Matt Reeves' The Batman movie enters the IMDb Top 250 Movies list with very high placement. The superhero film stars Robert Pattinson as a new version of the Caped Crusader, distinct from the DC Extended Universe version that has so far been played by Ben Affleck. It endured a long road to the silver screen after the pandemic delayed production, but The Batman finally hits theaters today, March 4.
Ever since cinema became an established artform, viewers have tried to settle the question of which movies deserve to rank as the greatest of all time, and many answers have been given over the years. Sight & Sound magazine polls filmmakers, critics, and academics once a decade to form their Top 100 list, but the IMDb Top 250 is notable for being the result of user voting. Rather than count the number of mentions in individual top 10 lists, as Sight & Sound does, the IMDb ranking is based on each film's average score, meaning that each new movie that releases has the chance to crack the list as soon as it opens.
It looks like this has happened for The Batman, which, despite only becoming widely available across the world this week, currently sits at #85 on the IMDb Top 250 with an average score of 8.3/10. This makes it the third-highest-rated Batman movie, behind The Dark Knight at #3 and The Dark Knight Rises at #68. Other comic book movies that currently rank higher include Spider-Man: No Way Home (#39), Avengers: Infinity War (64), Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (#71), and Avengers: Endgame (#79).
On the one hand, Reeves' film debuting so well on the IMDb Top 250 is not surprising; The Batman early reviews have been extremely positive, praising the director's strong sense of vision and Pattinson's performance in the lead role. Many critics have indeed compared it favorably with Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight, with the potential that it could build that level of a dedicated fanbase. It's very possible that, as more people get to see the new movie, it could start to climb further up the list.
On the other hand, however, The Batman could have easily fallen victim to the ongoing #RestoreTheSnyderverse movement, which has seen those who want Zack Snyder's vision for the DCEU completed call for boycotts of Warner Bros. movies. This project was originally intended to be a solo-film for Affleck's Batman, with the actor also set to write and direct, but he ultimately decided to step away entirely as the Justice League controversy developed. Even as The Batman's IMDb Top 250 ranking could go up, Snyder's fans could review-bomb it in protest, so admirers of the Pattinson-led movie will want to savor its being on the popular list while they can.
Source: IMDb
