Batman: Every Live-Action Gotham City Ranked Worst To Best

The famed gothic charm that Tim Burton forever brings to his work made him the perfect fit to tackle Gotham City in his pair of Batman pictures in 1989 and 1992. Bringing in Anton Furst to oversee the production design, Burton crafted a Gotham that was beautifully ugly.

This version of Gotham was dominated by crime, with every smoky alley having some goon or wannabe criminal mastermind lurking in the shadows. Of course, all of this played out in front of some utterly stunning architecture that brilliantly captured locales such as Wayne Manor, the Gotham City Police Department, the offices of the Gotham Globe newspaper, the Gotham Cathedral, and the infamous AXIS Chemicals plant.

Burton managed to capture the otherworldly insanity and industry of Gotham City in a way that really did - and still very much does - bring to life the Gotham that had so often been seen within the comic books. Not just did these two films do an excellent job of bringing the streets and skyscrapers of Gotham to live-action life, mind, for '92's Batman Returns also did a wonderful job of taking a peek under the streets of the city when it came to plot points involving Danny DeVito's Penguin.

To this day, Michael Keaton is Batman to many fans. Likewise, for those same fans and beyond, his Gotham City is the Gotham City.