Much like everyone has a favorite Batman, everyone has their favorite Batman movie. The Caped Crusader has gone through many eras on the big screen, including the Tim Burton/Joel Schumacher quadrilogy, Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, Zack Snyder’s Justice League films, and Matt Reeves’ The Batman.
In honor of the 20th anniversary of Batman Begins (2005), which reinvigorated the franchise after the divisive Schumacher films, we’re looking back on our reviews of each major title since 1989’s Batman, ranked according to letter grades given by EW critics upon release.
NOTE: Batman: The Movie (1966) and Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993) have not received official letter grades from EW, and thus, do not appear on this list.
Batman Begins (2005): A
Everett Collection
“Batman Begins, directed by indie-oriented storyteller Christopher Nolan (Memento), is a triumph — a confidently original, engrossing interpretation, with a seriously thought-through (but never self-serious) aesthetic point of view that announces, from the get-go, someone who knows what he’s doing is running the show, and he’s modestly unafraid to do something new.” —Lisa Schwarzbaum
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The Dark Knight (2008): A–
Warner Bros.
“In The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan’s ominously labyrinthine and exciting sequel to Batman Begins, good and evil aren’t just separate forces — at times, they’re a whisper away from each other — and the movie exudes a predatory glamour that makes the comic-book films that have come before it look all the more like kid stuff.” —Owen Gleiberman
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The LEGO Batman Movie (2017): B+
Warner Bros. Pictures
“LEGO Batman revs so fast and moves so frenetically that it becomes a little exhausting by the end. It flirts with being too much of a good thing. But rarely has corporate brainwashing been so much fun and gone down with such a delightful aftertaste.” —Chris Nashawaty
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Batman Forever (1995): B
Everett Collection
“Watching Batman Forever is a little like spending two hours inside a happy asylum. Just about every character in the movie is undergoing some sort of an identity crisis, yet rather than making the picture feel ‘dark,’ these various schizoid headcases bounce off each other like brightly colored billiard balls. Whether heroes or villains, they all seem to belong to the same breed of fizzy, deranged exhibitionist. And the movie itself is a loony-tunes extravaganza in which having a split personality doesn’t constitute a serious emotional trauma so much as it does a fashion statement.” —Owen Gleiberman
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The Dark Knight Rises (2012): B
Ron Phillips/Warner Bros.
“The Dark Knight Rises is still essentially a fanciful corker about an unlikely billionaire named Bruce Wayne who lives in mournful bachelorhood with his butler Alfred (faithfully played by Michael Caine) and who, when fighting crime, zips around town in a cape and a black rubbery cowl. And as a result of the precarious layering of big philosophical notions (can the System be fixed?) over pointy little bat ears, Nolan’s meticulously made, grand-scale tale caroms between a self-serious meditation on How We Live Now and an oof! pow! extended fistfight between a good guy and a bad guy, amped up by the insistent percussion of Hans Zimmer’s relentless score.” —Lisa Schwarzbaum
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The Batman (2022): B
Jonathan Olley/Warner Bros.
“Even Batmen get the blues. Still, Robert Pattinson’s damaged young billionaire may be the Darkest Knight yet: He journals, he broods, he plucks a single blueberry from a silver urn and gazes at it mournfully. For nearly three hours he gives great mood — and while that is not quite the same thing as a great movie, writer-director Matt Reeves nearly wills it to be in his sprawling, operatic update.” —Leah Greenblatt
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Batman (1989): B–
Everett Collection
“Not so much directed as refereed, this megalithic hit is bigger but less manically energetic than [Tim] Burton’s previous two films. [Jack] Nicholson’s Joker and Anton Furst’s production design are dazzlers, but for a movie directed by a former cartoonist, Batman is surprisingly unanimated. Still, Michael Keaton’s mournful hero provided a surprising grace, and the video version is less murky-looking than what you saw in the theater.” —Ty Burr
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Batman Returns (1992): B–
Everett Collection
“Narrative has never been Burton’s strong point, but even when his films weren’t seamless they felt like coherent pop visions. This may be the first one that doesn’t hold together. Batman Returns has too many competing characters, too many sets (every scene seems to unfold on a different surreal soundstage), too many ‘ideas’ that don’t go anywhere. The movie is a genuine spectacle, laced with Burton’s pitch-black wit, yet in its eager-to-please mood it often recalls the jam-packed blockbuster overkill of Steven Spielberg’s Hook.” —Owen Gleiberman
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Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016): C+
Clay Enos/Warner Bros.
“Dawn of Justice starts off as an intriguing meditation about two superheroes turning to an all-too-human emotion: hatred out of fear of the unknown. Two and a half hours later it winds up somewhere very far from that — but at the same time, all too familiar. It’s another numbing smash-and-bash orgy of CGI mayhem with an ending that leaves the door open wide enough to justify the next 10 installments. Is it too late to demand a rematch?” —Chris Nashawaty
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Justice League (2017): C+
Warner Bros. Pictures
“It’s obvious to anyone watching Justice League next to the other DC films that the studio brass handed down a mandate to lighten the mood and make things funnier and more Marvel-y. And, to an extent, Justice League accomplishes that. But it also feels like so much attention was paid to the smaller, fizzier character moments that the bigger picture of the film’s overarching plot was a second or third priority. Some day, hopefully soon, DC will get the recipe right again and duplicate Wonder Woman‘s storytelling magic. But today isn’t that day, and Justice League unfortunately isn’t that film.” —Chris Nashawaty
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Batman & Robin (1997): C–
Everett Collection
“Tim Burton’s Batman movies began in perfect Germanic shadow, with towering characters and despairing skyscrapers… With Burton’s departure, however, what had been a filmed graphic novel returned to comic-book clashes; Joel Schumacher traded operatic style for sitcom puns well suited to casual video viewing. But by Batman & Robin, the female characters have become so two-dimensional they barely function even as sex symbols. Uma Thurman’s Poison Ivy is a sun-starved imitation of Mae West; Alicia Silverstone’s Batgirl is so flatly drawn she gives paper cuts.” —Stephen Whitty
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Zack Snyder’s Justice League (2021): C–
DC
“Fervent social media support and Streaming War desperation made #ReleaseTheSnyderCut into the most successful fan campaign in history. Lovers may love the result: Where you at, SteppenWolfpack? And the HBO Max presentation could be ideal for such an unwieldy doomchunk of content. I keep calling this a movie, but I guess it’s more of a streaming miniseries, complete with chapters. Yet even compared to the glacial Marvel-Netflix Dramas, Zack Snyder’s Justice League is a chore. At the end of the rainbow, viewers are left with the promise that the actual cool things will happen next time. This cut is no worse than the theatrical edition, but it sure is longer.” —Darren Franich
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