10 Most Dishonest Editing Cuts In Film History

2. Batman's "Death" - The Dark Knight Rises

Editing has always been a bit of a blind spot in Christopher Nolan's Batman movies, and that's no truer than in The Dark Knight Rises.

More than merely dishing up an awkwardly-cut fight scene, though, Nolan employs manipulative editing to suggest that Batman (Christian Bale) sacrifices himself in the film's finale.

The climax sees the Caped Crusader flying a neutron bomb out of Gotham City towards the ocean, and because the Bat's autopilot system isn't working, he has no choice but to fly the vehicle himself, seemingly to his doom.

To that end, Nolan solemnly shows Batman contentedly accepting his heroic fate, before cutting to the bomb timer with a mere 5 seconds to go, after which we see the bomb explode.

This happens in the span of 10 seconds, very clearly implying in basic cinematic language that Batman has died with no possibility of escape. And yet, the very end of the movie of course reveals that the autopilot was fixed and Batman presumably bailed out long before the explosion happening.

The editing tells a different story, though, and given Nolan's penchant for smart, operatic direction, this felt like a pretty lousy, low-effort attempt to trick the audience into believing Batman really was dead for all of a few minutes.