The Dark Knight Resources

Need data on the cast or crew? The Internet Movie Database has the 411.

DC's rather sparse but official home page for the character.

As befits a figure of his stature, the Big B has his own Facebook page

Bats has a whole wiki set up for him—with more extensive details and entries on his various villains too. Here's the entry for the Christian Bale version, though he's far from the only one on the wiki.

Here's the wiki page of Heath Ledger's version of the Joker.

We can't leave Eckhart out either. There's plenty of entries for other Batman characters on the wiki too.

Batman himself was the creation of writer Bill Finger and artist Bob Kane, debuting in Detective Comics #27 first published in May, 1939. Readingroom.net has a PDF version.

As you may have imagined, Bats became a hit, prompting the creation of his own comic-book title. The first issue also introduced the Joker to the world.

When creating the Joker, Kane and Finger cited the 1928 silent film The Man Who Laughs as inspiration.

Indeed there were: movie serials, in fact, which were short movies running before the main feature. Each episode of a serial ended on a cliffhanger, with the hero placed in mortal peril. If you wanted to find out what happened, you had to come back next week. The format inspired the Indiana Jones films in the 1980s, and also made a good fit for Batman.

Bats appeared in his own serial in 1943, followed by a sequel, Batman and Robin in 1949. Lewis Wilson starred as Batman in the first serial, with Robert Lowry taking over in the second one. If you haven't seen them, don't worry: YouTube has the connected. (And just between us, they're really unspeakably awful.)

In the 1950s, parents' groups cracked down on comic books, concerned that they were warping the minds of America's youth. In response, comics became more outlandish and kid-friendly, which put a serious crimp in the whole brooding-loner thing that Batman had going for him. Sales tanked and for a while it looked like Batman was going to be shut down.

Help arrived in 1966, when Adam West started in a live-action series that sent up those ridiculous excesses and turned it into pure pop magic. The show was a huge hit, and put Batman back on the map for good. It's a lot of fun if you need some relief from the whole dark-and-gritty thing. And we love-love-love that opening title!

In the 1980s, a series of graphic works such as Maus and Watchmen convinced the world that comics could be a legitimate art form. Among them was Frank Miller's limited series The Dark Knight Returns which shows an aging, possibly psychotic Bruce Wayne restoring order to a fascistic future Gotham. It set the stage for what was to come.

Author Alan Moore played an instrumental role in showing the artistic potential of comic books. Among his works were The Killing Joke created with artist Brian Bolland, first published in 1988. It depicts a possible origin for the Joker, who subsequently kidnaps Commissioner Gordon in an attempt to drive him insane. The creators of The Dark Knight cite it as a huge inspiration for their film.

With Batman on the ascent, Hollywood quickly got in on the action. Warners gave former Disney animator Tim Burton the job of bringing the Caped Crusader to life. Initial fears about the film were silenced when it swooped down in the summer of 1989 and took all our money with it. The film has plenty of problems (does Burton even know how to tell a story?), but the look of the film helped cement all that broody Gothic stuff. And we gotta admit that both Michael Keaton (as Batman) and Jack Nicholson (as the Joker) were awesome.

Burton followed that up with a sequel, in which Keaton returns to battle Danny DeVito's Penguin and Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman. The film had a lot of problems. Pfeiffer was not one of them.

With the Burton films bringing in huge box office returns, Warners commissioned a new animated series for Batman. And seriously, if you haven't seen it, you really need to check it out. Creative gurus Paul Dini and Alan Burnett found what many fans think is the ideal version of the Caped Crusader, while vocal artists Kevin Conroy (as Batman) and Mark Hamill (as the Joker) are considered by some to be the best takes on the character ever.

And then Joel Schumacher happened...

Actually it's not quite fair to blame Schumacher, who followed up Burton's films by directing Batman Forever starring Val Kilmer and Batman and Robin starring George Clooney. The Warner brass were basically calling the shots, and they dictated the garish, bright, obtusely campy tone that pretty much made everyone hate these movies for all time. They came close to sinking the whole franchise for good. Only Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins saved them from their own folly. Schumacher took the brunt of the blame, but it's hard to see what he could have done in the face of a studio more concerned with selling toys than making a film that didn't induce everyone to jab their eyeballs out.

