Christopher Nolan's Best Crime Thriller Officially Leaves Netflix

He has covered everything from Marvel to the Oscars, and Marvel at the Oscars. He also writes obsessively about the box office, charting the many hits and misses that are released weekly, and how their commercial performance shapes public perception. In his time at Collider, he has also helped drive diversity by writing stories about the multiple Indian film industries, with a goal of introducing audiences to a whole new world of cinema. 

This summer, Christopher Nolan pulled off a feat that seemed incredible even for someone as accomplished as him. With The Odyssey, he delivered the highest-grossing hit of his career, both domestically and worldwide. This is saying something, because Nolan is known for his blockbuster movies. In fact, it was his sheer popularity among audiences that propelled the 2023 biographical thriller Oppenheimer to nearly $1 billion at the global box office. Did you know that Oppenheimer was roughly $100 million shy of becoming Nolan’s highest-grossing film? The Odyssey pulled it off this past summer, and then some. The fantasy epic has grossed nearly $1.8 billion worldwide, easily overtaking Nolan’s biggest hits, including every film in the celebrated The Dark Knight Trilogy.

The trio of Batman movies is currently streaming on Netflix in the United Kingdom, but only for a little while longer. The highest-grossing installment of the bunch, you may be surprised to learn, isn’t The Dark Knight, but The Dark Knight Rises. Both movies grossed more than $1 billion worldwide, with the third installment narrowly edging past The Dark Knight. The second movie of the trilogy, however, remains the most well-liked. It’s also regarded among the best superhero films ever made, and among the best films of all time. The Dark Knight is currently ranked third on IMDb’s top-250 list, behind The Shawshank Redemption and The Godfather.

Four teams, four completely different reasons to put yourself in danger
for strangers. This is the roster you actually belong on, what they would want from you, and what it
would cost you to stay.

You belong where the stakes are largest and the personalities are
loudest. This is a team of people who are all used to being the most important person in the
room, which is exactly why it works and exactly why it keeps nearly falling apart.

• The Avengers are not friends who became a team. They are a team that slowly and
  reluctantly became friends, and you would recognise every stage of that process.
• You can hold your own among big egos without needing to win every exchange, which is the
  real entry requirement here.
• The arguing is part of the method. This group does its best thinking mid-disagreement,
  usually at volume, usually in a very expensive building.
• When the sky opens, they are who shows up. You would want to be standing in that line.

You have never had the luxury of being thanked for this. The
X-Men protect a world that has never once been comfortable with them existing, and something
in you understands exactly why they keep doing it anyway.

• This is the only team on the list whose central conflict is not a villain. It is being
  wanted gone by the same people they keep saving.
• You know what it is to be the outsider in a room and to decide, anyway, that you will
  not make yourself smaller so everyone else is comfortable.
• The X-Men are the most genuine found family in comics. People arrive with nowhere else
  to go and are never once asked to explain themselves.
• You would not be joining for the glory. There has never been any.

You do not want colleagues, you want your people. The Titans are
the team where the friendship came first and the world-saving turned up afterwards as an
inconvenient side effect.

• Every Titan is somebody’s sidekick who decided to stop being one. That decision, not the
  villain of the week, is what the team is actually about.
• You would be joining people who are all working themselves out at the same time as you,
  which is far less lonely than being the only one.
• The Titans lose regularly. Then they eat together and come back better, which is a more
  honest model of growing up than any other team here manages.
• The tower would be loud, chaotic, and the first place that ever felt like yours.

You are not asking who to trust. You worked out the answer a
while ago and it was nobody in a cape. This is where you go once you have decided the people
in charge need watching, and that nobody else is going to do it.

• The Boys have no powers, no mandate and no funding. What they have is leverage,
  patience, and a very high tolerance for consequences.
• You are the person in the room who notices the thing everybody else has quietly agreed
  not to mention.
• This is not a heroic team and it has never pretended otherwise. It is a group of damaged
  people doing necessary work in ways nobody would call clean.
• You would not sleep well. You would keep going anyway.

The Movie Remains Hugely Influential

• Image via Warner Bros. Pictures

• Image via Warner Bros.

• Image via Warner Bros.

• Image via Warner Bros.

• Image via Warner Bros./Courtesy Everett Collection

• Image via Warner Bros. Pictures

• Image via Warner Bros.

• Image via Warner Bros.

• Image via Warner Bros.

• Image via Warner Bros./Courtesy Everett Collection

Released in 2008, the movie served as a sequel to Nolan’s hit reboot Batman Begins, which introduced Christian Bale‘s version of the superhero icon. The Dark Knight is best remembered for the late Heath Ledger‘s Oscar-winning performance as Joker, and for its grounded take on the material. It influenced dozens of major studio movies released in the decade that followed, and now holds a “Certified Fresh” 94% score on Rotten Tomatoes. The aggregator website’s consensus reads, “Dark, complex, and unforgettable, The Dark Knight succeeds not just as an entertaining comic book film, but as a richly thrilling crime saga.” You can watch the movie on Netflix in the UK until November 7, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.

The Dark Knight

When the menace known as the Joker wreaks havoc and chaos on the people of Gotham, Batman must accept one of the greatest psychological and physical tests of his ability to fight injustice.