Every Christopher Nolan Batman Movie, Ranked

Batman on the big screen was all but a lost cause in the nascence of the 21st century, with audiences and critics some combination of soured and apathetic toward the Caped Crusader following the glitterbomb travesty of Joel Schumacher’s Batman and Robin. Nevertheless, Warner Bros. pushed forward in pursuing a reinvention of one of their most valuable IPs. Several directors including Wolfgang Petersen and Darren Aronofsky were considered to take the helm, before the studio finally settled on Christopher Nolan, fresh off critical acclaim surrounding dark, R-rated thrillers Memento and Insomnia.

The hiring would prove to be one that completely reinvented and perhaps even defined the studio for years to come. Boldly aimed at adult filmgoers in contrast to its predecessors, movies that were openly designed to sell toys to children, the character-rich and technically astounding Dark Knight trilogy would garner overall splendid reviews from critics, and break all kinds of box-office records between 2005 and 2012. There were multiple iterations on the character before, and there’ve been more since, but for so many, this is the definitive Batman. The following ranks every Christopher Nolan Batman movie from worst to best.

3

‘The Dark Knight Rises’ (2012)

Image via Warner Bros.

As someone who genuinely loves all three of these movies, there’s a lizard-brain instinct to be a contrarian and move the third entry higher—somehow, for some reason. Though it’s juggernaut of cinematic spectacle, tension and pleasure, The Dark Knight Rises is, like, objectively the weakest of these three movies, and by a considerable margin. Part of that is just because its predecessors were home runs, the middle chapter pretty much perfect. On its own merits, The Dark Knight Rises is kind of a mess, but if we were ranking these movies by sheer entertainment value, it might very well be in the top spot.

It’s easy to point out the flaws here: There are plot holes you could fly a BAT through. Tom Hardy‘s accent under the Bane mask sounds silly. The operatic and bombastic nature of the entire thing is a bit jarring following the grounded near-perfection of the 2008 film, but it’s hard to imagine a better or more satisfying direction the filmmakers could have taken than this go-for-broke epic of Gotham under siege.

Anne Hathaway really probably is the best thing about this movie, with several sensational acting beats that linger in memory long after the ending. The action is also truly spectacular, particularly final chase scene through land and air in bright daylight that’s both unexpected for a Batman picture, and symbolic of the end of Bruce Wayne’s character arc—he’s finally done hiding. 2023’s The Flash would attempt to bring Batman to daylight scenes, but let’s face it, Andy Muschietti can’t match Nolan, perhaps especially along the lines of visuals. The garish Flash looks like an episode of Rupaul’s Drag Race, at best.

2

‘Batman Begins’ (2005)

Image via Warner Bros.

As previously mentioned, most people had pretty much given up on Batman movies by 2005, and as a result, Nolan’s terrific first blockbuster film was something of a sleeper hit, despite critical praise. The freshest and most unexpected thing about Batman Begins is that it’s actually about Batman and Bruce Wayne. The first act carefully, and in what would become known as characteristically Nolan fashion, non-linearly, established Bruce’s tragic backstory, grief, and pursuit of a higher meaning. It’s about exactly one hour into a 140-minute runtime before we see Batman. He’s far scarier, and obsessed with fear, than general audiences had any reason to anticipate given what had come before.

The achievement of Batman Begins would be somewhat overshadowed by the cultural juggernaut that followed three years later, but time has been good to the original film. Christian Bale received some flack for the exaggerated Batman voice, but really his performance is uniformly terrific across all three movies, and his scenes of dialogue with Michael Caine‘s Alfred Pennyworth give the film a central heartbeat that was entirely missing from even the best of the live-action Batman entries in the ’80s and ’90s. Roger Ebert gave Batman Begins his highest rating of four stars after dismissing previous live-action entries, saying:

1

‘The Dark Knight’ (2008)

Image via Warner Bros. Pictures

Is The Dark Knight a perfect movie? Well, perhaps not on the most technical of levels. There are plot holes and demanded leaps of faith and disbelief here, but pretty much anyone needs to see the film more than once to even notice, because we’re entertained into submission by the filmmaking. This is one of a mere handful of truly monocultural movie events in the 21st century. Released weeks after similarly acclaimed, if tonally disparate, Iron Man launched the MCU, the one-two punch would completely reinvent how the public saw comic-book movies, paving the way for blockbuster filmmaking for years and years.

Though you could poke holes in the narrative if you really wanted to, part of The Dark Knight’s legacy is a stunning emotional and psychological depth that never wanes and isn’t fully matched by anything else in the genre. For all the hype and infamy surrounding it for nearly 20 years now, you can never really say enough about the Heath Ledger performance as Joker. There’s a layer of menace and intrigue that completely blankets the film, even when he isn’t on screen. Surely this would have been the case even if the actor hadn’t tragically passed prior to the film’s release. This is probably the most intense summer blockbuster movie ever made. The filmmaking is surely partially responsible for this, but so much of it comes from the Ledger performance.

Pretty much everyone retroactively agrees this was the best film of 2008. That The Dark Knight wasn’t nominated for Best Picture, much less Best Director, remains an inky black stain upon the reputation of the Academy. There was enough deserved outrage for the top honors category to be expanded beyond five nominations the following year. The Dark Knight is the most influential movie of the 21st century so far, and one of the very best.