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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
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66
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54
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76
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79
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69
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64
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69
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You, the Living
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Batman Begins

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 41 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 611 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Action | Adventure | Fantasy | Suspense/Thriller
Written by:
Christopher Nolan
David S. Goyer (also story)
Bob Kane (characters)
Directed by: Christopher Nolan
Release Date:
Theatrical: June 15, 2005
DVD: October 18, 2005
Running Time: 140 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for intense action violence, disturbing images and some thematic elements
Starring Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, Ken Watanabe, Katie Holmes, and Cillian Murphy
Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins explores the origins of the Batman legend and the Dark Knight's emergence as a force for good in Gotham. (Warner Bros.)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Insomnia Memento The Dark Knight The Prestige
GAMES: Batman Begins (PS2)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
For the first time since "X-Men," I was on the edge of my seat anticipating a sequel, wondering who'd play the Joker and how quickly Nolan - it must be Nolan! - can bring the next chapter of this story to the screen.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
This is the Batman movie I've been waiting for; more correctly, this is the movie I did not realize I was waiting for, because I didn't realize that more emphasis on story and character and less emphasis on high-tech action was just what was needed. The movie works dramatically in addition to being an entertainment. There's something to it.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps
A rousing, reverent, often brilliant re-creation of a seminal comics character, Batman Begins proves Batman is at home in the 21st century as he was in the 20th.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
A confidently original, engrossing interpretation.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
Technically, the film is consistently impressive. It creates a grimly gothic vision of a crime-ridden and depression-ravaged Gotham City, a dandy pair of chase sequences involving the new generation Batmobile and a range of innovative visual effects.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
A carefully thought out and consummately well-made piece of work, a serious comic-book adaptation that is driven by story, psychology and reality, not special effects.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt
For Christopher Nolan to turn Batman Begins into such a smart, gritty, brooding, visceral experience is astonishing. Truly, Batman does begin again.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Manohla Dargis
Conceived in the shadow of American pop rather than in its bright light, this tense, effective iteration of Bob Kane's original comic book owes its power and pleasures to a director who takes his material seriously and to a star who shoulders that seriousness with ease.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
Batman Begins emerges from the darkness and leaves a powerful, lasting impression.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
The action scenes are, for the most part, kinetic and exciting - things that have rarely been true of fights and chases in the superhero's previous incarnations.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar
Not just one of the best "comic book" movies ever made, but also one of the best films of the year.
Read Full Review >Empire Kim Newman
Significantly grittier than previous Bat-beginnings, this finds new things to do with, and say about, a character who's been around since 1938.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Scott Foundas
Of course, a Batman movie is nothing without a Bruce Wayne, and, by a mile, Bale is the best of a lot that has ranged from the square-jawed slapstick of Adam West to the more dedbonair stylings of Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer and George Clooney.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
At times it feels almost too busy with plotting. There's so much going on, and so much to take in, that it leaves you winded. But that's origin stories for you. No one ever said setting up a savior would be simple.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
The buildup is steadily engrossing. That's because Nolan keeps the emphasis on character, not gadgets. Gotham looks lived in, not art-directed.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
What you get out of Batman Begins depends on what you bring to it. It is the most faithful to the origins of the comic strip and it sets up a series very different from the four made by Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher between 1989 and 1997.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
Nolan is a fascinating, offbeat choice for a huge movie franchise such as this. Just as Bale turns Batman into a near-tragic obsessive -- a Scarlet Pimpernel with the soul of a Hamlet and Monte Cristo -- Nolan turns Batman Begins into something much closer to Miller's "Dark Knight" interpretation.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
In Batman Begins, Christian Bale gives us the best Bruce Wayne that has ever graced the screen.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
Batman Begins is a mature take on material often relegated to the kiddie file, and it's simply the latest proof that, when treated properly, comic books are a viable art form for all ages. Bring on the sequel.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
Best of all, there's just the pleasure of seeing something that's both fantastic to the eye and emotionally dimensional. This is how to make action movies.
Read Full Review >Newsweek David Ansen
A mostly successful attempt to resuscitate a series soiled by silliness, sloppiness and Joel Schumacher.
Read Full Review >Slate David Edelstein
The movie is satisfying, though -- at least by the standards of that depressing phenomenon, the superhero "franchise."
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Batman Begins summons up moments of great eloquence and power. If only its cast of characters was as fully inhabited as its turbulent city.
