Every Batman Movie Ranked From Worst To Best

Batman Returns does what most great sequels do - it goes bigger and swings harder than what came before, even if Burton's madcap vision certainly alienated those expecting a more child-friendly superhero film.

Ambition drips from every pore of Burton's deeply strange sequel, which reconciles the inherent, unerring goofiness of villains like Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer) and The Penguin (Danny DeVito) by basically positioning them as horror movie characters.

Grotesquery runs rampant throughout Batman Returns as does an intense, burning sexuality: this is by far the horniest Batman film ever made, best elicited by the red-hot chemistry between Pfeiffer's Catwoman and Keaton's Batman.

Though Keaton is once again fantastic as the Bat, the show is categorically stolen by Pfeiffer and DeVito, who deliver a dimensional anti-hero and tragic villain respectively.

That such a bold, boundary-pushing superhero movie was made 30 years ago remains absolutely mind-boggling, though its resulting commercial under-performance is ultimately what led to the lesser, more colourful Batman Forever and Batman & Robin.