Article by Eric Lee
Christopher Nolan’s seminal film The Dark Knight will enter the American National Film Registry.
The Library of Congress announced the entry earlier today. Nolan expressed his gratitude for the movie to achieve such a rare level of recognition in a press release.
This is not only a great honor for all of us who worked on The Dark Knight, this is also a tribute to all of the amazing artists and writers who have worked on the great mythology of Batman over the decades.
What is the National Film Registry?
The National Film Registry select movies that hold high cultural, historic, and/or aesthetic importance in American film history. The Film Registry ranges from huge blockbuster hits to children’s movies, to silent films. However, the one thing they have in common is that they heavily influenced American cinema culture in some way.
So how was The Dark Knight influential? Bat-fans already know why, but what does the American Library of Congress say? Check out the National Film Registry’s description of The Dark Knight. Then you can see why it deserves a its spot on the list.
National Film Registry Description
The Dark Knight (2008)
Bob Kane and Bill Finger’s dark, enduring creation first flew onto the screen in a 1943 B-movie serial and would return to theaters several times in treatments both camp and action-oriented. But Christopher Nolan’s evocative 2008 work reinvented the already vast Batman mythos thanks in no small part to its two intense, now legendary, lead performances: Christian Bale as the titular character and Heath Ledger, in a remarkable, Oscar-winning take on Bat super-villain “The Joker.” Set in a dark, modern-day Gotham City, The Dark Knight is a visual feast of memorable set pieces, screenwriting flair, and characters and situations imbued with a soul and a conscience. “Pitched at the divide between art and industry, poetry and entertainment, The Dark Knight goes darker and deeper than any Hollywood movie of its comic-book kind,” wrote Manohla Dargis of The New York Times. The theme of a world turned upside down by fear and dystopian chaos resonates eerily well in the pandemic havoc of 2020.
Other films in the registry include A Clockwork Orange, Shrek, The Blues Brothers, Grease, Hurt Locker, and The Joy Luck Club.