Batman is my favorite fictional character of all time. There is perhaps no one that is more awesome. Yes, he is a super hero, but to me he transcends that. He lives on his own moral compass only constrained by one rule, which is not to kill. The only exception to this rule is whenever he feels like it, as is the case in some of these movies. Seriously, he's like a mass murderer in some of these movies. What are these movies, you ask? Wait, you didn't ask? Well too bad because I'm about to blow your head back from your eyes with my list of my top ten favorite Batman movies. This list will talk about any feature length Batman film, whether it be live action or animated. The Animated Series is ultimately the best, but unfortunately it is not a movie and therefore can't count. Now the way this website is set up, writing a list that is numerically descending would be starkly inconvenient, so I'm going to number it one through ten but make one the lowest ranking movie and ten the highest ranking movie. Just to increase the insane level of suspense.

1. Batman: The Movie (1966)

If one was the highest rank, this would fit because this is truly the greatest movie. Well, it may not be but it is a good deal of fun. The campy nature of the film combined with the utter ridiculousness and the nonsense of the plot cause the movie to be jovial and hard to take seriously. The villains plan to dehydrate world leaders into dust only to have Batman rehydrate them back to life combined with Batman running around in broad daylight trying to get rid of a bomb without hurting even a small family of ducks take all dramatic aspects away from it. However; it is the first time Batman has four villains (Joker, Riddler, Penguin and Catwoman) on screen together. I don't care what anyone says, Cesar Ramero was a decent Joker. It may be campy, but it was fun unlike the time when Batman's most dangerous nemesis Joel Schumacher tired to kill him. Luckily Batman always brings his Bat Shark Repellant.

2. Batman Returns (1992)

In this exciting sequel to 1989's Batman, Batman struggles with beating his most frequent and dangerous foe, inability to move almost any part of his body and having the audience wonder how he even wins a fight taking candy away from a small child. Despite this, Batman Returns is a great movie that is Michael Keaton's last outing as Batman. Though Keaton was short and Beatlejuice, he still was an effective Batman. Danny Devito plays the best and only movie penguin, a role that he was arguably born to play. Though I could have done without the film making him an actual human penguin hybrid, I can't complain. Michelle Pfeiffer plays a seductive and chilling Catwoman (almost as seductive and chilling as Danny Devito's penguin) that somehow gains fighting skill that can rival Batman's years of immense martial arts training after falling out a window, hitting her head and being nursed back to health by a throng of cats. It may sound kind of dumb, but it somehow works in the movie. Batman stays true to his no killing rule, except for when he attaches a bomb to a guys chest and throws him into the sewer. Also, he sends some other people to certain death. I'm sure they just got knocked out though. The ending of the movie must have been thought up while the writers were all hungover, but other than that, this is a great movie and the last good Batman film until Batman Begins.

3. The Killing Joke (2016)

I was debating between this and the one with the Red Hood, but since it's such a flawless story, I'll pick this one. The film may have left a lot to be desired, but it still got the job done. It suffered from being a film, in that they had to find about twenty minutes of extra footage so that it would be longer than a Popeye cartoon. The beginning with Batgirl is kind of redundant and adds nothing to the plot. The film still does a good job after that of staying true to the source material and having Kevin Conroy, the best Batman, and Mark Hamil, the best Joker, in the project helped it a lot. I thoroughly dislike the ending (I won't spoil it in case anyone hasn't seen it) but I just pretend one of them dies in my head.

4. The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

Christian Bale's last Batman movie, though my least favorite of the three, is still great. The movie does its job and entertains. My real problem is the fact that Batman is really only in the movie for about half an hour or less. The rest of it is not Batman, which is a well known synonym for lame. Anne Hathaway was a solid Catwoman and Tom Hardy was an effective Bane. This movie was a shining sign to start the character anew. There is no way the Christian Bale Batman could beat Superman. He barely could beat Bane, and it wasn't even the real Bane. Bane is supposed to be twice as big as Batman and take a steroid like drug and grow to be thrice Batman's height. This is just some jock in a mask that no one can understand. Even still, Batman barely beat him. He needed Catwoman to do it for him. So the title of this movie should be Catwoman Rises Because Batman is an Out of Shape Pushover. Catwoman is still pretty tough though so that's not a terrible insult, but still.

5. Batman Begins (2005)

This is the movie that made Batman recover after the evil Joel Schumacher came just so close to killing him. Batman fights Ra's Al Ghul, one of his most powerful foes, along with Scarecrow, one of his strawiest foes. The Scarecrow spends the move looking for a brain and fighting Batman while Ra's Al Ghul spends the movie looking for revenge. In typical Nolan fashion, the rightful origins of the characters are disregarded and rewritten, but it still works and makes sense. It also pays close attention to Batman's no killing rule. Except for when he blows up the League of Shadows building and straight up lets Ra's Al Ghul die. But other than that, no deaths.

