The Dark Knight (2008)

In my humble opinion, The Dark Knight is an absolute masterpiece, the kind of film that redefines what a superhero movie can be. What Christopher Nolan has done here is closer to what Sergio Leone did for westerns with The Good, the Bad and the Ugly than anything the genre had attempted before. This is a mature, genuinely dark film that trusts its audience to keep up, and it earns every minute of its runtime.

Heath Ledger’s Joker is iconic and frightening in equal measure, a performance so committed and so unpredictable that it deserves every posthumous accolade it received. Aaron Eckhart’s Harvey Dent gives the performance of his career, and the tragedy of Two-Face is built so carefully that when it arrives, it devastates. Maggie Gyllenhaal is a welcome addition, Christian Bale’s Batman has never been better grounded, and the Zimmer and Howard score elevates every scene it touches.

This is the film that proved superhero stories could be genuine cinema, and I gave it a perfect score without a moment’s hesitation.