Ranking Every Christopher Nolan Film From Worst To Best
1. The Dark Knight
The Dark Knight isn't just a masterclass for filmmakers within the superhero genre. It's a masterclass in filmmaking, full stop.
Batman completed his on-screen redemption in this mashup of gangster epic and comic book movie, and suddenly George Clooney's Bat Nipples and Arnie's horrible ice puns felt like nothing more than bad memories.
At the centre of its dizzying setpieces, sky-high stakes and moral dilemmas lies one of the greatest performances of the modern age - the late Health Ledger as The Joker.
His unstoppable force provides the perfect adversary for the immovable object of Christian Bale's Batman, devilishly charismatic and unsettlingly psychic in equal measure, and never any less than compelling on screen.
These are the surface-level thrills The Dark Knight offers, but beneath it all lies morally-ambiguous questions to ponder on every repeat viewing.
Did tapping into Gotham's network of cellphones with NSA-like proficiency leave Batman a forever corrupted hero, just like The Joker wanted? Does he redeem himself by destroying this technology in the end?
Is this really the hero that Gotham needs and deserves, or are its people the real heroes because they refused blow each other up when everything was on the line?
Fans will ponder these questions for generations, and that's the true brilliance of The Dark Knight.