No Country for Old Men. THE_Coen brothers, after a dull-ish period, have come storming back with a brilliant adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's 80s-set Western thriller.
Josh Brolin comes into his own as Llewelyn Moss, the Vietnam veteran who stumbles across $2 million in drug money out in the desert and tries to nab it.
Javier Bardem is Anton Chigurh, the sinister bad guy who wants it back, and Tommy Lee Jones is the honest cop who is after them both.
Release on January 18
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Julian Schnabel directs Ronald Harwood's superb adaptation of Jean-Dominique Bauby's memoir about his paralysis following a stroke, a book which with indomitable courage he was able to dictate to nurses by blinking the one part of his body that still moved - his eyelid - in a painstakingly learned alphabet-code. Mathieu Amalric gives the performance of a lifetime as Bauby.
Release on February 8
There Will Be Blood
Excitement has been building about what is seen as a powerfully and thrillingly strange new epic from the director Paul Thomas Anderson, with a vivid musical score by Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood, based on Upton Sinclair's novel Oil!, about late-19th-century America's raging thirst for black gold.
Daniel Day-Lewis gives a star turn as the amoral prospector Plainview, obsessed with making as much money as possible. Will the film justify the excitable comparisons being made with Citizen Kane?
Release on February 8
Persepolis
Marjane Satrapi's graphic novel about her own childhood in Iran and France during the 1979 Islamic Revolution has been transformed into a wonderful black-and-white animation, co-directed by Vincent Paronnaud. Does that sound austere?
It isn't at all: her story is feel-good, upbeat, funny, human and very inspiring. The movie's attitude to Islam, and to Islam's attitude to women -_and to her -_is irreverent, heartfelt, non-PC. A real treat.
Released on April 11
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Crystal Skull
AT 65, Harrison Ford throws away his bus pass and reaches once again for the hat and the whip!
This is going to be 2008's big summer movie, the fourth instalment of the adventures of Indiana Jones, an event which will have fans gibbering with excitement. Directed by Steven Spielberg, with a cast including Cate Blanchett, Jim Broadbent and Shia LaBoeuf.
Release on May 22
Brideshead Revisited
WE all remember Charles Sturridge's gorgeously languid version for Granada TV in 1981 -_and with an 11-hour running time he had the space to be languid.
Julian Jarrold's feature-film version will have to speed things up a bit.
Anyway, now it's Matthew Goode as Charles Ryder and Ben Whishaw as the iridescent Sebastian Flyte, sauntering elegantly about Oxford in Evelyn Waugh's tale of youth, pleasure, disenchantment and redemption.
Release on September 12
How to Lose Friends and Alienate People
Comedy star Simon Pegg takes on the role of British journalist Toby Young, who came to New York to work on Vanity Fair and conquer Manhattan.
But things didn't work out. This is a fictionalised treatment of Young's memoir of his great debacle; Robert B Weide directs, Kirsten Dunst plays Alison, the love interest, and Jeff Bridges plays Clayton Harding, a thinly drawn sketch of Graydon Carter, the editor of Vanity Fair.
Release on October 3
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
One of the world's most successful movie franchises nears its end with the penultimate episode of J K Rowling's mighty children's classic.
Stars are always telling us they "grew up in public", but for Daniel Radcliffe this is really true, taking the role of Harry Potter from moon-faced kid to wiry teen, and doing an exceptionally good job. This movie - which, like Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, is directed by David Yates - will be a hot date for Potter fans.
Release on November 21
-_Peter Bradshaw