Steven Spielberg reflected on The Dark Knight and why the Batman film didn’t get nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. The Dark Knight had the recipe to be nominated for such an award, but it was absent from the Best Picture nominations.
Audiences deem The Dark Knight the gold standard of comic book movies even after all these years, and any great comic book movie that has come out since is usually compared to it. Even so, the Batman film was considered to be snubbed at the Oscars for Best Picture, but Spielberg believes that if it came out today, it would be a different scenario.
Spielberg spoke to Deadline about his first screenplay nomination for The Fabelmans, which made him “feel like all those English and creative writing classes paid off!” The director further stated that he feels “really encouraged” by the fact that two blockbusters, Top Gun: Maverick and his film Avatar: The Way of Water, are nominated for Best Picture. Spielberg also said The Dark Knight is a “film that should have been nominated a number of years ago. That movie would have definitely garnered the Best Picture Nomination today, so having these two blockbusters solidly presented on the top 10 list is something we should all be celebrating."
Spielberg seems to believe that the Oscars are heading in the right direction in recognizing a variety of films for Best Picture because it expanded the category to ten nominees. Last year, the Oscars included a category for fan favorites won by Zack Snyder's Justice League. However, the fan-voted award was not official and did not include an Oscar statue. However, there is no such nomination category for the Oscars this year.
There have been many blockbuster movies in the past, even before The Dark Knight, that have been nominated, and some that have even won Best Picture. So to use current blockbuster movies nominated for Best Picture as a reason for why The Dark Knight would win today doesn’t seem like the most accurate of comparisons. However, the sentiment in what Spielberg is suggesting is that The Dark Knight was, at the very least, worthy of a Best Picture nomination. It seems history repeats itself since The Batman is the best 2022 comic book movie to many. Although it was nominated for three Oscar awards, it could be argued that it is still missing from various categories in the same way that The Dark Knight was.
The films that edged out The Dark Knight for Best Picture nominations in 2009 were Slumdog Millionaire, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Milk, Frost/Nixon, and The Reader. Despite this, The Dark Knight is a film that has aged well because of the incredible performance by Heath Ledger as the Joker, and comments such as those from Spielberg are great in furthering the conversation towards more inclusivity of different genres at the Oscars.
The Dark Knight is available on HBO Max.
Source: Deadline