For the next few weeks, we will be counting down our 25 favorite blockbusters! Read all of the entries here.

13. The Dark Knight (dir. Christopher Nolan, 2008)

by Ryan Silberstein, Managing Editor, The Red Herring

I have two grand unifying theories for Christopher Nolan movies, and The Dark Knight is maybe the earliest entry in his filmography that encapsulates both. In addition to that, this Batman already feels like a film that may not speak to future generations the way it landed when it was released 13 years ago. While it remains an entertaining work, the approach by the Nolans and David S. Goyer makes it seem like it belongs to another time. While 2008 may not seem like a long time ago when it comes to math, the sheer amount of things that have happened since then–and how our worldviews have changed because of it–cannot be overstated. I suspect for The Dark Knight, you had to be there for it to fully resonate beyond another picture about the Caped Crusader (to be honest, this doesn’t crack my top 5 Batman movies, but that’s a post for another time).

Those Christopher Nolan unifying theories are this: 1. Chris Nolan’s films wrestle with the guilt stemming from not spending more time with his kids because he is making gigantic movies, and 2. Reality is, at least somewhat, subjective and informed by individual points of view. The Dark Knight is about both of these things, with the specifics of the latter also mapping its individual characters to particular aspects of the political/legal system (criminal, police, district attorney, vigilante). Furthermore, it categorizes them with a moral alignment chart, similar to Dungeons & Dragons. Batman is chaotic good, Jim Gordon is lawful neutral, Harvey Dent is lawful good (maybe), Lucious Fox is neutral good, Joker is chaotic evil, and Maroni, the mob boss, is lawful or neutral evil. But the ways that these are expressed are very 2008.

To put some context around it, The Dark Knight debuted in the summer during the 2008 presidential election which would see Barack Obama win over John McCain. The U.S. was sliding further away from the War on Terror and the interventionist, neoconservative policies of George W. Bush. The catchphrase for Obama’s campaign was “Hope and Change,” which also perfectly suits the image of Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) here. Gotham City is depicted as a chaotic place on the brink of systemic collapse, and only the new District Attorney, a purely good person, can wrangle the city away from control of the mob. Both Obama and Dent would have to work inside systems they inherited. For Dent, that means plenty of dirty cops, which ultimately shows a vulnerability exploited by the Joker (Heath Ledger). 

It is possible that I am conflating my own feelings with the feelings of the country as a whole, but back then it seemed we believed that electing one good man could somehow solve some systemic issues. Was it naivety or hope? But of course Harvey Dent is a cautionary tale. Even before half of his face is burned away, we see him potentially give into his own hype. Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) believes Harvey to be the best of the trio that includes himself and Batman, but we see bursts of anger. This “white knight of Gotham” has a dark side, a shadow. The right wing response to Obama was to forever cast doubt on his identity with birtherism, the first major plank in laying the groundwork for launching their own version of reality into the mainstream with Trump. Like the mob in The Dark Knight, Republicans “in their desperation, they turned to a man they didn't fully understand” but one that nonetheless represented their values. Organized crime presents itself as an honorable alternative, but it is truly a perversion of the normal system that most citizens abide by. And the Joker beat them at their own game. 

Aside from a nearly unshakable faith in institutions to act correctly, the “two boats” subplot feels exceptionally optimistic after the past year. How many people on those boats would wear a little cloth mask to save lives of people they might never meet? Look, I am all for a Capraesque faith in my fellow man, but it’s been a real challenge the last 15 months. Perhaps it also feels misplaced in the film because the people don’t make the decision as they are inspired by anything that has happened in the movie up to that point. It is, more or less, an abstract debate about the Prisoner’s Dilemma or whatever, but does not factor into the story at all. In that same section of the film, the Joker disguising his goons as doctors and the doctors as clown goons is far more interesting and effective because it plays against the expectations of everyone in the situation. 

What makes The Dark Knight so effective as a piece of entertainment is that it provides direct moral quandaries to its ensemble cast over and over with the stakes ever heightening. In order to do that, it suffers through a lot of exposition, a large game board, and some pacing oddities. And as entertainment, it holds up. I would tell a 2021 high schooler who likes Batman or movies to watch The Dark Knight, but I wouldn’t really expect them to get a lot out of it other than Ledger’s performance because it feels like it exists in a fundamentally different time. While I will return to this movie again in the future, I am curious to see how its reputation evolves as it gets reevaluated in the future. For a film that was nearly universally lauded when it was released (I saw it theatrically four or five times), its legacy at large and even within Batman’s 75+ year history seems less and less certain.