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The truism insists that movies (if not movie critics) are recession-proof, that when the going gets tough, even the toughest just keep on going to the local megaplex, swapping their troubles for a two-hour date with the silver screen. Well, this year will definitely put that smug little dictum to a stern test. What's more, given their lengthy gestation period, feature films are seldom in step with the social mood of the times – conceived in yesterday's different climate, they rarely speak to today's prevailing conditions. So you'll have to wait for pictures featuring a black messiah in the White House or an investment banker in ruin – they'll come, and in droves, but later.

Yet this argument can also be stood on its head, revealing a potentially positive flipside to the entrenched conservatism of the industry. There, Hollywood's rear-view mirror mindset, so intent on repeating the past, morphs in a harsh economy from a vice to a virtue: Anxious audiences may well find the repetition not dull and formulaic but familiar and reassuring. Perhaps, when people are experiencing upheaval in their lives, they cling to predictability in their entertainment.

If so, cling away, because this year, like all years, most of the coming movies are really just a big grey recycling bin floating proudly on a sea of change. Yes, sequels will again offer their numerical solace: Anyone for Night at the Museum 2? Even the remakes have an arithmetical ring: The Taking of Pelham 1,2,3; Friday the 13th. And the franchises, of course, will continue with their outlets: Terminator: Salvation (the terminating never ends), Angels and Demons (more Da Vinci coding), Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (the wizening boy wizard) all open their doors in the summer months. Familiar, indeed; reassuring, maybe.

But let's do some clinging ourselves, and sound a hopeful note: There will surely be films that don't fit into that vast grey bin, and even those that do may prove to have their redeeming merits. For instance, Sherlock Holmes is no stranger to the movie biz, but I'm awfully keen to see Robert Downey Jr. sliding into Baker Street and peering through his monocle. And Viggo Mortensen seems just the long-faced guy for Cormac McCarthy's The Road, a post-apocalyptic tale guaranteed to make 2009 look like boom times. Or maybe James Cameron's much-anticipated Avatar will offer the perfect escape – all those big-budget effects could turn Cameron into the Busby Berkeley of our era, chasing away the blues in pricey 3-D.

But here's my surefire bet for the annum: director Michael Mann's Public Enemies, where the gifted Johnny Depp plays the crafty John Dillinger, folk hero of the last Great Depression, and a quaint reminder of the good old days – you know, back when the robbers got robbed, when banks weren't mercifully bailed out but manfully held up.