Batman vs. Superman: Ranking The Films From Worst To Best

2. Batman Returns (1992)

If Tim Burton's first foray into Gotham City was a trip to the carnival, Batman Returns is a journey through the freak show. Returns is a much darker film than its predecessor, with Danny DeVito's thoroughly disgusting - and amazingly entertaining - Penguin leading the charge. Everything that worked in the first film, including Keaton, the production design of Gotham, Danny Elfman's score and so forth, is back, feeling all the more assured and ready to dive headlong into Batman's weird world. With additions like Michelle Pfeiffer, who's clearly having an insanely fun time, and Christopher Walken in his usual best Christopher Walken mode, Batman Returns continually proves from beginning to end that it has a far greater sense of fun than the first film, even if it's a much darker film, both in tone and content. While audiences weren't quite ready in 1992 for what Burton delivered here, which ultimately led to Warner Bros. moving the franchise toward a future with Bat Nipples and "Baaaaaaaane," but the passage of time has only served to reinforce how much of a gem Returns is. Like the first film, it occasionally does some things that the diehards find unforgivable - Batman sticking dynamite in a foe's waistband and letting him explode, for instance - but in the end, it's a highly memorable, far more comfortable and daring second and final spin for the Burton/Keaton pairing that still holds up for being so unique.