The Dark Knight Trilogy

The Dark Knight Trilogy is a set of three Christopher Nolan Batman movies. It includes Batman Begins (2005), The Dark Knight (2008), and The Dark Knight Rises (2012).. . Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, and Cillian Murphy appeared in all three movies.

Background

All cast and crew members worked on all three movies, except for music composer James Newton Howard who did not work on The Dark Knight Rises. Composer Hans Zimmer worked together with Howard on the first two films and made the soundtrack for the last movie by himself. Katie Holmes played Rachel Dawes in Batman Begins, but was replaced by Maggie Gyllenhaal in The Dark Knight. Liam Neeson appeared as Ra's al Ghul in Batman Begins and in The Dark Knight Rises.

Heath Ledger received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as The Joker in The Dark Knight. Ledger died before the movie was released and the award was given posthumously.

Each of the three movies was a success in the box office; The Dark Knight was the number one grossing movie in 2008. The Dark Knight Rises is the third highest grossing movie of 2012. Batman Begins is the ninth highest grossing movie in 2005. Batman Begins earned $372,710,015 worldwide. The Dark Knight earned $1,023,045,358. The Dark Knight Rises earned $1,081,041,287, passing the receipts of The Dark Knight.

In both Batman Begins and in The Dark Knight, Gotham City was shot in Chicago, Illinois. In The Dark Knight Rises, Gotham City was shot in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, New York City, New York, and Los Angeles, California.

Cast
Christian Bale as Batman
Michael Caine as Alfred Pennyworth
Gary Oldman as Commissioner Gordon
Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox
Katie Holmes (Batman Begins) and Maggie Gyllenhaal (The Dark Knight) as Rachel Dawes
Liam Neeson as Ra's al Ghul
Heath Ledger as Joker
Tom Hardy as Bane
Anne Hathaway as Catwoman
Marion Cotillard as Talia al Ghul
Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent/Two-Face
Cillian Murphy as Dr. Jonathan Crane / The Scarecrow
Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Robin John Blake
Colin McFarlane as Gillian B. Loeb
Néstor Carbonell as Mayor Anthony Garcia
Tom Wilkinson as Carmine Falcone
Eric Roberts as Sal Maroni
Ben Mendelsohn as John Daggett
Matthew Modine as Peter Foley

Reception
Box office performance

 Film Release Date Budget Box Office Gross All Time Ranking References Domestic Foreign Worldwide Domestic Worldwide Batman Begins June 15, 2005 $150 million $206,852,432	 $374,218,673 195 326  The Dark Knight July 18, 2008 $185 million $535,234,033	 $1,004,934,033 12 43  The Dark Knight Rises July 20, 2012 $250 million $448,139,099 $636,800,000 $1,084,939,099 19 29  Total  $585 million $1,188,341,317 $1,275,374,899 $2,463,716,216  

Critical response
 Film Rotten Tomatoes Metacritic CinemaScore Batman Begins 84% (279 reviews) 70 (41 critics) A The Dark Knight 94% (334 reviews) 84 (39 critics) A The Dark Knight Rises 87% (359 reviews) 78 (45 critics) A

References

Other website
 Batman franchise overview at Box Office Mojo

 Behind Batman: Public Domain Analysis of the Film Franchise

Category:Movies directed by Christopher Nolan
Category:Batman movies
Category:Series of movies
Category:Movies based on comic book characters