Batman is one of the most iconic characters ever created. Since Adam West brought the campy tone of his ‘60s TV series to the big screen, the Bat has been continually rebooted in movie form with increasing frequency. West handed the cowl to Michael Keaton, who handed it to Val Kilmer, who handed it to George Clooney, who handed it to Christian Bale, who handed it to Ben Affleck, who recently handed it to Robert Pattinson.
There are Batman movies that rate among the best movies of all time on Rotten Tomatoes and Batman movies that rate among the worst movies of all time.
14 Batman & Robin (11%)
There’s a much-circulated rumor that, once upon a time, if someone told George Clooney that they’d paid to see Batman & Robin in a theater, he reimbursed their ticket price out of his own pocket. The actor has publicly apologized for the film on many occasions.
Campiness is welcome in Batman stories – it doesn’t all have to be doom and gloom – but Joel Schumacher fundamentally misunderstood the character in this flashy, empty husk of a movie.
13 Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice (28%)
After giving the Superman franchise an unnecessarily bleak, gritty, grounded reboot with Man of Steel, Zack Snyder doubled down with the DCEU-establishing sequel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
BvS suffers from the same problem as Iron Man 2: it’s more interested in teasing sequels and widening the cinematic universe than telling a story of its own. But at least Iron Man 2’s teases went somewhere. Most of the Easter eggs in BvS have yet to be paid off, and probably never will be if the DCEU keeps reshaping its continuity every couple of years.
12 Batman Forever (39%)
When Tim Burton stepped down from the third Batman movie, Michael Keaton followed suit, so Batman Forever became a full-on reboot. It was supposed to continue Burton’s Batman series, but it dropped the coolness of Keaton’s Batman and the gloomy German expressionist aesthetic of Burton’s Gotham.
Joel Schumacher took Burton’s place, threw his dark tone out the window, and instead returned to the zaniness of Adam West’s TV series, but dialed it up to even more ridiculous levels.
11 TIE: Justice League (40%)
Famed for suffering from one of the most troubled productions in film history, Justice League’s reputation is about to change (for better or, if it’s even possible, for worse) as Zack Snyder’s director’s cut is set to air on HBO Max as a four-part miniseries.
The theatrical cut is, frankly, a hot mess. Snyder made half a movie that Warner Bros. had cold feet about due to BvS’ disappointing reception, then the director was forced to step down by a personal tragedy that allowed Warner Bros. to shallowly hire Avengers director Joss Whedon to give Justice League a Marvel-ous makeover that betrays its iconic ensemble.
10 TIE: Batman: The Killing Joke (40%)
Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill reprised their roles as Batman and the Joker for The Killing Joke, an animated adaptation of the graphic novel of the same name.
Unfortunately, the legendary voice talent is let down by a weak script to makes unnecessary changes to its near-perfect source material, like adding a superfluous prologue.
9 Joker (68%)
Although Batman is nowhere to be seen in Joker, it’s technically a Batman movie as it takes place in Gotham and features both Bruce Wayne and a new version of his most iconic foe. But Todd Phillips wasn’t interested in making a movie about the Clown Prince of Crime.
Instead, he wanted to make an homage to Martin Scorsese classics like Taxi Driver, The King of Comedy, and Raging Bull, with a fraction of their depth, meaning, and staying power. Joaquin Phoenix’s lead performance and Lawrence Sher’s gorgeous cinematography carry a movie with a flimsy, derivative script.
8 Batman (1989) (72%)
The 50,000 angry fans who sent letters of complaint to Warner Bros. after comedic actor Michael Keaton was cast as Bruce Wayne were quickly silenced by his definitive portrayal of the Caped Crusader in Tim Burton’s Batman.
Bringing the crime-infested streets to Gotham to life with his distinctly surreal visual style, Burton was the perfect director to turn the weirdness of Batman’s world into blockbuster fare without losing any of its gothic flair.
7 Batman (1966) (78%)
Adam West and Burt Ward brought their delightfully camp incarnations of Batman and Robin to the big screen in 1966. Near the beginning of the movie, Batman fights off a shark attack with Bat-shark repellent, and it only gets crazier from there.
Except for the recasting of Julie Newmar as Catwoman, all the legendary actors from the TV series reprise their iconic takes on Batman villains, like Cesar Romero’s Joker and Burgess Meredith’s Penguin.
6 Batman Returns (80%)
After the unprecedented box office success of Tim Burton’s Batman, Warner Bros. got the director and Michael Keaton to work on a sequel, Batman Returns, which is even darker than the last one.
Danny DeVito and Michelle Pfeiffer are perfectly cast as the Penguin and Catwoman, while Keaton’s brilliant portrayal of Bruce Wayne continued to develop in the sequel.
5 Batman: Mask Of The Phantasm (84%)
Bruce Timm and co. brought the quintessential incarnation of the Dark Knight from Batman: The Animated Series to the big screen with Mask of the Phantasm, which was the only theatrically released Batman movie for more than two decades.
The movie revolves around an original villain, the eponymous Phantasm, but it features A-list villains from the TV show, like Mark Hamill’s classic Joker.
4 Batman Begins (84%)
Origin stories tend to be the weakest superhero movies in the long run, because they take a while to dive into the action and their familiar formula makes them less rewatchable than their sequels.
But Christopher Nolan made one of the best superhero origin movies with Batman Begins, which explores how Bruce Wayne trained to protect Gotham in addition to how his parents were killed. The gritty, grounded tone of Batman Begins continues to influence blockbuster cinema to this day.
3 The Dark Knight Rises (87%)
There was no way that The Dark Knight Rises was going to be able to live up to the earth-shattering cultural landmark status of The Dark Knight. The scale of The Dark Knight was already huge and the third movie had to be even bigger. Plus, Tom Hardy had to follow up one of the greatest villains in movie history after his predecessor had suddenly passed away and been awarded a posthumous Oscar.
Christopher Nolan stuck the landing as well as anybody could’ve expected. His staging of the French Revolution on the streets of Gotham is certainly cinematic, while the bittersweet final moments gave this iconic trilogy a perfect conclusion.
2 The Lego Batman Movie (90%)
Spun off from The Lego Movie, The Lego Batman Movie is a surprisingly great big-screen adaptation of the Caped Crusader. Amid all the sight gags and well-crafted jokes, The Lego Batman Movie captures the Bat’s spirit, his flaws, and his deepest insecurities.
Will Arnett gives a terrific vocal performance as a comedic Batman, while the supporting cast is rounded out by A-listers playing just about every Batman villain and member of the Batman family.
1 The Dark Knight (94%)
Using Michael Mann’s portrayal of Los Angeles in Heat as a template, Christopher Nolan’s sequel to Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, used its crime-ridden Gotham setting as a prism through which to explore corruption in the American city. Inspired by Alex DeLarge in A Clockwork Orange, Heath Ledger’s portrayal of the Joker is one of the most haunting villains in movie history, and encapsulates the fear of terrorism.
With The Dark Knight, Nolan set out to make a movie that audiences would deem to be genuinely great, not just great for a comic book movie, and as the movie’s Oscar wins, universal critical acclaim, and countless inclusions on best-of-all-time lists can attest to, he succeeded.
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