Movie · 1992 · Action, Fantasy · 2h 6m · PG-13 · English
Curator score: 5.5/10 (844.9K ratings)
The Bat. The Cat. The Penguin.
Overview
The monstrous Penguin, who dwells in the sewers beneath Gotham, joins up with corrupt mayoral candidate Max Shreck to topple the Batman once and for all. But when Shreck's timid assistant Selina Kyle finds out, and Shreck tries to kill her, she's transformed into the sexy Catwoman. She teams up with the Penguin and Shreck to destroy Batman, but sparks fly unexpectedly when she confronts the caped crusader.
Ratings
Curator score: 5.5/10
IMDb: 7.1/10
Letterboxd: 3.59/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 82%
Metacritic: 68
TMDB: 6.9/10
Director
Tim Burton
Production
Warner Bros. Pictures, Polygram Pictures
Cast
Michael Keaton, Danny DeVito, Michelle Pfeiffer, Christopher Walken, Michael Gough, Pat Hingle, Michael Murphy, Vincent Schiavelli, Andrew Bryniarski, Cristi Conaway, Steve Witting, Jan Hooks, John Strong, Rick Zumwalt, Anna Katarina, Gregory Scott Cummins, Erika Andersch, Travis McKenna, Doug Jones, Branscombe Richmond
Where to watch
Max
Curator Review
Verdict
A baroque, gothic comic-book sequel that turns Gotham into a sleazy winter nightmare. It’s darker, weirder, and more sexually charged than a typical studio superhero film, with standout villain performances and a strong Tim Burton visual identity.
Best for
Fans of gothic fantasy and stylized production design
Viewers who like villain-driven comic-book movies
People who enjoy dark holiday-season movies
Audiences open to camp, menace, and melodrama
Skip if
You want a straightforward heroic adventure
You dislike exaggerated performances and grotesque humor
You prefer clean, optimistic superhero storytelling
You’re not in the mood for a bleak, chilly tone
Overview
Batman Returns is less a conventional sequel than a full-on gothic fever dream. Gotham feels like a snow-covered nightmare of corporate rot, sexual tension, and carnival grotesquerie, with Tim Burton leaning hard into atmosphere over coherence. The result is messy in the best possible way: vivid, perverse, and impossible to mistake for anything else.
Worth noting
The film’s biggest pleasures are its villains, especially the tragic, feral Penguin and the electric Catwoman. Their arcs give the movie its emotional and tonal charge, while Michael Keaton’s Batman functions more as a cool, haunted presence than the center of the story. It’s a comic-book blockbuster that behaves like a twisted fairy tale.
Bottom line
If you like your superhero movies strange, moody, and a little unhinged, this is essential viewing. If you want tidy plotting or a bright, crowd-pleasing tone, it may feel like a detour into Burton’s private nightmare. Either way, it’s one of the most distinctive studio tentpoles of the 1990s.
Top Letterboxd reviews
matt lynch (4★) · 6118 likes
Three cosplaying homicidal psychotics driven insane by a pulpy cocktail of sexual desire, emotional trauma, and socioeconomic anxiety wage open, armed conflict in a major metropolitan area. This was bankrolled by a major studio and released to an eager public.
Matt Singer (4★) · 4004 likes
That this Catwoman never got her own solo movie and Halle Berry's did is one of the great tragedies in Hollywood history.
SilentDawn (5★) · 3743 likes
95
Not a batman movie. Not a story about Bruce Wayne. Simply a tale of observing the ramifications of greed, normative oppression, and the fetish in reclaiming one's power - traits that the caped crusader knows all too well. Tim Burton created a fantasy kink opera out of a comic-book property and families went to see it in droves. Respect.
2004 · Action, Adventure, Science Fiction · 2h 7m · PG-13 · Curator 8.2/10 (2.8M ratings) · Where to watch: Netflix, Disney Plus, Hulu, fuboTV, Netflix Standard with Ads
Balances superhero spectacle with emotional conflict and a memorable, tragic antagonist.