by Joal Ryan - August 11, 2016
Yes, it's shocking to see Burton's beloved 1985 debut rate as his "worst" film. But in its day, the Dadaist comedy was polarizing. Critic Gene Siskel, for one, found nothing about it funnyâ€""absolutely nothing."
“The wrong crowd will find these antics infantile and offensive. The right one will have a howling good time.†â€"Michael Wilmington, Los Angeles Times
1 / 19
Yes, it's shocking to see Burton's beloved 1985 debut rate as his "worst" film. But in its day, the Dadaist comedy was polarizing. Critic Gene Siskel, for one, found nothing about it funny—"absolutely nothing."
"The wrong crowd will find these antics infantile and offensive. The right one will have a howling good time." —Michael Wilmington, Los Angeles Times
2 / 19
This muddled 2001 reimagining of the 1968 sci-fi classic of the same name was onto something, despite that low score. People really did want more Apes movies. It's just that what they actually wanted was the Andy Serkis-led Apes movies of the 2010s.
"It's a campy, juiced-up ker-splat, busy with clumsy pyrotechnics and never nearing the vicinity of satire." —Michael Atkinson, Village Voice
3 / 19
The second "live-action" (but really CGI-filled) Disney remake directed by Tim Burton (following 2010's Alice in Wonderland) is a forgettable, money-losing 2019 live-action/CGI hybrid that ditches the original film's talking animals (and, to an extent, its story) and instead focuses on the humans, played by Colin Farrell, Michael Keaton, and Danny DeVito, among others. It scored a whopping 45 points lower than the 1941 original.
"All of which is to say that Dumbo feels totally consistent with Burton's late-period slump. Abysmally scripted and hammily acted – and not, for the most part, in an interesting or ironic way – Dumbo recasts Disney's animated classic in the trappings and suits of Burton's pinstripe-and-pinwheel upholstery." —John Semley, The Globe and Mail
4 / 19
This homage to cheesy 1950s sci-fi (and an early-'60s trading-card series) was one of Burton's biggest box office busts—earning back barely half of its reported $70 million budget domestically—though it remains a bit of a cult classic with fans.
"A movie like this should be a lot better, or a lot worse." —Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
5 / 19
This 2010 entry, starring Burton favorites Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter (his then-domestic partner), raked in $1 billion worldwide. Many critics, however, weren't buying it. They said the film was a mess.
"As usual with Burton, the visuals are much better than the story." —J.R. Jones, Chicago Reader
6 / 19
Burton was a childhood fan of the same-titled gothic TV soap on which this 1970s-vibing film is based. But the director's passion failed to spark any fire in his languid 2012 vampire tale.
"What's missing overall is the sense of fun Burton once evinced in films like Beetlejuice." —Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor
Peculiar children? Gothic setting? Sounds perfect for Burton. But critics didn't love the director's 2016 film adaptation of the 2011 best-selling children's fantasy book by Ransom Riggs. Starring future Sex Education star Asa Butterfield alongside Chris O'Dowd, Eva Green, and Allison Janney, the magic-filled time-travel adventure was compared by many reviewers to the X-Men series, but reviewers liked the visuals much more than the story.
"While it's neither as dark, funny nor peculiar as you'd expect from Tim Burton, there's still much here to admire." —Chris Hewitt, Empire
8 / 19
Fun fact: Tim Burton has never been nominated for the best director Oscar. If the buzz on this 2003 mashup of fantasy and family drama had held up, maybe that wouldn't be so. But mixed reviews and middling box office sunk Big Fish.
"Simultaneously beguiling and frustrating—the product of an imagist and dramatist uncomfortably conjoined." —Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal
9 / 19
Performances by Amy Adams and Christoph Waltz highlight this little-seen but well-regarded 2014 true-life story about an artist (Adams), a con artist (Waltz), and their marriage.
"For all its tonal shifts and erratic pacing, [Big Eyes] seems like Burton's most personal and heartfelt film in years." —Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
10 / 19
This 1999 film makes a murder mystery of the famed story of Ichabod Crane (Johnny Depp) and the headless horseman. Audiences responded and lifted Burton out of a box-office slump.
"Despite its flaws, Sleepy Hollow stays with you, the dark beauty of its images powerful enough to invade your dreams." —Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald
11 / 19
Compared with Burton's 1989 Batman, this 1992 sequel was a box-office disappointment. But the film has its charms, its creepiness (chiefly, the Penguin's backstory) and, above all, its Catwoman, a fine, feline Michelle Pfeiffer.
"This demented toyshop of a movie is a bit of a mess, but it's a visionary mess. Of how many sequels can that be said?" —David Ansen, Newsweek
12 / 19
Burton was still something of a Hollywood newcomer and barely 30 when he was tasked with making the first serious, if darkly funny, superhero movie since Richard Donner's Superman. His 1989 success revolutionized a genre.
"The most memorable aspect of Batman is the film's attention to florid detail. At times, Burton's strange touches upstage the simple good-vs.-evil parable." —Ryan Murphy, Miami Herald
13 / 19
Martin Landau won an Oscar for his portrayal of horror legend Bela Lugosi in this wonderful, black-and-white 1994 biopic of notorious Plan 9 From Outer Space director Ed Wood (Johnny Depp).
"Delightful, off-the-wall, and ultimately moving." —Frank Lovece, TV Guide
14 / 19
Critics who didn't get Pee-wee's Big Adventure were on board for Burton's second film. This 1988 favorite, about a haunted house and the ghosts who haunt it, showcases everything Burton would become known for: whimsical horror, fantasy, and graveyards.
"Only about half of the disconnected gags and oddball conceits pay off, but their gleeful delivery takes up most of the slack." —Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
15 / 19
After Alice in Wonderland, this 2005 fantasy is Burton's and Johnny Depp's most successful collaboration, a kaleidoscopic retelling of the Roald Dahl novel with Depp as a Michael Jackson-esque Willy Wonka.
"Fun and nourishing, Charlie's the topsy-turvy equivalent of a three-course dinner in a single stick of gum." —Ed Park, Village Voice
16 / 19
The first of Burton's and Johnny Depp's eight films together (so far) is one of the best, according to critics: a poignant fable and reminder that you can't judge a book by its cover ... or its knife-wielding hands, whichever the case may be.
"Edward Scissorhands isn't perfect. It's something better: pure magic." —Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
17 / 19
This 2012 stop-motion feature about a reanimated pet began its life as a 1984 live-action short. The original film earned Burton a pink slip from Disney; the remake brought him an Oscar nod for best animated feature.
"This delightfully twisted story about a boy and his (dead) dog showcases precisely what Burton excels at: blending the macabre and the heartfelt in a perfect, if oddball, union." —Connie Ogle, Miami Herald
This blood-drenched 2007 musical won an Oscar for art direction, and rated three overall nominations, including one for star Johnny Depp. Burton was snubbed, but his film still stands as "something close to a masterpiece," according to the New York Times.
"Tim Burton's grand guignol fantasy transforms Stephen Sondheim's 1979 musical-theater piece into a cheerfully gothic morality tale." —Maitland McDonagh, TV Guide Magazine
19 / 19
Burton did not direct the stop-motion film he's most associated with, The Nightmare Before Christmas. That leaves this sublime Oscar-nominated effort, co-directed with Mike Johnson, as the pinnacle of his work in this form.
"Will be hailed for its macabre imagination and inventive farce. But it also elegantly renders an archetypal teenage tale." —Michael Sragow, Baltimore Sun