All 31 animated Batman movies ranked from worst to best

8. Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders

We’re living in an era in which people love nostalgia and it doesn’t get more nostalgic than the classic 1966 Batman TV series. So when it was revealed that Adam West, Burt Ward, and Julie Newmar would return as the Dynamic Duo and Catwoman in a new animated movie, fans of the legendary show were thrilled.

Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders didn’t just live up to expectations, it exceeded them. And that’s because it exceeded our wildest dreams when it came to just how larger-than-life, effortlessly campy, and completely over-the-top it could go. There were dastardly supervillain team-ups, wickedly funny one-liners, ridiculous Bat-gadgets that Batman and Robin simply couldn’t have dreamed of needing before this movie but somehow had at the ready anyway, and there was fun. Lots and lots of fun.

Return of the Caped Crusaders‘ unprecedented critical success also stems from the fact that it was released in the same year as fellow animated movie The Killing Joke and the live-action Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice; two depressingly grim outings that completely misunderstood their source material and disappointed so many people. And then there was this one; having the time of its life with the most outlandish of plots and ensuring we were doing the same when watching it. We couldn’t ask for more than that.