From a technical standpoint, The Dark Knight is nearly perfect.

Rating: 10/10 (16 August 2014)

You don't get that that often for a comic-book movie. Released in 2008, The Dark Knight was the comic-book movie to change all comic-book movies. It's dark, twisted, serious, grounded, and most of all, relevant.
You've probably heard about Heath Ledger and his now immortal performance of the Joker. It's the best Joker by far, no doubt.
In fact, this movie has gained so much praise, that I'd like to focus on some of the minor issues that I had with it. To clear things up, The Dark Knight is by no means my favorite comic-book movie, nor did it become my favorite comic-book movie. Iron Man beat it to my favorite the same year.
My main quip is that it started a trend of making comic-book movies have a dark tone. The Dark Knight's dark, and it fits because you have a serious protagonist surrounded by darkness his entire life. But after this movie came out, a LOT of comic-book movies tried to derive somehow from The Dark Knight. An obvious example is Man of Steel, which was made by the some of the same crew, but even movies like The Amazing Spider- Man 2 and Captain America: Winter Soldier, seem to do this to some extent. Everybody wants to be The Dark Knight.
I think it's safe to say that Maggie Gyllenhaal was a really unnecessary cast replacement. Literally everybody else SHINED in the movie, and she just felt kinda out of place.
The Dark Knight has a lot of its moments, though. From symbolism, to cinematic sleight of hand, to compelling drama, The Dark Knight transcends the superhero genre to become more of its own. The ending to The Dark Knight is one of the best movie endings ever.
I highly suggest watching Batman Begins before this, as it intensifies everything. Batman Begins sets the whole Batman legend up, whereas The Dark Knight puts him in his prime.