With the release of Matt Reeves’ most recent take on the caped crusader out this week, Batman season is well and truly upon us…

It’s why I’ve been vicariously sashaying my dressing gown in the mirror all week. It’s also why, for this week’s Executive Decision on what to (re)watch, we’re suggesting that you revisit what is rightfully considered the crowning jewel of all Batman films, Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight (2008).

Defying the sophomore slump, Nolan’s sequel to Batman Begins ups the ante with an unforgettable villain, Oscar-winning performances (previously unseen among superhero films), and enough high-stakes nocturnal antics to put even an insomniac to rest. Scroll down for five reasons why you should (re)watch The Dark Knight tonight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXeTwQWrcwY

It improved the entire franchise.

Pre-Dark Knight, Batman films were too campy, and often reduced the titular character and his villains to caricatures (see, Jim Carrey). But in The Dark Knight, Nolan reinvented the franchise with a more serious take on the hero, introducing true-to-life foibles that a real-world Bruce Wayne would face. In Christopher Nolan’s vision, Batman wasn’t an indestructible hero incapable of failing, nor were his challenges on a world-ending, Avengers-level scale. This gritty realism was certainly emulated in following Batman entries, with this year’s movie taking a similar film-noir approach.

Image via Warner Bros.//

The batpod.

The introduction of Bruce Wayne’s batpod is one of the most thrilling sequences in the film, progressively constructing the high-tech vehicle as it speeds its way through Gotham city. It marks the big-budget status of The Dark Knight, and offers a sleeker, updated alternative to the then-overdone batmobile. So integral was Batman’s mode of travel that, in 2017, the real-life prop was sold for $250,000. Worth every penny.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGmPFRNBcaQ

Arguably the greatest (and near-unbeatable) movie villain of all time.

It goes without saying that Heath Ledger’s take on the Joker is up there with the greatest performances of all time, inclusive of non-superhero films. In The Dark Knight, Batman’s archenemy is one of the most ruthless the franchise has ever seen, successively impaling a mobster with a pencil, throwing Rachel out of a building and setting a hospital on fire. So masterful was Ledger’s incarnation of Gotham’s hostage-taker that even his posthumous Oscar win didn’t seem like enough.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3oOldViIgY

Honours one of the comic book’s most respected stories.

Superhero movies often walk a fine line in balancing the expectations of die-hard comic book fans while also appealing to general audiences and by all accounts, The Dark Knight does both. Nolan offers a pastiche of Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke, Jeph Loeb’s The Long Halloween and Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns – the last of which is widely considered one of the most influential comic series of all time. To honour all three series while satisfying fans across the board is no small feat, but Nolan pulls it off with finesse.

Right Image via DC, left via Warner Bros.//

This scene.

Perhaps the most memorable scene in a movie full of memorable scenes, Heath Ledgers unfazed waddle as his hospital bomb explodes is truly iconic. It’s as if he’s igniting his very-own Oscar hopes in a fourth-wall-breaking spectacle.