The Dark Knight

The Dark Knight

Batman raises the stakes in his war on crime. With the help of Lt. Jim Gordon and District Attorney Harvey Dent, Batman sets out to dismantle the remaining criminal organizations that plague the streets. The partnership proves to be effective, but they soon find themselves prey to a reign of chaos unleashed by a rising criminal mastermind known to the terrified citizens of Gotham as the Joker.

  • Released: 2008-07-14
  • Runtime: 152 minutes
  • Genre: Action, Crime, Drama
  • Stars: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Morgan Freeman, Nestor Carbonell, Monique Gabriela Curnen, Ron Dean, Chin Han, Eric Roberts, Ritchie Coster, Anthony Michael Hall, Keith Szarabajka, Joshua Harto, Melinda McGraw, Nathan Gamble, Michael Jai White, Colin McFarlane, Nydia Rodriguez Terracina, Tom 'Tiny' Lister Jr., William Fichtner, Cillian Murphy, Patrick Leahy, Matt Skiba, David Dastmalchian, Michael Vieau, Michael Stoyanov, William Smillie, Danny Goldring, Matthew O'Neill, Olumiji Olawumi, Greg Beam, Erik Hellman, Beatrice Rosen, Vincenzo Nicoli, Edison Chen, Andy Luther, James Farruggio, Tom McElroy, Will Zahrn, James Fierro, Sam Derence, Jennifer Knox, Patrick Clear, Sarah Jayne Dunn, Charles Venn, Winston Ellis, Sophia Hinshelwood, Keith Kupferer, Joseph Luis Caballero, Richard Dillane, Daryl Satcher, Chris Petschler, Aidan Feore, Philip Bulcock, Paul Birchard, Walter Lewis, Vincent Riotta, Nancy Crane, K. Todd Freeman, Matt Shallenberger, Michael Andrew Gorman, Lanny Lutz, Peter DeFaria, Matt Rippy, Andrew Bicknell, Ariyon Bakare, Doug Ballard, Helene Maksoud, Tommy Campbell, Craig Heaney, Lorna Gayle, Lisa McAllister, Peter Brooke, Joshua Rollins, Dale Rivera, Matthew Leitch, Thomas Gaitsch, William Armstrong, Adam Kalesperis, Tristan Tait, Bronson Webb, David Ajala, Gertrude Kyles, Jonathan Ryland, James Scales, Nigel Carrington, Ian Pirie, Lateef Lovejoy, Grahame Edwards, Roger Monk, Ronan Summers, Wai Wong, Michael Corey Foster, Hannah Gunn, Jon Lee Brody, Debbi Burns, Maritza Cabrera, Shirin Caiola, Laura Chernicky, Henry Milton Chu, Kelli Clevenger, Richard Divizio, Tony Domino, David Fultz, Natalie Hallam, Jordon Hodges, Erron Jay, Nicky Katt, Thomas Kosik, Don Kress, Tim Krueger, Dan Latham, Tom McComas, James Mellor, Joseph Oliveira, Buster Reeves, Peter Rnic, Amit Shah, Michelle Shields, Sofiya Smirnova, Bruce Spielbauer, Robert Patrick Stern, Robert Stone, Richard Strobel, Tom Townsend, John Turk, John Warman, Chris Wilson, Kevin Zaideman, Rob Clark, Brandon Lambdin
  • Director: Christopher Nolan
 Comments
  • skummydiener - 15 June 2024
    rad
    Movie is an all time badass movie. One of the best besides the one with Danny devito as the penguin. So much action packed in a real thriller. Can never get enough of batman and all his badass gadgets and toys. Not to mention the badass bat cave. These movies will never get old. The dark knight series is a good way to keep many more serious versions of the movies to come or make series of as well. The bad guys gotta come back with mr freeze or riddler as well or I guess keep the classics and never mess with it. Regardless love the movies and directions of them and the new marvel comic movies with all the super heroes.
  • batspidernewcave - 2 June 2024
    Best Batman
    Michel Keaton is one of the best Batmans its funny and has action best movie ever if you were born 1989 you sure will love this and when The Flash released damn bruh it gave so much flashbacks this is a sick movie and the best batmans no batman can out top this but also let me add Christopher Nolan so it has to be good. Amazing action. Amazing characters. Amazing director. And amazing cinematography. The Dark Knight has everything. And like everyone said, Heath Ledger had a performance of a lifetime. This movie is just absolutely great this may seem like faint praise, but about the highest compliment I can give Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight right now is to say that there were many long stretches during which I didn't even realize it was a superhero movie.
  • RealCJHopkins - 22 May 2024
    This film didn´t live up to the hype.
    The movie was "fine", but it is far cry from what we got in "Batman Begins" which was such an amazing movie that you couldn´t get enough of. Everything felt so forced and so wrong. Its messed up because you could really see this movie had potential, so much in fact but, the Nolan brothers just got carried a little too far away with this forced and maybe also too rushed, some of the sub-plots felt so artificial and forced, that it definitely was the biggest reason that this went so wrong.

