The Dark Knight (2008)

All Critics (287) | Top Critics (49) | Fresh (276) | Rotten (21) | DVD (28)

An exceptionally smart, brooding picture with some terrific performances.

April 10, 2013 Full Review

Tom Charity

CNN.com

Top Critic

Christopher Nolan is much, much smarter than your average filmmaker.

July 6, 2010 Full Review | Comments (20)

Laremy Legel

Film.com

Top Critic

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.

July 18, 2008 Full Review | Comments (479)

Joe Morgenstern

Wall Street Journal

Top Critic

The film is so relentlessly bleak that, paradoxically, its blackness is not given its full due. But this comic-book movie is more disturbing, and has more freakish power, than anything else I've seen all year.

July 18, 2008 Full Review

Peter Rainer

Christian Science Monitor

Top Critic

Watching The Dark Knight is like gazing into a mirror on a waning moon night: chilling and mesmerizing.

July 18, 2008 Full Review | Comments (3)

Lisa Kennedy

Denver Post

Top Critic

Despite the tensions between its form and its function, The Dark Knight succeeds far more than it fails, and lingers provocatively in the mind.

July 17, 2008 Full Review | Comments (2)

Christopher Orr

The New Republic

Top Critic

Were films judged entirely by the emotive impact of their opening and closing images, The Dark Knight would be a masterpiece.

January 24, 2013 Full Review

Rob Humanick

Projection Booth

The glimpse into the Joker's darkness during his documented torture scene is a credit to the devastatingly lost potential of Heath Ledger.

January 2, 2013 Full Review

Blake Howard

2UE That Movie Show

It's not just the best Batman film ever. It's not just the best superhero movie ever. It's more than a money-spinner, a franchise, a comic-book cash-in. The Dark Knight is a stunning piece of work that deserves every word of praise spoken about it.

October 14, 2012 Full Review

Ali Gray

TheShiznit.co.uk

a phenomenal masterpiece whose creators aren't content with simply making a great comic book movie, but craft one that transcends the genre to become one of the best films this decade.

August 27, 2012 Full Review

Jeffrey Lyles

Lyles' Movie Files

Thank Warner Bros. for letting Nolan make such a smart, thrilling, emotionally involving, just terrifically well rounded and fully realized entertainment that challenges and elevates notions of what a so-called 'summer blockbuster' can do.

July 24, 2012 Full Review

Michael Dequina

TheMovieReport.com

It is ridiculous how much praise "The Dark Knight" truly deserves. Heath Ledger is this film's crowning jewel. By the time you get to the end credits, you'll immediately want to see it again.

July 22, 2012 Full Review | Comment (1)

Chris Sawin

Examiner.com

The Dark Knight is the best kind of sequel -- one that uses its predecessor as a gateway to explore new facets of its characters and its world.

July 15, 2012 Full Review | Comment (1)

Mark Dujsik

Mark Reviews Movies

Visceral and terrifying.

December 29, 2011 Full Review | Comments (7)

Michael W. Phillips, Jr.

Goatdog's Movies

Even if this wasn't Ledger's final role before his untimely death last year, his Joker would still go down in cinema history as one of the most creepily unhinged big-screen bad guys of all time.

September 28, 2011 Full Review

Neil Pond

American Profile

More than a comic-book adventure, this is a sprawling crime epic.

July 14, 2011 Full Review | Comments (2)

Stella Papamichael

Digital Spy

You know you're watching a good movie when it puts a smile on your face right from the start. In the The Dark Knight it may be a twisted grimace but given the right perspective there's enjoyment to be had in even the bleakest subject matter.

March 18, 2011 Full Review

Joshua Starnes

ComingSoon.net

Excellent sequel much darker, more violent than the first.

December 19, 2010 Full Review | Comments (4)

James Rocchi

Common Sense Media

Allusions to our current struggles with surveillance, public perception and terrorism are thrown into the mix, adding political immediacy to Nolan's psycho noir.

November 6, 2010 Full Review

Jeff Meyers

Metro Times (Detroit, MI)

Bring on part three.

July 6, 2010 Full Review | Comments (9)

Coco Forsythe

Future Movies UK

Completely lacking in vanity, Ledger creates his finest performance.

July 6, 2010 Full Review

Brett Michel

Boston Phoenix

Flawed and overrated.

July 6, 2010 Full Review | Comments (237)

Adam Nayman

Reverse Shot

It not only surpasses Batman Begins - previously considered the high-water mark of movies about the Caped Crusader - but one that magnificently transcends the superhero genre.

October 9, 2009 Full Review | Comments (5)

Mike Scott

Times-Picayune

The Dark Knight is a masterpiece of the first order, and the first great post-Sept. 11 film.

August 30, 2009 Full Review | Comments (15)

Sonny Bunch

Washington Times

• 1. Joker: Let's put a smile on that face!
  – Submitted by Eli T (44 days ago)
• 1. Gambol: You think you can steal from us and just walk away?
  2. Joker: Yeah.
  – Submitted by Eli T (44 days ago)
• 1. Batman/Bruce Wayne: People are dying, Alfred. What would you have me do?
  2. Alfred: Endure, Master Wayne. Take it. They'll hate you for it, but that's the point of Batman, he can be the outcast. He can make the choice that no one else can make, the right choice.
  3. Batman/Bruce Wayne: Well today I found out what Batman can't do. He can't endure this. Today you get to say "I told you so."
  4. Alfred: Today, I don't want to.
  5. Alfred: But I did bloody tell you.
  – Submitted by Eli T (44 days ago)
• 1. Batman/Bruce Wayne: What about getting back into the plane?
  2. Lucius Fox: I'd recommend a good travel agent.
  3. Batman/Bruce Wayne: Without it landing.
  4. Lucius Fox: Now that's more like it, Mr. Wayne.
  – Submitted by Eli T (44 days ago)
• 1. Joker: It's simple. We, uh, kill the Batman.
  – Submitted by Eli T (44 days ago)
• 1. Joker: Wanna know how I got these scars?
  – Submitted by Eli T (44 days ago)