The Dark Knight
Warner Bros. Pictures | Release Date: July 18, 2008 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
85
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 41 Critic Reviews
Positive:
35
Mixed:
6
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
May be the most hopeless, despairing comic-book movie in memory. It creates a world where being a superhero is at best a double-edged sword and no triumph is likely to be anything but short-lived. Read full review
100
SlateDana Stevens
Nolan turns the Manichean morality of comic books--pure good vs. pure evil--into a bleak post-9/11 allegory about how terror (and, make no mistake, Heath Ledger's Joker is a terrorist) breaks down those reassuring moral categories. Read full review
100
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
The moral dilemmas are perfectly fused with the amped-up action and outsize characters, but they're impossible to miss: like all of us, the people of Gotham have to protect themselves from evil without falling prey to it. Read full review
100
The A.V. ClubKeith Phipps
The film's capes and cowls suggest one genre, but it's a metropolis-sized tragedy at heart. Read full review
100
IGNTodd Gilchrist
What Nolan and Co. have created doesn't just function as a thrill ride or even a terrific movie, but rather as a substantive and philosophical examination of why we need heroes, and then when we need them, what they mean. Read full review
100
Total FilmStaff (Not Credited)
Let it be said that it’s such a fearless, fierce, menacing turn that comparisons with Jack Nicholson don’t come into it. This is the definitive Joker. Read full review
100
VarietyJustin Chang
Enthralling...An ambitious, full-bodied crime epic of gratifying scope and moral complexity, this is seriously brainy pop entertainment that satisfies every expectation raised by its hit predecessor and then some. Read full review
100
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
Bale again brilliantly personifies all the deep traumas and misgivings of Batman's alter ego, Bruce Wayne. A bit of Hamlet is in this Batman. Read full review
100
TimeRichard Corliss
Beyond dark. It's as black -- and teeming and toxic -- as the mind of the Joker. "Batman Begins," the 2005 film that launched Nolan's series, was a mere five-finger exercise. This is the full symphony. Read full review
100
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Christopher Nolan has provided movie-goers with the best superhero movie to-date, outclassing previous titles both mediocre and excellent, and giving this franchise its "The Empire Strikes Back." Read full review
100
Village VoiceScott Foundas
The Dark Knight will give your adrenal glands their desired workout, but it will occupy your mind, too, and even lead it down some dim alleyways where most Hollywood movies fear to tread. Read full review
100
New York Daily NewsJoe Neumaier
Twisted, tortured, terrifying - and terrific. Read full review
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
"Batman" isn't a comic book anymore. Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight is a haunted film that leaps beyond its origins and becomes an engrossing tragedy. It creates characters we come to care about. That's because of the performances, because of the direction, because of the writing, and because of the superlative technical quality of the entire production. Read full review
100
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
Sensational, grandly sinister and not for the kids, The Dark Knight elevates pulp to a very high level. Read full review
100
EmpireMark Dinning
Ledger's performance is monumental, but The Dark Knight lives up to it. Nolan cements his position as Hollywood's premier purveyor of blockbuster smarts – and the Batbike is kinda cool, too. Read full review
100
Seattle Post-IntelligencerSean Axmaker
With The Dark Knight, the cinematic superhero spectacle comes closest to becoming modern myth, a pulp tragedy with costumed players and elevated stakes and terrible sacrifices. It's the new gold standard for superhero noir. Read full review
100
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
That Ledger stands out in such a powerhouse ensemble is a tribute to his radically unhinged interpretation of a familiar character: The lank hair tinged seaweed green, the darting tongue and faint lisp that call constant attention to the ghastly rictus of his mouth, the nightmarishly smudged make up… taken together, they make previous Jokers feel like, well, jokes. Read full review
100
USA TodayClaudia Puig
When was the last time you saw a blockbuster that was impeccably executed and simultaneously thought-provoking, audacious and unnerving while consistently being fun and entertaining? Read full review
100
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
Succeeds as an action film, character study and metaphor for our own terrorism-obsessed time. Read full review
95
NPRBob Mondello
