Every Batman Movie Ranked Worst To Best

For every accolade and shower of affection Christopher Nolan gets for reinventing the Bat, Tim Burton deserves equal praise for ever getting the film franchise off the ground in the 80s. This was a project that was deemed largely unfilmable, largely unwelcome and the culmination of lots of bad ideas that had sprung up in the Dark Knight's most infertile creative period.

To think that Burton - who had only made Pee Wee's Big Adventure and Beetlejuice at this point - could defy expectations AND the negative tide that met his decision to cast Michael Keaton is monumental. And he did so with a film that deserves to be remembered in the cherished terms it still is.

It's a wholly different animal to the work of Schumacher, Nolan and Snyder: a gothic image with a delightfully silly edge that none of the modern directors would either get or dare to consider given what Schumacher did. It's a vaudeville show with the right amount of kitsch, the right undertone of camp and the perfect lashings of horror conventions, played out against the best ever vision of Gotham.

And no matter how many people turn their nose up, Michael Keaton is STILL the best Batman, and easily the best Bruce Wayne.