Best Despiction of Gotham City?

I was gonna just straight up go for Joker... But it's actually a tough choice .

Returns is beautiful, gothic, German expressionist excellence
Begins and Joker have that perfect "Year One " feel
I know a lot of people don't like the "it's bland Chicago" Gotham of TDK and all, but after rewatching Rises recently, the desolate, snowy, No Man's Land esque Gotham of that film is actually pretty underrated. Bane's rule and the citizens' suffering is kinda terrifying, lol
 
Anton Furst's Gotham in '89, for my money, is one of the all time great cinematic landscapes. It's dark and wondrously grim, but also realistic in the sense that it still feels tremendously old and lived-in. There's a great feeling of history there, with all the futuristic bizarrechitecture being headed off by this behemoth Gothic cathedral that looks like it came right out of the 1700s. Everything's dingy and cast in shadow, save for a few traces of light that still glitter faintly in the far-off corners of every shot. It's a beautifully dark fairy tale world.
 
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Anton Furst's Gotham in '89, for my money, is one of the all-time great cinematic landscapes. It's dark and wondrously grim, but also realistic in the sense that it still feels tremendously old and lived-in. There's a great feeling of history there, with all the futuristic bizarrechitecture being headed off by this behemoth Gothic cathedral that looks like it came right out of the 1700s. Everything's dingy and cast in shadow, save for a few traces of light that still glitter faintly in the far-off corners of every shot. It's a beautifully dark fairy tale world.
Spot on description! :up:
 
Anton Furst's Gotham in '89, for my money, is one of the all time great cinematic landscapes. It's dark and wondrously grim, but also realistic in the sense that it still feels tremendously old and lived-in. There's a great feeling of history there, with all the futuristic bizarrechitecture being headed off by this behemoth Gothic cathedral that looks like it came right out of the 1700s. Everything's dingy and cast in shadow, save for a few traces of light that still glitter faintly in the far-off corners of every shot. It's a beautifully dark fairy tale world.
Yeah, I shouldn't really leave 89 out now that I think about it .

I guess the "style" is a bit more noticeable in Returns, so to speak
 
Burton's two Batman films.
It felt that, somehow, his Gotham was set in both a contemporary time (by the films' release) and an earlier part of the 1900s. In this case the 1930s. One could say the it remained the same for decades here, just look as how they dressed. But the development in technology still happened. There was a beautiful mix of old and new elements.
Burtonverse is another universe where the 30s evolved unchanged into late 80s/early 90s and nothing in-between. They didn't experience any change in style that's typical to our own world's 50s/60s/70s... not until they reached the 80s, then it started to change :)
It was like Capone's reign in Chicago were taking place during the 80s.... or that the typical 80s happened during the 30s :)

I go in lenghts describing this Gotham. Maybe I'm in love with Burtonverse :funny:

In comparison, Reeve's Superman did a similar thing but to a much lesser extent. That Metropolis had a slight feel of 1920s.
Both are what's expected from each of them.
Supes' world is bright, and the architecture is bold. He's the man of tomorrow, and the roaring 20s with its art deco was looking to the future.
Batman belongs to a darker setting and a city filled with corruption/organized crime
 
1) Batman '89
2) Batman Returns
3) Batman Begins

Man you just can't beat those first two Burton films when it comes to there depiction of Gotham which will always be timeless, because they still hold up by today's standards IMO. Begins was quite stylish too which I believe a lot of people forget about, because TDK gets so much love, but as much as I love TDK and TDKR they both have some of the least interesting, big screen depictions of Gotham, because they just look like regular cities even though the cinematography and the visuals are still insanely impressive and really well shot.
 
I actually love almost all of them. Burton's gothic Gotham, Nolan's realistic big modern city, Joker's dirty New York in the 70s style, even Schumacher's flamboyant one. The classic '66 look and Birds of Prey's Queens-like Gothams were pretty good too and should be on the list in my opinion. All of them are different and each has its own personality. The only one I don't care much is the Snyder one which seems kind of generic and doesn't differentiate itself from what came before or after. They didn't show much of it of course, so the comparison may not be 100% fair.

I would probably choose the Burton one, though, and particularly the snowy look in Returns. I like that his version of the city feels timeless, with elements from multiple time periods.
 
Begins. Artisically, Burton and Schumacher were pretty neet in a flashy comic book sense. But Begins was a true cesspool with corruption run rumpant, homelessness out the wazoo, and trash all over the place. It looked like the filthy, crime-ridden hellhole that really needed Batman.
 
Yeah but Burton's Gotham had like, homeless criminals.
 
One of the few drawbacks about TDK trilogy, for me, is the depiction of Gotham. It just looks painfully boring and generic. Batman Begins got Gotham absolutely spot on, but the 2 sequels completely ignored it. It seems that they put in no effort at all to make their Gotham looks like, you know, Gotham.
 
Nolan's Gotham from TDK was perfect IMO. It was completely believable as a city, without the exaggerated rain and gothic features of Begins or Burton, and I felt that this contributed a lot to the film's grounded feel.
 
1) Batman ‘89
2) Gotham TV Series
3) Batman Begins

The Dark Knight & The Dark Knight Rises has the worst Gotham’s imo. They felt like any other City, no character whatsoever. A huge part of the reason I don’t really care for those two films.
 
Anton Furst’s Gotham in the Burton movies does what Jim Lee’s art did to Hush. It took what was an otherwise very good product and elevated it to absolute classic genre-defining status.
 
Batman '89, then Batman Returns, then Batman Forever.
Aye I would go along with this with this combination. I really loved Gotham in Begins just wish Nolan kept that aesthetic throughout.
 
Aye I would go along with this with this combination. I really loved Gotham in Begins just wish Nolan kept that aesthetic throughout.

The aesthetic you're talking about is mainly relegated to the Narrows in Begins. The bulk of the city, shown in sequences like the tumbler chase, was still shot on location in Chicago. There's not really a tremendous amount of difference on how Gotham looks through the three films, it's just that each film focuses on different areas in the city. Nolan's Gotham is massive, and the "real world" aesthetic was more about amalgamating a panoptic visage of an American metropolis on steroids.
 
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The aesthetic you're talking about it mainly relegated to the Narrows in the Begins. The bulk of the city, showed in sequences like the tumbler chase, was still shot on location in Chicago. There's not really a tremendous amount of difference on how Gotham looks through the three films, it's just that each film focuses on different areas in the city. Nolan's Gotham is massive, and the "real world" aesthetic was more about amalgamating a panoptic visage of an American metropolis on steroids.

I found it a little weird that he shot two chase action sequences on Lower Wacker in the tunnel area. Maybe that was intentional, to make it feel a bit more familiar.
 
I found it a little weird that he shot two chase action sequences on Lower Wacker in the tunnel area. Maybe that was intentional, to make it feel a bit more familiar.
I don’t know why, but the thought of it not being “intentional” but instead being accidental makes me laugh. Like Christopher Nolan was shooting the TDK chase scene and kept getting frustrated by the deja vu. :D
 
I love Nolan’s trilogy, but I’m of the belief that Gotham, and for that matter Metropolis, should NOT look like a city we find in our world. I love the Burton/Animated Series Gotham. It should feel like it’s out of another era. Leave the Marvel movies for real cities. It’s also my disappointment with Shazam. All DC cities should feel like another world IMO.
 
Burton's & Furst's for Batman (1989) or Batman Begins (2005) - both felt as if dirt, grime and corruption met you on every street corner.
 

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