Best Superhero Film of All-Time (with new Poll)

[honestbharani]

No its not. What's the tomatometer exactly? Critic opinions. Why are critic opinions the most fair and reliable? Explain please.



Uhhh did you even read that part of my post? Let me quote it for you;



I clearly stated that one was an example of how its not just fans and general audience who rate it so highly, but also within the film industry. That was not listed as an example of a general audience poll. If you want one of them then just say so.

That is what I said in my main post, not sure why it was tough to understand.

I am not saying critics opinion is what matters. I am just saying there are movies that got better critical reception than TDK which can be seen from Tomatometer scores. In terms of reception, I feel tomatometer for critical reception and BO performance for GA reception is the easiest and fairest way to gauge. Tomatometer simply binaries an entire spectrum of subjectivity, which is great and BO performance always showcases how many people are willing to shill out their pockets to watch a movie. Cinemascore is also becoming a decent metric as there seems to be a decent level of correlation between BO performance and Cinemascore rating and its also the fairest audience rating mechanism right now given they are the only ones who ensure the polled folks have actually seen the movie first and there are no online algorithm shenanigans.

By The Academy's president (read my previous post), by the critics, by the precusors of The Oscar (PGA, WGA, DGA, SAGA, Critics Choice,...).

You should take your own advice and read my post again. All of those quoted are not representative of the General Audience.

 

[LvtLeeTDK]

You asked that who said TDK was a legit Best Picture snub so I pointed it out for you. What are you talking about ?

 

[Boom]

When TDK was nominated by three of the major industry guilds (Producers Guild, Directors Guild, Writers Guild), yet failed to to receive an Oscar nomination, I think it's perfectly fair to call that a snub. When the Academy went so far as to change the number of Best Picture nominees from five to ten films the following year as a direct result of TDK not getting nominated, I think it's perfectly fair to call that a snub.

 

[Mjölnir]

I don't have a single favorite so I won't vote for one.

When TDK was nominated by three of the major industry guilds (Producers Guild, Directors Guild, Writers Guild), yet failed to to receive an Oscar nomination, I think it's perfectly fair to call that a snub. When the Academy went so far as to change the number of Best Picture nominees from five to ten films the following year as a direct result of TDK not getting nominated, I think it's perfectly fair to call that a snub.

The reason they increased the number of nominees was really just to capitalize on public interest so the Academy would get more attention. Ledger's death was by far the biggest entertainment news story of that entire year and brought a ton of extra attention. If the Academy collectively thought TDK was good enough to be nominated it of course would have been, so it's just about them trying to get more attention to the awards.

The 5-10 spots of course have no chance in hell of actually winning so the extension of the number of nominees has no value for the competition of the prize.

 

[Boom]

The Oscars just got a whole lot bigger.

In a surprise announcement, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said Wednesday that it would double the number of best picture nominees to 10 from 5, returning to a practice it used more than a half-century ago, when the number of films released was much larger.

The change is the most radical revision of the Oscar ritual in recent memory. “We will be casting our net wide,” Sidney Ganis, the academy’s president, said in announcing the change at a morning press conference at the group’s headquarters in Beverly Hills.

In a question-and-answer session that followed the announcement, Mr. Ganis said: “I would not be telling you the truth if I said the words ‘Dark Knight’ did not come up.” Earlier this year, “The Dark Knight,” a critically acclaimed blockbuster fantasy, was excluded from a list of nominees that included “Frost/Nixon,” “Milk,” “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” “The Reader” and the winner, “Slumdog Millionaire.”

That's straight from the Academy president's mouth.

https://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes....10-nominees-for-best-picture-instead-of-five/

 

[LvtLeeTDK]

I don't have a single favorite so I won't vote for one.



The reason they increased the number of nominees was really just to capitalize on public interest so the Academy would get more attention. Ledger's death was by far the biggest entertainment news story of that entire year and brought a ton of extra attention. If the Academy collectively thought TDK was good enough to be nominated it of course would have been, so it's just about them trying to get more attention to the awards.

The 5-10 spots of course have no chance in hell of actually winning so the extension of the number of nominees has no value for the competition of the prize.

The only reason it wasn't nominated is that too few voters risked to put it in the higher spot on their list. It''s a CBM after all, and the voters was probably think it's much safer to vote for a historical biography in The Reader than a blockbuster in TDK. So due to the prefential ballot, it failed to grab a nom.