In swoops Nolan! Yanking Batman away from the clutches of overbearing suits, he restored the Caped Crusader's grim and gritty reputation in Batman Begins, and set the stage for The Dark Knight. In fact, we think it might be a little better than The Dark Knight. If you want to study the 2008 model, it behooves you to give this one a careful look.

As you may have noticed, this movie ends on something of a cliffhanger. To find out what happens, take a gander at the conclusion to Nolan's trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises. It's not quite as good as the first two, but still pretty darn good in our opinion.

DC has spun its wheels lately in the live-action movie department, but they thrive in Direct-to-Video Land. In the past eight years, they've released over a dozen animated features set in the DC Universe, including quite a few Batman titles. Pay particular notice to one called Gotham Knight, which is a series of six stories drawn in the manner of Japanese anime. What makes this one special? It's officially set in the same universe as The Dark Knight, and covers the period right before that film, just after Batman Begins.

Tons of fans get to do more than watch Batman. They get to play him in an acclaimed series of video games from Rocksteady games. Four have been released thus far: Arkham Asylum, Arkham City, Arkham Origins and Arkham Knight. They're all awesome.

Who knew that the Caped Crusader would end up stealing the show in the animated Lego Movie? Not only did he get the biggest laughs of the film, but he got his own song in the middle of it! Also, he only works in black. And sometimes very, very dark grey.

There's always a Lego version.

A report from the Times on the movie.

Scholar John Ip digs at some of the deeper meaning of all this funnybook mayhem.

The late great Roger Ebert revels in the film and its implications for comic book movies in general.

Don't take Roger's word for it: critics the world over weigh in on The Dark Knight, helpfully compiled by the good people at Rotten Tomatoes.

Todd Alcott breaks down the movie at Comicsbeat.com.

Christiancinema.com takes a nuanced look at the film's big ideas.

Continuity mistakes and other bloopers from The Dark Knight.

Ledger playing the Joker at the time, but this one gave them a few little morsels of hope.

The teaser begat the trailer, and suddenly Ledger's casting started to look a lot less questionable.

The third and final trailer put more of an emphasis on Two-Face than the Joker.

If that big chase with the 18-wheeler looks familiar, that's because they shot it in Chicago's famous Lower Wacker Drive… which was also the sight of an equally awesome chase scene in Nolan's first Caped Crusader movie, Batman Begins.

Nolan took a bit of inspiration from 1980's The Blues Brothers, which also used Lower Wacker Drive in a memorable chase scene.

For that fantastic opening bank robbery, Nolan borrows some cues from Michael Mann's 1995 crime thriller Heat. Notice the high walls and echoing sound here? We've seen them before…

Warners earned bonus points for its innovative viral campaign promoting The Dark Knight, making copious use of that Internet thing you may have heard about. Here's a video covering the specifics.

In 2014, DC authorized this snazzy retrospective, looking at 75 years of the Caped Crusader.

They didn't make any secret out of the fact that the Joker was going to be here. Here's the finale of Batman Begins, with a little teaser of things to come.

The Dark Knight himself raps with us on all things Batman.

In one of his last interviews, Ledger spills the beans on the Joker.

The director sounds off on making the movie.

Excuse us, that's Sir Michael Caine, playing the most famous butler of all time.

Eckhart chats with Larry King about working with Heath Ledger.

Maggie Gyllenhaal crashes the boys club with this interview for the film.

Murphy's a bit of a forgotten villain in the Nolan Batman saga, having playing the Scarecrow in all three films. But he actually first tried out for Bruce Wayne before Nolan decided he was too terrifying to be a good guy.

In addition to the movie itself, The Dark Knight won accolades for its awesome marketing campaign, starting with posters like this.

Something a little more personal, with the three main characters flashing their respective calling cards.

A promotion preview shows off the villain in a moment of repose…

A make-up-free Heath Ledger sets up the introductory shot for his character. He's right: the clown-face makes him much scarier.

Ledger performs while the blood rushes to his head. Trust us, it's pretty awesome in the film.

Christopher Nolan poses while the Batmobile gazes at him enviously.

A little movie magic shows how they made Eckhart look all gross without having to actually burn off his flesh.

Yeah, there have been a few…

Toys, statues and figurines… the hallmark for any modern blockbuster.