Premiere Aaron Hillis
Not bad for summer jollies, au contraire, but -- "Holy Raised Bar, Batman!" -- let's pray that the next installment measures up to the sequel summits of "Spider-Man 2" and "X2."
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
All of the story is so absurdly humourless that it is dramatically inert, as if Nolan had decided the only way to make the Batman character more substantial was to put weights on his wings.
Read Full Review >USA Today Mike Clark
The early going -- say, an hour -- is spent in a fatigued daze. A few powerful jabs eventually punch things up.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
Burton gives us SuperDude; Nolan gives us Sir Subdued.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
The result is handsome and logical, but missing the spark that would make it thrilling.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Michael Atkinson
Nolan and his co-screenwriter David Goyer can only press the big buttons so hard—it's still an old-school superhero summer movie, the plotting tortuous, the characters relegated to one-scene-one-emotion simplicity, the digitized action a never ending club mix of chases and mano a manos.
Read Full Review >The New Yorker David Denby
The young Welsh-born actor Christian Bale is a serious fellow, but the most interesting thing about him--a glinting sense of superiority--gets erased by the dull earnestness of the screenplay, and the filmmakers haven't developed an adequate villain for him to go up against.
Read Full Review >Time Richard Schickel
Nolan's effort is not dishonorable, but what it needs, and doesn't have, is a Joker in the deck--some antic human antimatter to give it the giddy lift of perversity that a bunch of impersonal explosions, no matter how well managed, can't supply.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
Batman Begins is obvious from the get-go - and almost no fun.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Ann Hornaday
A good as the performances are, and as dutiful as Nolan has been in preserving the Kane legacy in Batman Begins, there's something joyless about the enterprise.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
There are strong turns by Michael Caine as Alfred the butler and Tom Wilkinson as a ruthless crime boss.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
Delivers enough action to please Saturday-night crowds, if not the surreal wit that made the first two "Batman" movies, directed by Tim Burton, so entertaining.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
Needs much more energy and kinetic flow -- less dolor and more dolomite.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Robert Wilonsky
Even if there were a great movie here, it would have been undermined by two lead actors who are barely even there, asked to deliver lines they can't handle: Bale, playing the Batman with clipped wings, and Katie Holmes as an assistant district attorney who doesn't have the gravitas to pass as an intern. Come back, Alicia Silverstone; all is forgiven.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 8.6 (out of 10) based on 611 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Emeric C gave it a10:
One of the best movies I've ever seen.
Ming V. gave it a10:
I watched The Dark Knight and believed it was the very best a superhero film could be. That means when I get started with its precedessor I do not hope that it would be as much a masterpiece as TDK. The feeling is totally reversed after watching the movie. How on Earth could an action-based movie be both mind-absorbing and intricate at a time like this ?
Carlos F. gave it a9:
It was a great dark thriller. Actors are amazing. Very well directed. And... THE PLOT ! What a script ! I loved the bats, the batcave, every single bat-thing. It was reinventing Bruce Wayne and the Batman. Very well done. Just Katie Holmes annoyed me a bit.
Kate H gave it a0:
What a misogynist piece of crap.
[Anonymous] gave it a9:
Superhero movies are becoming more complicated nowadays because they're actually probing into the psyches of our beloved, masked heroes. Batman Begins is a full exploration behind the reasons of why Batman wears the cape and cowl. His psychology is more complex than you think and film does a wonderful job of developing his conscience and sense of responsibility to do the right thing. He's not just some cheesy, rich dude out for revenge like in past incarnations of Batman. He actually has moral principles. Plus, he pulls off some great fight scenes!
William T gave it an8:
A dark and action filled superhero film that actually makes a billionaire who dresses up as a bat and fights crime seem totally plausible.
Daniel C gave it a6:
Batman Begins is a good movie. The way the movie tells of Bruce Wayne's past and how eventually became the dark knight, is told very well. The problem is that the movie is too long and overly dramatic. The dramatic music never stops playing in the background. Even if its a simple conversation between two characters. And the dialog tries to be too fancy. The movie also has no real villain. Scarecrow is in the movie for only a little bit, and makes a lame exit. Batman Begins also suffers from lack of humor and also a bit of stiff personality. So while the movie does a good job of showing you Wayne's past, and has a few good action scenes, it's overall pretty messy and too long for its own good.
