10 Most Important And Influential Summer Blockbusters Of All-Time

6. Batman Begins

Iron Man
Warner Bros.

Batman Begins wasn't exactly a monster hit when it first hit theaters in 2005, but $373.4m at the box office was a solid tally for a movie hailing from a relatively unproven director trying to reinvent a franchise that had become tainted by association with Joel Schumacher's neon-and-nipple extravaganzas.

Christopher Nolan treats Bruce Wayne as a character that could realistically exist in our world, albeit one who manifests his childhood trauma by dressing as an armored bat and beating bad guys to a pulp with his bare hands. The grounded approach worked a treat, and before you knew it cinemas were deluged by an endless stream of dark and gritty reboots that didn't exactly hide their inspirations.

Batman Begins was name-checked by the creative minds involved in franchises as diverse as the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Star Trek, Terminator, Sherlock Holmes, X-Men, G.I. Joe, James Bond, the MonsterVerse, the DCEU and many more, as it quickly morphed into the most influential reboot to ever come out of Hollywood.

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