Every R-Rated DC Movie Ranked From Worst To Best

One of the most common jokes among fans of comic book films is that Marvel is who you go to if you want something bright, colorful, humorous, and occasionally even a bit silly, whereas DC is who you go to if you want something dark, brooding, grim, and quote unquote "mature."

This is why it may surprise some to know that DC do not take the extra step to give their films an R-rating nearly as often as Marvel does. Whereas Marvel have put out a total of thirteen R-rated films over the years (all of which are live-action), DC have only released eight, half of which are animated features.

As with most things, these films drastically differ in quality and the R-rating often plays a part in this. Some use the rating to their advantage in a way that lends itself to the story and subject matter on display, whereas a couple of others get just a bit too gimmicky with it. Additionally, the MPAA aside, some of these films are simply that much more entertaining to watch than the others.

Where does one even begin when talking about the adaptation that turned one of the single-most beloved Batman graphic novels of all time into one of the most reviled DC animated films in recent memory?

First of all, the original graphic novel was less than fifty pages long. So, it was always going to have to stretch itself thin to be considered feature film material. In order to pad the runtime to make sure The Killing Joke even qualified as a movie, they added a nonsensical prologue that did the finished product no favors.

The original book received a lot of criticism for its harsh treatment of Barbara Gordon. The movie tried to combat this by adding a Batgirl prologue, but it was handled so poorly that Babs was made to look even worse than before.

In other words, this prologue accomplished exactly the opposite of what it set out to do. Worse yet, the drastically different animation styles of the prologue and the main film only served the whole thing feel painfully disjointed.

Finally, The Killing Joke really had no reason at to be rated R in the first place. Sure, the book dealt with some pretty dire subject matter, but a lot of details were left to the imagination, which ultimately resulted in the film adaptation trying way too hard to justify its rating.

Credit where it's due, the voice cast did an exceptional job, Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill especially. But not even they could save The Killing Joke from being an absolute slog of an adaptation.