    There is some positives though, the visuals and the costume designs where great, the explosives scenes where amazing and looked as real as can be, so i have to give them props for that.

    So if you look at this movie as its own thing, then its great and thrilling enough to watch all through and it was never boring but... If you look at it as it really is, which is the sequel to the masterpiece (Batman Begins) is, then it is mediocre at best.

    But for all its worth, you should definitely watch it if you like Batman, because it is really comic accurate in many ways and it is a Batman movie, so of course its worth a watch or 2.

    Final rating (7/10)
  • Sleepin_Dragon - 6 January 2023
    Quite an astonishing movie.
    A new force threatens Gotham City, and The Face of The Joker is always smiling.

    It is almost as is Christopher Nolan cherry picked all of the best elements from The Batman backlog, I include the previous movie, The Burton years, Adam West era etc, and forged together something quite incredible, making not just The best Batman movie of all time, but arguably one of the greatest movies of all time.

    Two and a half magical hours, this film excels in every conceivable field, it is wonderfully dark, atmospheric and moody, but in equal measures it is exciting, action packed and dynamic.

    The story couldn't be better, it's so good, it'll appeal to those that don't even enjoy superhero movies, it really is that good. Packed with incredible action scenes, it's visually awesome.

    Christian Bale is once again fabulous, this Batman is a little petulant, a little impatient, but wonderfully intense. What every hero needs though, is a villain, and what takes this film up another level, is Heath Ledger, who's remarkable performance is nothing short of astonishing.

    An incredible supporting cast once again, Caine and Freeman once again show why they're Hollywood royalty.

    Superior to pretty much everything else.

    10/10.
  • ahmadmeed-93949 - 30 December 2022
    The Dark knigh
    This movie is a work of art. The finest sequel ever made. I don't think we will see another movie like this for a long time. Heath Ledger's Joker is the best movie charachter I have ever seen by far. Avengers Endgame is great, but The Dark Knight is much better. The best Batman ever! The best Joker ever! The best DC movie ever! The best superhero movie ever! Ando for me, the best movie ever! I couldn't believe "The Dark knight" could live up to the hype. That's perhaps the biggest surprise. The secret, I believe, is a stunning, mature, intelligent script. That makes it the best superhero movie ever made. As if that wasn't enough, Heath Ledger. He, the newest of the tragic modern icons present us with a preview of something we'll never see. A fearless, extraordinary actor capable to fill up with humanity even the most grotesque of villains. His performance is a master class. Fortunately, Christian Bale's Batman is almost a supporting character. Bale is good but there is something around his mouth that stops him from being great. "The Dark Knight" is visually stunning, powerful and moving. What else could anyone want.
  • vetako-81738 - 19 December 2022
    Perfect Combo
    Heath Ledger's unforeseen death from medicine toxin on January 22, 2008, urged immediate enterprise over this movie's state and Ledger's disposition previous to death. Soon after Ledger's death was blazoned, WarnerBros. Issued a statement that vindicated that Ledger had finished all of his scenes in top photography, as well aspost-production duties( looping), therefore making the Joker his final, completed movie part. Rumors crawled that playing the violent part had taken its risk on Ledger's internal state, causing him to come depressed and take a wrong combination of medicines as a result. Still, his family has since put similar rumors to rest by stating that far from being depressed, he'd a lot of delightful playing the part. Ledger did suffer from wakefulness throughout his life, and would frequently take sleeping capsules together with other tradition medicines( commodity his family had actually advised against the night before his death). Unfortunately, the blend he took on that night proved to be a fatal combination.
  • cespjnuin - 10 December 2022
    SuperMan Always Super
    The film is extremely fierce and dull for a batman film, more dim than the first. Joker might scar kids, the things he does and says. Obviously he could do without truly anything no human existence not even his own, he shoots his cohorts, stirs up his tale about his scars (This was written in deliberately by Nolan), he chuckles manically when he's killed, and so on. He does a great deal of things that children could view as terrifying however as long as they probably are aware this is a film and police and our defenders have a vastly improved watch and command over these sorts of help could assist them with being more agreeable. It likewise is really vicious, shootings, stabbings, blasts and more are a typical topic. It has a general dull tone also and takes advantage of more profound things that no batman or even superhuman film has done previously. So by and large Joker is unnerving, it's fierce, it's dim however it astonishing.
  • Dominic_25_ - 29 November 2022
    He's not being a hero. He's being something more.
    I always try to incorporate my personal experience with a film or its societal context in my analysis of them. It would be completely impossible for me to not do that with this one and in many ways that is why I actually haven't revisited this movie in so long.

