Remembering The Dark Knight 10 years later

On July 18, 2008, The Dark Knight premiered in theaters. Ten years later, the legendary sequel still holds the test of time and set the gold standard for superhero movies.

The Summer of 2008 belonged to The Dark Knight, but before the film was even released, the pressure to succeed was of the utmost importance. The first film in the trilogy, Batman Begins, only grossed $374 million at the global box office. The film’s villain, Heath Ledger, shockingly passed away several months earlier, which added to the growing tension. Another underwhelming box office performance would have spelled doom for the franchise.

On July 18, 2008, The Dark Knight premiered in the U.S. and as they say, the rest is history. Destroy box office records? Check. Immortalize Heath Ledger as an actor? Win Academy Awards? Check. Catapult Christopher Nolan into the conversation for best director in the world? Check. Every expectation the film needed to reach in order to be considered a success was not only surpassed, but shattered.

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Up until then, superhero movies were very “gimmicky,” meaning they were an afterthought with critics and they were rarely thought of as seperate action thrillers. Nolan went with a different approach when developing the sequel as he created a heist crime drama that was inspired by Michael Mann’s Heat. Audiences championed Nolan’s creative direction as it became the fourth film ever to surpass $1 billion at the box office.

Both fans and critics responded with universal acclaim for The Dark Knight. The iconic Roger Ebert said it’s a “haunted film that leaps beyond its origins and becomes an engrossing tragedy.” The Dark Knight was so highly regarded by critics that it changed the Oscars as we know it. In one of the biggest crimes in cinematic history, The Dark Knight was not nominated for Best Picture. Months after the ceremony, the Academy expanded from five nominations to 10, with many citing The Dark Knight‘s snubbing as the reason for the change.

Speaking of Oscars, the film will forever be remembered by Heath Ledger’s monumental portrayal of The Joker. Ledger turned The Joker from a laughable villain into a sadistic and disturbing agent of chaos. Ledger was able to flip the old superhero theme of “good vs. evil” on its head. The Dark Knight is a film of moral and psychological dilemmas and in a way, one could make the arugment that Batman (Christian Bale) is just as responsible as The Joker for the deaths in Gotham for his failure to kill the villain. Ledger’s interpretation is arguably the most memorable performance of the 21st century, which lead to his posthumous win for Best Supporting Actor at the Academy Awards.

The Dark Knight is the perfect storm of what can happen when a movie approaches perfection. High speed chases and emphatic action sequences still hold up to this day. Bale and Ledger’s cat-and-mouse game leaves the audience questioning the moral roles of the good guy and the bad guy. Mix in excellent performances from Aaron Eckhart, Gary Oldman, and Maggie Gyllenhall and the film is in a league of its own. In a way, superhero movies were ruined because it’s unfair to compare them to Nolan’s cinematic masterpiece.

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10 years later, The Dark Knight has cemented itself as not only one of the greatest comic book films, but one of the greatest films of all-time. Do you agree?  Tweet me your thoughts @danny_giro!