6. Batman (1989)

In my opinion, this is one of the greatest movies ever. Just from a cinematic perspective, in that it views Gotham like a city in a film noir movie and Batman as sort of a no nonsense detective. The movie has many memorable lines and moments, like where the Joker demands the mirror or simply Batman saying "I'm Batman". The movie did a fantastic job at revamping Batman and superhero movies after the spectacular blunder of Superman IV: Quest for Peace and it could be argued that it started the modern super hero movies along with Christopher Reeve's Superman. Jack Nicholson plays the role he was born to play, the Joker. Michael Keaton plays the role that he really probably shouldn't have played, but the studio still wanted him anyway, Batman. I'm not saying Keaton was bad, I'm just saying he's incredibly short and only threatening because of the menacing costume. Nicholson, my favorite movie Joker, plays the perfect psychopath ruined only by the fact they gave him a cheesy and generic backstory. His name is Jack Napier. Like Jackanapes? Get it? Eh. Batman once again sticks to his no killing rule. Except for the guy he threw off the top of the clock tower, everyone in the factory he blew off the face of the Earth, or the Joker. But they didn't count because Batman cares less about them than Tim Burton cared about reading the comic books. Tim Burton still got the atmosphere right and held on as long as he could until Joel Schumacher came to sell toys..I mean, make movies.

7. The Dark Knight Returns (2012)

In what could be considered Batman's greatest story, we see a tired, old and worn down Bruce Wayne who returns as Batman in a Gotham City that has fallen to ruin thanks to mutant thugs. Well in his 50s or 60s, Batman proceeds to beat the living daylights out of the mutants and their Brobdingnagian leader while subsequently inspiring them with hope and justice. We see one of the darkest and most twisted versions of the Joker, where he ultimately goes on a killing spree in the tunnel of love at the fair and gives girl scouts poison cotton candy. It's the one where you want to see Batman catch the Joker and beat the life out of him. Finally, we see an elderly Batman take on a Superman that is still young and in his prime, in one of the greatest fights of all time. Dawn of Justice may have had Superman be more subdued, but this movie has Superman fighting batman at almost full force and Batman surviving thanks to Kryptonite and a powerful iron suit. Batman, with small aid from Green Arrow, wins the fight and returns underground to raise an army of justice and have a lackluster sequel story.

8. The Dark Knight (2008)

In what is Batman's best solo live action movie, Batman takes on his three greatest villains: Joker, Two-Face, and Emphysema. Seriously, Christian Bale really needed to lighten up on that voice. But in all seriousness, this movie was spectacular. It had an engaging story with Batman's two best villains in it. Heath Ledger gives the best performance of the Joker. Though I think that Jack Nicholson is the best Joker, Nicholson was kind of going through the motions at some points. Ledger gives an energetic and inspired performance through the whole movie. Though he's more like a mix of Johnny Rotten from the Sex Pistols and the Janitor from Scrubs in this movie, he still gives a scintillating performance that fully deserved the Oscar it won. The only question the movie left on me was why Batman took the blame for Harvey Dent's death at the end when they could have easily blamed it on the Joker and it would have made perfect sense. But oh well, it's more tragic I guess. Two-Face should have had more of a role in the movie, but it still showed his conflicting personality very well. It made us all ask the question "Harvey Dent, can we trust him?"

9. Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)

I know, there are a strong contingency of people that dislike this movie. Believe it or not, I actually understand it. Tom Snyder did try to pack way too much plot that no one really cared about into one movie. The pacing was kind of slow and there was less action than there was exposition. Batman also killed way too many people, like he did in the Tim Burton movies but no one ever cares. Despite this, I loved the movie. It was a breath of fresh air from the happy go lucky Marvel movies where the plots and boss fights are all basically the same. The sloth of the plot of the movie was worth it for the pay off in the last half hour or so, where Batman fights Superman, Batman clears out a room full of people in the warehouse, and finally Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman all team up to fight Doomsday. It was pulse pounding excitement when I saw it in theaters. I loved the Martha scene actually. People like to pretend that they're cool and say "that scene was stupid and made no sense" to which I reply "you're stupid and make no sense". They didn't stop fighting because the names were the same, it was because Batman was about to intentionally take a life with his own hands and he realized when Superman said the name Martha, which was his mother, that they were both the same and had lives. Also, he didn't want Superman to become the soulless monster of fear that Batman had become. The scene helped put Batman's moral compass back to him. I went away from the movie with something meaningful, unlike the Marvel movies where I just come back with "that was cool" or "that was kind of funny in a dull way". I was excited for future DC movies, although I really hope they learn from their mistakes, and I hope the brain dead Marvel community and consensus of people with less IQ points than the letters in IQ don't stop that from happening so we are stuck with Marvel movies doing the same exact thing until they fade into obscurity.

1. Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993)

While I will argue for the placement of the other movies, I will not argue for this one. This is the perfect Batman movie. Not only is it done with the best of the Animated Series voice actors, but it has a plot that manages to be both suspenseful and entertaining while being emotional and relatable on a human level. The movie focuses on Batman's origin. Not the death of his parents, but his actually becoming Batman. It shows the struggle of true love standing between him and what he conceives to be his duty, and how he would and almost gave it all up just to be happy. The Phantasm is one of the most memorable and chilling villains who unfortunately won't return thanks to a twist towards the end of the film. Shirley Walker's soundtrack is masterful and builds upon Danny Elfman's already iconic theme song. There are few more chilling scenes than "the Birth of Batman" that use music, animation, character development, and meticulous details to ensure the audience has the most complete emotional response. What's even more remarkable was this was put together in about nine months and was actually shown in theaters. This is the only movie on this list where I have zero complaints. It is the only Animated Series movie to have the Joker and coincidentally the only Animated Series movie to be worth putting on this list. It definitely deserves the top spot for me, as its a movie I grew up with and one of my favorite moves ever, even if it doesn't always get that credit.