This may seem like faint praise, but about the highest compliment I can give Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight right now is to say that there were many long stretches during which I didn't even realize it was a superhero movie

Full Review | Dec 13, 2017

Too much psychology and not enough pop. It's possible to be too serious, you know.

Full Review | Jun 2, 2017

You will feel utterly numb after the screening of The Dark Knight. The film is bleak and brilliant.

Full Review | May 31, 2017

This is an impressive film in many ways, and Nolan directs with real confidence, yet the overall result feels cumbersome.

Full Review | Aug 20, 2014

Among the great strengths of The Dark Knight is the way it combines hardboiled naturalism with the kind of stunts and setpieces you expect in summer blockbusters.

Full Review | Aug 20, 2014

To talk of Heath Ledger's performance is difficult, merely because, as gigantic as it is, it is only one important feature of an intricately wrought canvas.

Full Review | Aug 20, 2014

The Dark Knight is probably the smartest and most stylish action movie since the "The Matrix." It thinks and philosophizes. The subject it thinks and philosophizes about, perhaps not surprisingly, considering the times, is the Iraq war.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Aug 20, 2014

An exceptionally smart, brooding picture with some terrific performances.

Full Review | Apr 10, 2013

The Dark Knight is a film that's fantastic on the action front, seeds its acrobatics in its own reality, and always feels relevant even when its ideas are drowned out by clatter.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 24, 2011

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

Full Review | Original Score: A+ | Jul 6, 2010

Flawed and overrated.

Full Review | Jul 6, 2010

The symbiosis of good and evil is the film's philosophical core, and images of duality and cloaked identity are strewn through it like shards from a fun house mirror.

Full Review | Original Score: A- | Oct 18, 2008

[Ledger's] manic zest gives the film its energy.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 25, 2008

You will exit the cinema with an enhanced respect for Nolan's intelligence, for Wally Pfister's pin-sharp cinematography, and, sadly, for an acting talent tragically curtailed.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 25, 2008

Shouldn't Nolan, marvellous as his directing here is, be creating original films rather than rebooting and retooling franchise fare?

Full Review | Jul 25, 2008

Watching the first dizzying, vertiginous overhead shot of the glittering skyscrapers and minuscule streets, I literally forgot to breathe for a second or two, and found myself teetering forward on my seat...

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 25, 2008

Now you see it, now you don't.

Full Review | Jul 18, 2008

It has chases and crashes and fight scenes, including a somersaulting truck, but when it is over it is the wrenching choices, the internal confrontations, that reverberate.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Jul 18, 2008

I'm betraying my childhood to concede this, but Nolan has finally topped Tim Burton's two twisted spectaculars.

Full Review | Original Score: A+ | Jul 18, 2008

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.

Full Review | Jul 18, 2008