Even the Guilds and the Academy's president said that TDK and Wall-E were the reason they widen the Best Picture category. How can you refute such a compelling evidence like that ?

 

[Boom]

The Reader had pre-scandal Harvey Weinstein behind it. Not to mention that it checks off quite a few boxes on the old "Oscar bait" checklist.

A lot of the Academy Awards has to do with industry politics and knowing how to "play the game," as it were. And there are certainly films that fall more into the comfort zone of the Academy's collective membership than others do. Even with all of the rule changes and membership expansions we've seen in recent years, we are still talking about an organization comprised mostly of old white men. Just read some of the "honest Oscar ballots" from this past year, and see what a few voters had to say about Get Out. One of the best movies of 2017, yet you still had actual Academy members saying it wasn't an "Oscar movie." Some prejudices are hard to overcome regardless of quality.

 

[scarlet-witch]

I meant to click on The Dark Knight but I hit Civil War instead.

Not mad about it as they're both great, but The Dark Knight is still the best.

 

[AVEITWITHJAMON]

Honestly I think a more interesting poll would be 2nd best CBM ever? As it's quite obvious at this point that TDK will win any best ever poll for the foreseeable future.

 

[inomilan]

Infinity War for me. It was simply the best theater experience I've ever had (even beats the incredible experience I had with The Avengers).

 

[Iceman]

I don't really consider it an even fight. TDK will be hard to beat because it is as good quality as you are likely to get in a CBM while also being one of the least outlandish. Nothing with the crazy concepts and scale of Infinity War all in one film has a chance in most people's minds even if you brought back Nolan and all of the TDK cast and gave their attempted Infinity War equivalent complete with raccoons, spaceships and mythological beings a $500m dollar budget. Films get marked down for being over the top in critical eyes and that is kind of hard to avoid when the premise itself is totally over the top. For me this is like comparing the greatest WWE match to the greatest UFC fight or boxing match. A purist will always vote against the WWE match even if it is as good.

 

[DACrowe]

Funny coz I think Avengers, Civil War and Infinity War have all done that already. Those heights are rather imaginary anyways, if truth be told.

Yes, tell me when they get nominated for major Oscars (Logan is the only one that has since) and when years and years later, critics and Hollywood industry insiders are ranking them among the Top 100 Hollywood films ever made.

[blackout]That will never happen.[/blackout]

 

[Chip Chipperson]

Raimi bros get in here and represent

 

[Ipodman]

Spider-Man 1 forever!

Logan if we're picking one from recent memory.

 

[DACrowe]

This poll is not representative of how the entire world views these movies. Sure, TDK is a darling of the die hards but as I said, there was nothing in TDK that I felt was not there in Avengers or CW or IW. And the post makes it seem as though Nolan was doing something far greater than what the MCU has done, which is just not true at all. Its looked back fondly because it did it at a time when the SH movies were mostly hit-or-miss and Ledger gave one of the all time greatest performances but I can easily point out RT scores and BO receipts to show its resonated lesser with the overall movie going audiences than some other movies.

To give you a less pedantic answer: Nolan did do things that no one other than James Mangold has really attempted. He didn't treat it as a "superhero movie" in the sense that it has to be self-effacing or self-aware of its own slightness and formulae. Nolan treated it as a resource of genuine drama and used these icons of American pop culture to say something about real American culture in 2008 in a way that no superhero movie has attempted (at least successfully) other than to far lesser extents the other two-thirds of TDKT.

The film works as a strong parable for the fear and paranoia of the Bush Years and post-9/11 War on Terror, which many cite as at least the initial reason superhero escapism became so popular in the 2000s... a respite from the horror and dread of helplessness. But The Dark Knight directly addressed that and personified the chaos we all felt at the time--leading to some monstrously bad decisions--in the Joker, who had a tour de force performance from Heath Ledger.

