Batman (1989)
There are films that arrive as events, reshaping the cultural landscape around them simply by existing, and Tim Burton's Batman from 1989 is one of the clearest examples of that phenomenon British and American cinema has ever produced. Before a single frame had been projected in a public theatre, the film had already generated a level of anticipation bordering on the fevered. The source material, of course, needed no introduction: Bob Kane and Bill Finger's caped crusader had been a fixture of DC Comics since 1939, had enjoyed a long run in television via the famously camp 1966 Adam West series, and had accumulated several generations of devoted readers through Frank Miller's darker, more psychological reinventions of the character in the mid-1980s. Warner Bros. were gambling, then, on a version of Batman that sat somewhere between those two poles, a blockbuster with genuine menace behind its commercial ambitions. The result arrived with a marketing campaign that became almost as famous as the film itself, and the question of whether the picture lived up to that extraordinary build-up has been argued about in pubs and living rooms ever since.
The decision to hand the project to Tim Burton now reads as either inspired or baffling, depending on your perspective, and in 1989 it read as mostly the latter. Burton had made the pleasantly odd Pee-wee's Big Adventure and the genuinely peculiar Beetlejuice, neither of which screamed big-budget franchise filmmaking. What the studio got for their reported budget of around 35 million dollars (substantial for the era) was something genuinely unusual for a summer blockbuster: a film more concerned with atmosphere and production design than with coherent plotting or emotional grounding. Anton Furst's Oscar-winning sets gave Gotham City a silhouette drawn from German Expressionism and industrial decay in equal measure, and Danny Elfman's score supplied the kind of gothic grandeur that has since become almost inseparable from the character. Burton's later work with the studio, including Corpse Bride and Alice in Wonderland, would continue exploring that taste for the theatrically macabre, but Batman remains the moment those instincts were applied to their largest canvas.
The casting, much like the director's appointment, was met with considerable scepticism before release. Michael Keaton, then best known for comedic roles, was an unconventional choice for Bruce Wayne, and the production had to weather a genuine public backlash before shooting had even properly begun. He is matched against Jack Nicholson as the Joker, a piece of casting that could hardly have been less controversial, given that Nicholson was at the height of his cultural cachet and had already demonstrated his capacity for operatic, slightly unhinged performances in films like The Shining and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Kim Basinger rounds out the principal triangle as Vicki Vale, a photographer drawn into the orbit of both men, in a role that the script treats with somewhat less generosity than it deserves. Robert Wuhl provides some reliably loose comic relief as a journalist, and Pat Hingle anchors Commissioner Gordon with gruff, functional reliability.
Let’s get the best bit out of the way first: Batman (1989) arguably has the greatest film poster of all time. That simple, striking yellow and black bat logo is so infinitely awesome it practically sells the entire movie before you've even pressed play. Amazingly, despite being born in 1989, being a massive Batman fan as a kid, and playing the Megadrive game based on this very film to death, I’d somehow never actually sat down and watched it.
I’d seen The Dark Knight, and I’d even subjected myself to those god-awful 90s and 2000s outings like Batman Forever and Batman & Robin, so going in, it felt like I’d been actively avoiding the original for my entire life (and maybe I was. They say never meet your heroes).
Finally watching it for the first time, I was genuinely and pleasantly surprised. I’ll go out on a limb and say that no other Batman film captures the actual feel of the comic books quite like this one. Tim Burton’s amazing, twisted gothic depiction of Gotham City is an absolute triumph in itself, creating a brooding, atmospheric world that feels entirely unique and visually striking. Then you have Jack Nicholson, who is simply amazing as The Joker. He chews the scenery with a manic, theatrical glee that is an absolute joy to watch, even if I still maintain that the ultimate crown for Joker depictions rightfully lands with the late Heath Ledger.
The only thing that really pulled me out of the experience was the Batsuit itself. It was clearly so rigid and poorly designed that Michael Keaton had to arch his entire back and torso just to look up or turn his head. Watching him swivel his whole body like Robocop every time he needed to check his blind spot is a bit hilarious and definitely brings you out of the moment slightly. But that’s a minor quibble in the grand scheme of things.
Overall, it’s a really good superhero movie. Despite its age, I enjoyed it a hell of a lot more than most of the modern Marvel slop we get spoon-fed today. Batman is a brilliant, gothic caper that finally lived up to the hype of its legendary poster.
Batman sits, even now, in a curious position in the superhero canon: too strange and personal to be a straightforward crowd-pleaser, and yet too commercially driven to be the auteur piece Burton might have made under different circumstances. It is a film that rewards the patient viewer who can set aside questions of narrative logic and simply give themselves over to the look and sound of the thing, which is no small ask. Whether it holds up as a complete piece of cinema is a fair debate, but its influence on everything that followed, from the tone of superhero adaptations to the very idea that comic-book films could aspire to something beyond bright primary colours and clean moral lines, is difficult to overstate. Sometimes a poster really does tell you everything you need to know.
Rating: ★★★½ | Year: 1989 | Watched: 2026-06-22
Trailer
▶ Watch the official trailer for Batman (1989) on YouTube
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
Stream: HBO Max Amazon Channel · Sky Go · Now TV Cinema
Rent: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Buy: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi
Watch in the US
Stream: HBO Max Amazon Channel · YouTube TV · HBO Max
Rent: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Buy: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Physical: Amazon US
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