The real relationship here is between a Batman in existential crisis and a Joker who'd love to leap with him into the abyss -- tight-a--ed yin and anarchist yang in a fantasy franchise that Nolan has made as riveting for its psychological heft as for the adrenaline rushes it inspires at regular intervals. Read full review
91
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
This comic-book movie is more disturbing, and has more freakish power, than anything else I've seen all year. Read full review
91
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
At two hours and 32 minutes, this is almost too much movie, but it has a malicious, careening zest all its own. It's a ride for the gut AND the brain. Read full review
90
The New York TimesManohla Dargis
Pitched at the divide between art and industry, poetry and entertainment, it goes darker and deeper than any Hollywood movie of its comic-book kind. Read full review
90
Film ThreatPete Vonder Haar
The Dark Knight may not be a masterpiece, but it easily vaults to the top of any list of "best superhero movies." Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter Travers
No fair giving away the mysteries of The Dark Knight. It's enough to marvel at the way Nolan -- a world-class filmmaker, be it "Memento," "Insomnia" or "The Prestige" -- brings pop escapism whisper-close to enduring art. Read full review
88
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
The Dark Knight is dark, all right: It's a luxurious nightmare disguised in a superhero costume, and it's proof that popcorn entertainments don't have to talk down to their audiences in order to satisfy them. The bar for comic-book film adaptations has been permanently raised. Read full review
88
New York PostKyle Smith
The highest praise I can give a superhero movie is that it makes me forget about its 10-cent-comic-book soul. Read full review
83
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
Because make no mistake: The Dark Knight is many things, some of them deliriously fun, some of them deeply impressive, and some of them puzzling and frustrating. But most of all it is dark. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
Mixing bravura filmmaking with flat clichés in about equal amounts, The Dark Knight is all about dualism. Appropriately, the movie's half-inspired, half-frustrating. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
An action blockbuster extravaganza that's sadder than sad and never pretends otherwise. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
Shakespearean but overlong, The Dark Knight is two hours of heady, involving action that devolves into a mind-numbing 32-minute epilogue. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy Burr
You come away impressed, oppressed, provoked, and beaten down, holding on to Ledger's squirrelly incandescence as a beacon in the darkness. Read full review
75
PremiereEric Kohn
Nolan's strong suits are maniacal schemers and moody character-driven intrigue, both of which make The Dark Knight a sleek (if, at close to three hours, somewhat distended) detective story. Read full review
70
NewsweekDavid Ansen
You may emerge more exhausted than elated. Nolan wants to prove that a superhero movie needn't be disposable, effects-ridden junk food, and you have to admire his ambition. But this is Batman, not "Hamlet." Call me shallow, but I wish it were a little more fun. Read full review
70
Washington PostStephen Hunter
You keep waiting for the movie to clarify, to settle down to its archetypal purity: icon of psychotic evil against icon of neurotic good. Music by Wagner in his "Götterdämmerung" mood, screenplay by Nietzsche, with additional lines by Babaloo Mandel. Oh, what a great big movie wallow, what a transformational blast of cine-pleasure. It never quite arrives Read full review
60
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
Christopher Nolan's latest exploration of the Batman mythology steeps its muddled plot in so much murk that the Joker's maniacal nihilism comes to seem like a recurrent grace note. Read full review
50
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
A handsome, accomplished piece of work, but it drove me from absorption to excruciation within 20 minutes, and then it went on for two hours more. Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
The novelty wears off and the lack of imagination, visual and otherwise, turns into a drag. The Dark Knight is noisy, jumbled, and sadistic. Read full review
50
The New YorkerDavid Denby
The Dark Knight is hardly routine--it has a kicky sadism in scene after scene, which keeps you on edge and sends you out onto the street with post-movie stress disorder. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
The only thing here that feels truly, utterly alive is Ledger's maniacal, muttery Joker. The last laugh is his and his alone. It's enough to make you cry. Read full review
50
SalonStephanie Zacharek
Nolan may want us to believe in the darkness that lurks within each of us, but instead of leading us to it visually, he chops it up and sets it out in front of us, a grim, predigested banquet. Read full review
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