The Dark Knight plays as well as a crime drama epic as it does a superhero movie. Logan plays as well as a modern day gritty Western as it does a superhero movie, it's the only one who has striven for that level of artistry. The MCU movies are by design never going to reach for that, because they don't want it. It requires too much ambition and artistic precision, and risks upsetting the "house style." They prefer a straight down the middle adventure that is always somewhat self-satirical, because by confessing it is silly, they are also allowing the audience to be less invested in the drama or stakes of the piece, which means they don't have to aim as high. Because it is easier to hit a single than a home run, and if you try to make a dramatic or epic superhero film but lack the skill of someone like Nolan, you wind up with something as pretentious and unappealing as Man of Steel and Batman v Superman.

So yeah, studios even more demure that ambition, so there is no risk of anyone producing something surpassing TDK.

 

[Filmfreak]

Yes, tell me when they get nominated for major Oscars (Logan is the only one that has since) and when years and years later, critics and Hollywood industry insiders are ranking them among the Top 100 Hollywood films ever made.

[blackout]That will never happen.[/blackout]

Unless Nolan's prediction about Black Panther being nominated for Best Picture next year is correct, which I don't really think it will be and it shouldn't.

 

[Spider-Fan]

Raimi bros get in here and represent

I love this movie so much, LOL!!! Still my favorite Spider-Man film ever made and very high on my favorite CBMs list

 

[Flint Marko]

Raimi bros get in here and represent

 

[MadVillainy]

It's TDK. It's not even close

 

[The Batman]

I don't really consider it an even fight. TDK will be hard to beat because it is as good quality as you are likely to get in a CBM while also being one of the least outlandish. Nothing with the crazy concepts and scale of Infinity War all in one film has a chance in most people's minds even if you brought back Nolan and all of the TDK cast and gave their attempted Infinity War equivalent complete with raccoons, spaceships and mythological beings a $500m dollar budget. Films get marked down for being over the top in critical eyes and that is kind of hard to avoid when the premise itself is totally over the top. For me this is like comparing the greatest WWE match to the greatest UFC fight or boxing match. A purist will always vote against the WWE match even if it is as good.

I mean, films like Empire Strikes Back are considered as good or superior to TDK, and they're over the top.

Logan is arguably almost as grounded and gritty as TDK, and it has zero votes in this thread, compared to IW.

People can find TDK superior without some kind of bias behind it.

 

[LvtLeeTDK]

Talking about Logan, do I need to see the previous Hugh Jackman Xmen film in order to comprehend Logan ? Because to me Logan feels dull and really uninteresting.

X-Men: First Class has always been my favorite X-Men film and in terms of being grounded and gritty, I think it's the closest thing to TDK.

 

[Zarex]

I don't really consider it an even fight. TDK will be hard to beat because it is as good quality as you are likely to get in a CBM while also being one of the least outlandish. Nothing with the crazy concepts and scale of Infinity War all in one film has a chance in most people's minds even if you brought back Nolan and all of the TDK cast and gave their attempted Infinity War equivalent complete with raccoons, spaceships and mythological beings a $500m dollar budget. Films get marked down for being over the top in critical eyes and that is kind of hard to avoid when the premise itself is totally over the top. For me this is like comparing the greatest WWE match to the greatest UFC fight or boxing match. A purist will always vote against the WWE match even if it is as good.

Completely agree with this. While films like Logan and TDK are terrific, they are barely superhero flicks. Any flick that embraces the genre will always be slighted by those who find the source material silly and prefers movies that ("sniff") transcend the genre. TDK and Logan are great films, especially for those who don't particularly care for superhero films.

 

[Spider-Aziz]

ALL STAR SUPERMAN​

A beautiful movie made out of beautiful comics starring the best superhero ever, and -for the most part- chose the right material to trim out of the adaption.

 

[daddydivine]

Unless Nolan's prediction about Black Panther being nominated for Best Picture next year is correct, which I don't really think it will be and it shouldn't.

If it does get nominated i might become the biggest troll on the hype ever.

I'll literally start every vs post with...

"But did it get nominated for best picture?"

 

[DACrowe]

Unless Nolan's prediction about Black Panther being nominated for Best Picture next year is correct, which I don't really think it will be and it shouldn't.

I'm actually fine with Black Panther getting a nomination for BP (depending on the competition) even though TDKT and Logan are better. As is Spider-Man 2. Black Panther is still quite an achievement (but it better NOT be nominated for visual effects).

However, I was specifically comparing it to Civil War, The Avengers, and Infinity War. But yeah, I am doubtful an MCU movie will ever get the nod anyway.