Arguably one of the best Batman movies and maybe one of the best superhero movies ever made is set to leave a major streaming platform – and soon. Fans of The Dark Knight, directed by Oscar-winner Christopher Nolan, will have until June 1 to watch the movie on the popular streamer, per Comic Book. Released in 2008, The Dark Knight was nominated for eight Academy Awards, winning two.
Heath Ledger gave a haunting performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight and ultimately won a posthumous Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for portraying Batman’s rival. The film also picked up an Oscar for Best Sound Editing. The movie, the second in Nolan’s Batman saga, was a critical and commercial success.
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Certified Fresh on RT
The Dark Knight, which followed 2005’s Batman Begins and preceded 2012’s The Dark Knight Rises, earned more than $1 billion at the worldwide box office against a budget of $185 million. The film boasts the highest Rotten Tomatoes score of any Batman movie, sitting at 94% in both the critic and audience score categories. In comparison, Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman, starring Michael Keaton as the Caped Crusader, has a critic score of 76% and an audience score of 84% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Batman RT Scores
Title | Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score | Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score | IMDb Rating |
Batman (1989) | 76% | 84% | 7.5/10 |
Batman Returns (1992) | 82% | 73% | 7.1/10 |
Batman Forever (1995) | 39% | 33% | 5.4/10 |
Batman & Robin (1997) | 11% | 16% | 3.8/10 |
Batman Begins (2005) | 85% | 94% | 8.2/10 |
The Dark Knight (2008) | 94% | 94% | 9.0/10 |
The Dark Knight Rises (2012) | 87% | 90% | 8.4/10 |
Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) | 28% | 63% | 6.5/10 |
The Batman (2022) | 85% | 87% | 7.8/10 |
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The Dark Knight’s Stacked Cast
Christian Bale starred as the titular Dark Knight/Bruce Wayne/Batman in the movie co-written by Christopher and John Nolan, with the story by David S. Goyer (Foundation), based on the DC comics. The film also starred Oscar-winner Michael Caine as the loyal Alfred Pennyworth, Aaron Eckhart as the two-faced Harvey Dent, Maggie Gyllenhaal as Rachel Dawes, Gary Oldman as Jim Gordon, Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox, Eric Roberts as Maroni, and Cillian Murphy as Scarecrow.
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Michael Caine Recalls Ledger’s Joker
In a movie that was pretty close to being a masterpiece, Ledger’s Joker stole all the scenes he appeared in during the movie, and even scared one of his co-stars. In his memoir Don’t Look Back, You’ll Trip Over: My Guide to Life (per NME), Michael Caine reminisced about working with Ledger, who died in 2008.
Caine recalled his initial reaction to seeing Ledger on set in character, which he said may have been scarier than his performance in the actual film. “The smeared makeup, the weird hair, the strange voice. It was chilling,” Caine remembered in his book. “Absolutely floored me the first time I saw him in action – I was terrified,” he said. “Heath was only 28 when he passed away. I hadn’t even made Zulu when I was that age. You think of what he might have gone on to achieve, it’s just heartbreaking,” wrote the actor in his book.
Promoting The Dark Knight became difficult after Ledger’s death, Caine said. “We were all terribly shocked, and it made doing the publicity for The Dark Knight that summer much more intense, because all the journalists wanted to talk about his death…It still makes me sad to think of it,” he wrote.
The Dark Knight will leave Netflix on June 1. Nolan’s other two Batman movies, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight Rises, will also leave the streamer the same day.
Source: Comic Book
- Release Date
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July 16, 2008
- Runtime
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152 minutes
- Producers
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Benjamin Melniker, Charles Roven, Emma Thomas, Kevin De La Noy, Michael Uslan
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Christian Bale
Bruce Wayne
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