    I cannot and will not be able to encapsulate the cultural impact this film has had. So I'm only going to gloss over it in this review. And there are so many more people who are much better qualified to talk about the themes and philosophy of this film. But to me the fact that this film is so dense and yet so very appealing and massively successful is a testament to its greatness.

    I was 12 years old when my dad brought us to the theaters to watch this film, off the recommendation of his coworkers. He warned us that the film would probably be confusing to us and that is why he wanted to see it. And I think that is what made this so popular, and still does to this day. The dialogue and themes are so incredible, especially Heath Ledger's performance, that they make a lasting impact on audiences.

    From that first viewing and the challenge my dad issued to me about comprehension this film was my favorite. And it remained an obsession of mine for about 4 or 5 years. I can still quote almost all of Joker's lines to this day and I can quote probably half of the film by memory. After watching this I started reading online about the comic books and characters in the Batman stories. I love movies today partly because of how influential this one was to me, and today my favorite types of films are the cerebral and metaphorical ones. To say this movie had a profound influence on my life would be a dramatic understatement. And it wasn't just me.

    This film grossing over a billion dollars and having such a cultural impact was instrumental in the development of superheroes and the film genre. Without the success of this film I'm not sure Disney buys the MCU in 2009 and invests so much into it so early on. Even Warner Bros went and modeled a completely different DC universe on the vibes of this movie and every subsequent film featuring a Batman character has gone for these vibes, almost 15 years later.

    This is the definitive version of Batman and Joker in many people's minds. Which is pretty interesting considering how Nolan really doesn't care about being accurate to any of the source material, and you hear how taboo that is among the nerd circles. Christopher Nolan just makes it work.

    I feel I've gone on too long about the impact this film had but I still don't think I captured the scope of it. But I have to talk about the substance of the film and the reason I was reluctant to revisit this movie.

    One aspect of my life that was not at all influenced by this film would be my politics. And if you've ever spoken to me in person about movies or read any of my reviews then you know that politics is a major aspect of how I watch movies. I cannot interact with media without noticing what stories they tell and what aspects of those stories they don't address and why they chose to make these choices. And somewhere along the way I started noticing that I have drastically different politics to Christopher Nolan and after having rewatched Batman Begins (2005) it was very apparent how his politics seep into his films.

    I don't know exactly how long it has been since I watched any of the films in the Dark Knight trilogy, probably at least 5 years now. And through that time I read the criticisms of them and how they are authoritarian and glorify the suspension of civil liberties. And I didn't really put much stock into that (mostly because internet people get mad at everything) and wanted to re-evaluate them myself. After watching Begins, I largely agree with the criticisms of it so I was even more anxious about this one. But Nolan does something unexpected and almost out of character from a guy with his politics.

    First of all I don't like how the Joker, and Nolan, misuse the word anarchy. For a film so dense with philosophy you'd think they would have a little political understanding of that position but whatever.

    This film starts by introducing us to Heath Ledger's Joker and his elaborate plan to rob a bank (such an amazing scene and a great way to open this movie) and then picks up where the last one left off. Batman is destroying the mob that corrupts the good city of Gotham. He has inspired normal citizens to idealize him and take up arms to impose their will on wrongdoers. So we get the first conflict Batman has to deal with, the unintended side effects of his vigilantism. He very much does not want people to adopt his extrajudicial strategy of combating crime because obviously that is not how we should operate. A sort of shift in messaging from the first film that actually criticizes too much authority invested in one person with no accountability. This is where the film outlines its theme. In questioning the power structure and why we are okay with it.

