meanwhile, promises to be even dafter than the original. Ron Howard and Tom Hanks reunite to foil a plot to destroy the Vatican City with anti-matter -- or something. It's due out in May, as is the animation Coraline. Directed by Henry Selick, it tells the story of a little girl who crawls through a cupboard into a mysterious parallel world, and promises to be one of the animations of the year.

In June, Ricky Gervais will attempt to build on the success of Ghost Town with his directorial debut, This Side of the Truth. Set on an alternative world in which no one has ever told a lie, it stars Gervais as the first man to figure out what might be gained by telling fibs.

Quentin Tarantino, meanwhile, seems likely to have his first box office hit in quite a while courtesy of his leading man, Brad Pitt. In Inglorious Basterds (sic), Pitt plays a Jewish-American commando who leads a troop of sociopaths into Hitler's Germany to kick some Nazi butt. Expect dark humour and excessive violence.

While no Bourne films will grace the blockbuster season, Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon will reunite for a rather more serious project. In Green Zone, Damon will play a US army officer who gets involved in the desperate search for weapons of mass destruction which would justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Brendan Gleeson will co-star.

No Batman this year either, obviously, but Christian Bale will be involved in one of the summer's biggest films, as the Terminator franchise is revived in Terminator: Salvation. Bale plays the grown-up John Connor, who leads humanity into a decisive war against the machines. And the best of luck to him.

The much delayed Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince finally arrives in July, as Voldemort tightens his grip on the world and Dumbledore prepares Harry for the coming battle.

Shia LaBoeuf and Megan Fox return for a sequel to the hugely successful 2007 fantasy Transformers. In Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, young boys will be torn once again between the joys of watching giant robots fight and the lure of Ms Fox. The dumber end of the summer multiplex fare will be serviced by Roland Emmerich, whose 2012 will involve an ensemble cast in the usual end-of-the-world nonsense.

Of more interest will be Michael Mann's film Public Enemies, a period crime drama set in the 1930s and starring Johnny Depp as iconic gangster John Dillinger and Christian Bale as an FBI agent who pursues him. It's due out in July.

A film of 1980s TV show The A-Team was originally due for realise next summer, but production problems mean it's unlikely to appear before the autumn at the earliest.

But there's plenty to look forward to later in the year as well. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, a typically wild and imaginative fantasy from Terry Gilliam, should appear before the end of this year, and will feature the last, unfinished performance by Heath Ledger, which was completed after his untimely death by Jude Law and Colin Farrell.

Guy Ritchie, who seems a man reborn since being released from the Madonna vortex, will release his Sherlock Holmes in November, starring the very busy Robert Downey as the Victorian sleuth. Also in November, Ben Barnes and Colin Firth will appear in Dorian Gray, Oliver Parker's adaptation of Oscar Wilde's novel The Portrait of Dorian Gray. And Russell Crowe will squeeze himself into a pair of green tights to play Robin Hood in Ridley Scott's Nottingham.

For reasons best known to themselves, director Martin Campbell and Naomi Watts are remaking Hitchcock's The Birds, and hoping to release it before the end of the year.

But still more ambitious-sounding is Nine, a Rob Marshall musical inspired by Fellini's classic 8 ½, and featuring the likes of Penelope Cruz, Nicole Kidman, Sophia Loren, Judi Dench and a singing Daniel Day-Lewis. Sounds like it will either be a mess or a masterpiece.

- Paul Whitington