10 Movies That Gave Just The Right Amount Of Backstory

10. The Dark Knight

Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy is universally praised for its injection of realism and grit into the superhero genre. So much so that its dark tones are still poorly replicated to this day. Copycats aside, though, there's more than a handful of reasons why The Dark Knight was so successful, with backstory playing a huge part in that.

As expected, we see origins of Batman and Jim Gordon, alongside introductions to Harvey Dent and Rachel Dawes. Where Nolan refused to budge on backstory, though, was with the film's main antagonist, The Joker.

The audience has seen it all before. Crazy, green hair, bit of makeup. You don't need to explain to viewers who, or more importantly, why he is. Instead, Nolan runs less with origin and more with The Joker's current actions.

We witness Joker running bank robberies, confronting the mob, taking boatloads of hostages and blowing up a hospital. Yet, at no point does he ever explain his reasoning outright. He's never forthcoming with information. The audience is told he's "a dog chasing cars" but what does that really mean? Maybe nothing, maybe everything.

Similarly, there are certain fake-outs given by Ledger's Joker that allow for interpretation from the audience. For example, he frequently mentions his scars but the way he received them is always different, depending on who he's talking to. This idea loosely calls back to The Killing Joke, in which The Joker likes his backstory to be multiple choice.