Batman

I fucking love how they made Gotham look. From the very first shot, Gotham is so incredibly distinct, beautiful yet rundown and grimy, and lived in. The metro-Gothic architecture everywhere looks so cool, from all the skywalks to those giant heads outside that dude's office window. This expertly walks the line between goofy comic book camp and being dark and serious. I do wish that Nicholson leaned into being more funny and I personally don't like knowing that much about Joker. As a Batman adaptation overall, it's not my favorite. In addition to not really liking how there is no mystery to their joker, they play a little too loose with some of the characters and make some bold reveals that don't gel too well with the standard Batman lore. It's their movie and it's not like there is one Batman canon, but sometimes this pushes it a little too far. As a movie though, it's great. Some of the cgi hasn't aged well (it's from 1989 after all), but nothing really took me out of it other than the soundtrack, which could get pretty obnoxious with the Prince songs. The pacing is what I really appreciated, as the Nolan ones all have parts where everything slows way down and it's hard to pay attention because it gets borderline boring. I don't know that I'd say it's my favorite Batman film, but it is definitely up there.