The first DC Comics came out in 1937. Movies based on these characters have had huge success. Today, the franchise is owned by Warner Bros., which is part of the Warner Bros. Discovery median giant. Warner Bros. is among America’s most storied studios and has been owned by several media companies over time.
DC Comics has produced many fictional characters. The best known of these are Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman. Each has become part of a movie series of its own.
Several movies that have been successful are loosely tied to the DC franchise. On a related note, 2002’s “Road to Perdition” and David Cronenberg’s “A History of Violence” were both based on DC properties, a fact perhaps not generally known. Meanwhile, recent classics such as 2019’s “The Joker” and 2022’s “The Batman” are not technically considered to be part of the DC Extended Universe (DCEU). As it just so happens, they are also some of the most beloved DC-based films of the past decade. Does anyone notice a trend here?
To spell it out, it would appear that most of the best DC efforts are the ones that don’t try to take on the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) directly. The few exceptions would be 2017’s “Wonder Woman” and “Zack Snyder’s Justice League,” the latter of which may or may not be as good as its devoted fan base would have one believe. Otherwise, the DCEU has consistently struggled to land emotional punches or tell gripping stories without resorting to overwrought melodrama. Compare that to the MCU, which balances comedy and drama while generating genuine pathos for its myriad characters.
To determine the best DC Movie of all time, 24/7 Tempo created an index of average user ratings on IMDb, an online movie and TV database owned by Amazon, and average audience ratings on Rotten Tomatoes, an online movie and TV review aggregator, scaled to take into account the varying number of votes across the movies in our database. This combined rating was then averaged with the Rotten Tomatoes critic rating to obtain each film’s 24/7 Tempo index score. The rankings included all animated and live-action feature films based on DC Comics publications, including DC imprints.
The best DC movie of all time is “The Dark Knight.” It was released in 2008, directed by Christopher Nolan and stars Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart and Michael Caine. Here are the details:
- IMDb rating: 9.0 (2,561,375 votes)
- RT audience rating: 94% (1,831,566 votes)
- Tomatometer rating: 94% (346 votes)
Click here to see which are the best DC comic movies of all time