    We get our main players right away. Joker representing the criticism of power structures (and of course Nolan makes him a terrorist that kills and harms innocent people as well because this is still relatively close to 9/11) and the rejection of the world built on unjust ones. Batman representing the devotion to maintaining the status by any means necessary and the brutality that is necessary for that. But we also get Harvey Dent, which is the ideal that our society should be, operating within the system and for the system and proving that the system is not unjust.

    We also have returning ideas, like Rachel (replaced because Katie Holmes had better things to do I guess) supporting the ideal of the system and faith in the rule of law, Gordon is back as a sort of bridge between Dent and Batman trying to operate within the system but using the parts that are very much broken, and of course Alfred is back to ground Bruce in reality and not let him lose his humanity or his faith in the system again.

    The film is about the rejection of the system that we live under, which is really interesting because when this film was released I don't think there was a particularly strong sentiment of that rejection of our system. The 2008 financial crash wouldn't happen until this film was released and we were still fighting a global "war on terror," whatever that means. So the fact that the writers and story developers abstracted from their first film about terror to be a rejection of the systems that caused it is really impressive. I was 9 when the first one came out and 12 when this one did so I have no idea what the political climate was like, and can only base my perception on my understanding of an unprecedented Occupy Wall Street movement as the revival of the anti-capitalist movement in America.

    We don't have a rejection of the system based around the failures of Capitalism in this one though, instead Joker rejects the system because he is a nihilist. Because systems inherently do not make sense. He is correct in this analysis but he doesn't create any means of criticism or alternative, he's just a terrorist but instead of Ra's Al Ghoul style goal oriented terrorism Joker operates only out of opposing to the systems that don't make sense. He isn't supposed to have a coherent ideology because how could you when the system is so inherently bad and you don't know of any alternatives. We don't know anything about him or why he believes these things, he only exists as a concept. Just as terror was a vague concept in the first that Nolan personified, so it is in this one only with a much more compelling character. The idea that nothing makes sense and everything we do is meaningless is absolutely an idea that goes through everybody's head in the 21st century where literally everything we do is in service of our corporate overlords. So of course Joker would resonate on some level with the growing apathy toward society. And his battle with Batman, Dent, Gordon, and even the mob is his attempt to criticize and deconstruct the systems that don't make sense but only oppress us.

    So of course he is difficult to stop. Of course Batman has difficulty combatting him. He doesn't want anything but to show everyone how nonsensical everything is. And Batman wants so desperately to stop him but he has never encountered anything so outside the notions of acceptable thought in society. The only response that Batman has to a guy driven insane by the unjust structures is to use more force and strengthen the structures even more. Batman in this film is the common criticism that we have with cops who act without recourse and oversight by any means outside of the law supposedly in service of said law. He's not being a hero, he's being something more. Alfred compels Bruce to endure the terror attacks and not give in to Joker and not to agree with the criticisms of society. He has to continue the fight because he is doing the work to build a better society, just as Alfred thought he was in Myanmar.

    Yet in reality Alfred had to burn the forest and the British were imperialists in Myanmar. Just as the structures working on being built there were unjust, so are the ones in Gotham that we all live under.

    So brings us to Harvey Dent. He is not Batman in that he trusts the system more and thinks it ideal. An idealism that puts him in contrast with Bruce and Gordon, but he is still working with them because that is the absurdity of this structure. Just as Rachel conceits the blind spot of the system in the first film, Harvey does the same here. The fact that the system relies on authoritarianism to function is central to the film, and ultimately it is central to Harvey's downfall. Joker completely breaks his trust in the system and him. Like Gordon says in the end, the Joker was right.

    Just because the authoritarian structures prevail in the end and they persist doesn't mean they are just. And in o.
  • fearbat - 19 November 2022
    BEST. SUPERHERO. MOVIE. OF. ALL. TIME.
    I always under the impression that the Spider-Man trilogy and Man of Steel were the best superhero movies off all time. But when I saw the Dark Knight as an adult, I'm in awe to this day of how talented Heath Ledger was, not just as the Joker, but as an actor in general. Christian Bale did a great job of playing a vigilante AND a play boy billionaire, but his raspy voice was the down side. And as for Christopher Nolan, it was his direction that makes this movie stand out. Awesome job on to everyone involved in the making of this movie and R. I. P. Heath Ledger as the BEST villain in a movie ever!