All 13 Batman movies ranked from worst to best

2. Batman Returns

Tim Burton changed the game with Batman back in 1989, but he had much more fun crafting its sequel. That is abundantly clear from the opening scene of Batman Returns, which reveals a vividly eerie cityscape that looks corrupt even under a Christmas glow. A much more traditional Tim Burton movie, the director threw the few remaining characters from the first film into a world that was much weirder and far darker.

Michael Keaton brought his stoic Dark Knight back and it was clear that he was in his element, turning in an even more confident performance than his previous one. And that was enough to make the character alluring in spite of the fact that he was never really at the center of the story this time around. No, that spotlight belonged to Danny DeVito’s terrifying Penguin and Michelle Pfeiffer’s captivating Catwoman – both of whom stole every single scene that they were in.

Batman Returns may be an unusual watch, but beneath all that strangeness, it’s an incredibly clever movie – one that shows us that its greatest heroes and worst villains are all victims of the morally corrupt Gotham City. It just took a visionary like Tim Burton to personify that corruptness through the most eerie Gotham City the screen has ever seen.