The Dark Knight (2008)

It wouldn't be as highly regarded if Heath Ledger didn't die before the film's release.

I did not like Heath Ledger in his role as "Joker".

It IS The Dark Knight!

R2 Why?

Well done but I never have a reason to revisit it. It’s dour and devoid of any hope. And Nolan has never been able to shoot compelling action.

The Nolan Batman movies are so boring. I liked Ledger as Joker at the beginning of the movie but towards the end his performance got pretty cliched, but I blame Nolan for that. Burton set an insurmountable bar. Batman Returns is HANDS DOWNS the greatest cb movie.

R6 There is also too much in this, too many characters, too many plots, etc.

[quote] Highly regarded as the greatest superhero movie as well as one of the greatest films ever made.

No, it’s not. Without Ledger’s death it would have been forgotten. Nolan doesn’t do comic book films. He said that the majority of Batman villains he couldn’t do because it didn’t fit into his world. That’s not Batman then. Nolan makes pretentious anti-comic book films. Don’t even get me started on the craptastic The Dark Knight Rises.

Pardon my ignorance, but I thought it had been pretty much eclipsed by "Joker" (2019)

It’s a bloated, incoherent mess. Wildly overpraised.

Correct, r6. Batman Returns is the best Batman movie. I think it works so well because it spends little time on Batman and focuses on the good stuff: the villains and Gotham City.

Nolan's movies are humorless and self-important but I did enjoy Batman Begins. That's the only movie in the trilogy that makes Gotham City feel menacing and Burton-esque.

[quote]Highly regarded as the greatest superhero movie as well as one of the greatest films ever made.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha hahahahahhaaaaa.

"Batman Returns" actually had sex appeal, in addition to Daniel Waters's wonderful screenplay

[quote] Pardon my ignorance, but I thought it had been pretty much eclipsed by "Joker" (2019)

"Joker" is not a superhero movie. There are no superheroes in it.

I would rank "The Incredibles" as the best superhero movie of all time.

Great for a Nolan movie is not the same thing as a great movie.

Nolan makes smart movies for dumb people.

Other directors seem to revere Nolan. So much ass-kissing.

Nolan has definitely surpassed Tarantino as the film director with the most annoying and pretentious fanbase ever.

I love the darkness, the fucked-upness of Batman in the Dark Knight trilogy.

Morgan Freeman can always be counted upon.

It's because they're all greedy whores and his movies make a ton of money, r18.

[quote]as well as one of the greatest films ever made.

I've noticed that one of Gen Z's big traits is applying superlatives to pretty average things, apparently just to get attention. "This is the most amazing scene from any film ever made." "This is the greatest performance in history" etc.

R23 They LOVE superlatives.

Oh yeah, boomers never did this with Bob Dylan.

The film subreddits are completely unreadable for that reason, r23. Nothing is ever fine. Everything has to be a fucking masterpiece made by a genius.

I prefer DL for movie discussions

The only great thing about it was Heath's Joker.

I dont agree that it's so well regarded because Heath died. I still think his performance would be considered iconic, regardless.

Ledger deserved the Oscar for telling Maggie Gyllenhaal straight to her face that she was beautiful.

It's a fun movie to watch on acid

I can't stand almost anything else I've seen which was written or showrun by him (Foundation is a travesty), but David S. Goyer, together with Nolan, crafted a great screenplay.

R23 I just said it was regarded as one of the greatest films ever made, I did not say that it was 'the greatest film ever made."

[quote]Highly regarded as the greatest superhero movie as well as one of the greatest films ever made.

What a ridiculous statement.

r33 Time Out holds this as No 15 best movie and IMDB rates this film as 9/10

Umm, I really don't think TimeOut should be held up as an arbiter of cinematic excellence, and there are a great many movies that might be rated 9/10 but still not rated as "one of the greatest films ever made."

Very overrated. Agree with the above posters, the one Batman masterpiece is Batman Return.

This also had Maggie Gylenhall as a great beauty, coveted by many. No film can seriously survive this degree of suspension of disbelief.

And Hathaway is as sexy as a rock as Selina Kyle. Kravitz too.

If "The Dark Knight" didn't exist, film guys on YouTube wouldn't have anything to make insipid video essays about.

That aside, I still think it's great. Yes, the film has a lot of noticeable flaws. But the constant escalation of the Joker's plans and how Batman feels the pressure to stop him is really well done. Ledger's performance really is as good as the hype suggests.

The only thing I don't like is how it treats Two-Face. That's my favorite Batman villain, and while Aaron Eckhart is great as Harvey/Two-Face, the film really screwed the character over by only letting him live for a few days. The design of Two-Face is also a little ridiculous.

I think Maggie Gyllenhaal and Aaron Eckhart are roughly equal in attractiveness. Christian Bale is of course hotter than her, but it makes sense for Bruce Wayne to be attracted to a smart and idealistic prosecutor.

With a snout?

[quote]as well as one of the greatest films ever made.

On what fucking planet?

On planet “online movie review aggregation has ultimate meaning”….

I saw this in the theater and when Maggie G got blown up the audience applauded. It was funny.

R43, did Katie Holmes drop out of the movie? Maggie G was a fugly replacement.

It's overrated like all superhero movies are. It's fine, but one of the greatest movies ever? No.

You forget how hot Bale is because of his rep and the stinkface he wears.

I can't find a single source claiming that The Dark Knight is considered "one of the greatest movies ever made."

I’ve never rewatched it because I thought it was a turgid mess at the time, only lightened up when Anne Hathaway was onscreen as Catwoman. Heath Ledger pontificating, his lip smacking was too off putting. What else…there was an important plot point that hinged on having a tv in the holding cells of a police station which was farfetched. And as the movie seemed to be grinding to an end, up pops Harvey Dent and now a whole new insta-villain has to be dispatched before we can go home.

There are some lists online that place it highly, but they're ranking the best films [italic]of the 21st century[/italic], not "of all time" or "ever made." I mean, sure, if you eliminate everything released prior to Mariah Carey's "Glitter," from "Citizen Kane" to "The Godfather" and every other film from the Golden Age through New Hollywood and the era of summer Blockbusters, yes, "The Dark Knight" is a good film comparatively. But it's nowhere near "GOAT" status.

It's not even one of the 100 greatest movies released in the '00s, let alone of the 21st century. It's just a stupid superhero movie.

It's an IMDB Top 250

Part of why I watched the trilogy was just to see the great Michael Caine

RIP Alfred Pennyworth

R53