With the addition of Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn, the meta-fictional musical sequel came with more awards hype. This evaporated on contact with the movie’s lacklustre opening weekend, not to mention the disappointed reception from critics and fans.
(Full disclosure – I am blissfully ignorant of Phillips’ Joker movies, so won’t comment on either of them. Wherever you stand on them, it should suit everyone just fine if the worst movie that gets made because of Joker’s success is Joker 2.)
But what of the other Batman-related movies that impressed Academy voters? The Caped Crusader is DC’s most consistent movie draw, but also has far more Oscar wins and nominations under his utility belt than most other comic book franchises – heck, more than most blockbuster franchises, full stop.
It’s not the only long-running franchise that regularly gets Oscar nods. We’ve previously written about the James Bond franchise’s Oscar prospects, including its original songs and technical achievements over the past 60 years.
Read more: James Bond and No Time To Die’s Oscar prospects
However, the Batman franchise has enjoyed more recognition in little more than half that time. And although only Joker has broken into the Best Picture category, it was a Batman movie that changed the rules and paved the way for more comic book movie recognition.
And the Bat-nominees are…
Then again, we might as well pack up now, because the best Batman movie ever scored no nominations at all.
At the 39th Academy Awards, A Man For All Seasons nabbed eight awards including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor for Paul Scofield, completely shutting out 1966’s Batman: The Movie, a feature-length spin-off from the TV show starring Adam West.
Walter Matthau won Best Supporting Actor for The Fortune Cookie, and we haven’t checked but we presume his fellow nominees were Burt Ward, Cesar Romero, Burgess Meredith, and Frank Gorshin.
And so, the Caped Crusader’s first taste of Oscar glory came 23 years later, when the technically-also-very-good Tim Burton film Batman won Best Production Design. Inspired by “the worst aspects of New York City”, Anton Furst built his take on Gotham City across 18 soundstages. To paraphrase Spinal Tap’s Nigel Tufnel, it’s like, how much more Gothic this be? And the answer is none – none more Gothic.
In the 1990s, Batman Returns doubled the original’s nominations despite its more muted commercial reception. It received nods for Best Makeup and Best Visual Effects, which it lost to Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Death Becomes Her, respectively.
People are often surprised to learn that Batman Forever was nominated along with eventual winner Braveheart for Best Cinematography. In stark contrast to the Gothic style of the Burton films, Stephen Goldblatt’s more colourful, comic-booky composition dazzled Academy voters.
Read more: Batman Forever and its villain problem
And Batman & Robin… didn’t get any Oscar nominations. Sorry to keep you in suspense there. Like the Joker sequel, it got a whole bunch of nominations at the Golden Raspberries, but as ever, we don’t punch down or dignify pick-me snarkers with coverage here at Film Stories Towers.
Nevertheless, the much-maligned Bat-sequel got a nod during a skit at last year’s ceremony, in which presenters Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito mulled over their previous dealings with the Dark Knight. “Ahh, Batman, that sonuvvabitch…”
Why so serious?
It’s not for nothing that Academy Award winner (but not for Batman & Robin) George Clooney once remarked “I think we killed the franchise”.
The franchise came roaring back in the late 2000s, however, with Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy. 2005’s Batman Begins made a good impression, matching Forever’s par with a Best Cinematography nod for Wally Pfister but losing to Dion Beebe for Memoirs Of A Geisha. It was 2008’s follow-up, The Dark Knight, that sent Batman into the Oscar big leagues.
The hype around Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker began from the first full trailer for the sequel in December 2007 and only intensified after the actor’s tragic death the following month. Anticipation for the film built until its summer release and then came awards buzz – not only for Best Supporting Actor, but lots of other categories, including Best Picture.
On 22nd January 2009, the nominations for the 81st Academy Awards were announced. The Dark Knight was up for eight awards – Best Supporting Actor for Ledger, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Makeup, Best Production Design, Best Sound, Best Sound Editing, and Best Visual Effects.
At the time, this was a massive result for a comic book movie, but still there was consternation – why no Best Picture nod? Slumdog Millionaire went on to win the top gong, beating The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, Milk, and The Reader. But there were no “above-the-line” nominations for The Dark Knight, and in the parlance of awards chatter, this looked like a “snub”.
Broadcast one month later, the telecast poked fun at the backlash, too. Rick & Morty writers Dan Harmon and Rob Schrab gave that year’s host and X-Men franchise star Hugh Jackman these lyrics in his opening number:
“How come comic book movies never get nominated? How can a billion dollars be unsophisticated? Everyone went to see The Dark Knight – what am I doing that you think is not right? Is it my cape or my bulletproof tights?”
Ledger posthumously won Best Supporting Actor and Richard King scooped Best Sound Editing, but The Dark Knight precipitated much bigger changes to the Oscars the following year. Always trying to revitalise interest in the ceremony, the Academy expanded the Best Picture field to ten nominees for the first time since 1944, a change that has held to this day.
This had big benefits for some of Nolan’s subsequent films, but it didn’t do much for his Bat-threequel, The Dark Knight Rises, which didn’t get a look-in. On the other hand, Christian Bale became the second Batman actor to date to win an acting Oscar for non-Batman work, namely 2011’s The Fighter.
Distinguished competition
The first comic book movie to score a Best Picture nomination was actually Marvel’s Black Panther, ten years after The Dark Knight and just one year before DC broke through with Joker. Stan Lee used to joke that DC stood for “Distinguished Competition” and in Oscar recognition at least, the Batman movies have certainly distinguished themselves.
Between Ledger and Phoenix, the Joker is one of only three characters to win more than one actor a gong, next to Vito Corleone in the Godfather movies and Anita in successive West Side Stories. There was nothing for Jared Leto’s “For your consideration, welcome to Jackass” performance, but “the Oscar-winning Suicide Squad (2016)” is still a phrase that exists thanks to its Best Make-Up and Hairstyling win.
Beyond this, the Oscars never bothered with DC’s Snyderverse, except when the 2021 director’s cut of Justice League won the one-off, Twitter-voted, never-to-be-repeated Oscars Cheer Moment Award.
For those of us who watched the telecast live, this hilarious-out-of-context celebration of the “Flash Enters The Speedforce” scene looked like an embarrassing low point of a very bad Oscars show, at least until Suicide Squad’s Deadshot came in with a slap that reverberated around the world.
The following year, Black Panther’s sequel hoovered up more nominations and 2022’s The Batman was also recognised in three categories – Best Visual Effects, Best Sound, and Best Makeup and Hairstyling, which went to Avatar: The Way Of Water, Top Gun: Maverick, and The Whale, respectively.
Matt Reeves is working on The Batman Part II for a 2027 release and James Gunn’s DC Studios is also developing The Brave And The Bold with The Flash director Andy Muschietti. If you’re looking for the next best bet for a Best Picture Oscar with little Bat-ears on it, it’s probably one of these, but will superhero movies fare as well in the next 10 years as they did in the last?
And finally, the only area where Batman’s not outstripping Marvel at the Oscars is animation. Over the years, neither 1993’s Batman: Mask Of The Phantasm nor the LEGO Movies featuring Will Arnett’s Dark Knight were nominated.
Never mind though, we’ll always have Arnett suiting up in a modded version of Val Kilmer’s Batman Forever costume for the opening number of the 2015 Oscars ceremony. All together now – “DARKNESS. NO PARENTS…”
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