Every Batman Movie Opening Scene Ranked From Worst To Best
How do Batman's introductory scenes shake out?
No matter what kind of movie you're making, the opening scene counts for a lot - get it right and the audience will be in the palm of your hand for the rest, but screw it up and you can be left struggling to win them back from that point on.
This is especially true with big, splashy blockbuster movies that absolutely need to make a massive, positive impression from the get-go, but as we all know, that's often a lot easier said than done.
In the context of the Batman movies, we know that the quality has been all over the map from terrible to masterful, and so too have their opening scenes.
Thankfully there are far more great or good Batman films than dud or mediocre efforts, though that doesn't mean that every good Batman film had a strong opening, or likewise that every disappointment started out as a total trainwreck.
And so, taking a step back and examining these opening Batman scenes in isolation away from the rest of the movie, here's how they all stack up - including, of course, the recent The Batman...
12. Batman & Robin
Unsurprisingly the worst opening to a Batman movie belongs to, well, the worst Batman movie.
Within the first 90 seconds alone of Joel Schumacher's ultra-camp Batman & Robin we're "treated" to absurd close-ups of George Clooney's bat-butt and bat-crotch, before his exasperation with Robin (Chris O'Donnell) prompts him to spit the groan-worthy quip, "This is why Superman works alone."
Schumacher's eye for snazzy visuals remains apparent as it did in Batman Forever, and Arnold Schwarzenegger's introduction as the pun-happy Mr. Freeze is amusing to a point, but by the time Batman and Robin are donning ice skates to battle Freeze's goons, it's clear we're in for a rough two hours.
The sequence ends with Freeze trying to send Batman into space to freeze to death, but Robin frees him and they escape by riding the rocket's capsule doors back to safety, complete with Robin's spirited utterance of "Cowabunga!"
The production design team certainly did their jobs here, albeit in the service of a rank, tacky opening that failed to provide Clooney's Batman with a compelling introduction.
And yet without Schumacher going so hard in the wrong direction right out of the gate, we likely never would've got the radical reinvention that was Batman Begins.