Batman Begins was a fantastic film in its own right, reinventing Batman for a new generation and doing away with the silliness that came to define Joel Schumacher's take on the character. Christopher Nolan created a serious, dark, gritty world in which Bruce Wayne's existential issues could play out parallel with his quest to save Gotham City from a reign of terror. How could they top this for the sequel, The Dark Knight? It's all about a playing card... Yes, the Joker card at the end of the first film was a haunting hint of what to come, though few could have expected that it would have been quite this successful. Even though Nolan turned to the likes of Heat and The Departed to fashion a movie that was less a superhero action film and more a crime drama epic with overtones of a Greek tragedy, it was Heath Ledger's show-stopping portrayal of The Joker that really made the film excel, earning a superhero film its first ever acting Oscar, as Ledger was posthumously awarded the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award. The Dark Knight changed the blockbuster landscape forever, and we can see the ripples in forthcoming superhero pics like Iron Man 3, which appears to have a far more downcast tone than the previous films. If the grosses of The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises proved anything, it's that audiences love a little bit of misery alongside their explosions.