What is the best film in Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy?

Encyclopedia of Opinion

Question: What is the best film in Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy?
Position1 of 3›: The Dark Knight Rises
Argument: The Dark Knight Rises has the best story

This film brings the thematic elements of the previous two movies together to create a story that is both familiar and original. Drawing from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, it perfectly infuses elements of the Batman mythos to craft a compelling and rich narrative.

The argument

Nolan's final entry in the Dark Knight Trilogy has the impossible job of bringing the narrative of all three movies together in a compelling and satisfying way. Nolan accomplishes this masterfully. Christopher and Jonathan Nolan wrote a story that leans heavily on their version of Batman--a symbol rather than a man. While this departs from the source material, it fits into the narrative of the trilogy. In Nolan's trilogy, Batman is whatever Gotham needs him to be. As a symbol, Bruce Wayne can retire but Batman will live on. The final scene depicting Batman sacrificing himself in the nuclear explosion is the perfect ending to the trilogy. It ties back to The Dark Knight. Batman has gone from being the hero Gotham deserves but doesn't need, to being the hero Gotham deserves and needs. While it turns out that Bruce Wayne is still alive, this does not undercut the story--Nolan has already established that this Batman is a symbol, Bruce Wayne is free to retire at any time. The people of Gotham believe that Batman sacrificed himself for them, so the emotional weight of the scene is still present. Thus the ending of the trilogy has immense emotional weight, making it the best film in the trilogy.

Premises

[P1]The Dark Knight Rises had to tie all three films together compellingly, which Nolan accomplished by leaning on Batman as a symbol rather than a man. [P2] Batman's self-sacrifice in the nuclear explosion completes his arc from the hero Gotham deserves but doesn't need to the one it deserves and needs. [P3] Bruce Wayne surviving does not undercut this, since Gotham believes Batman died for them, preserving the scene's emotional weight. [C] Therefore, because The Dark Knight Rises has the best story, it is the best film in Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy.

Counter-arguments

While the Dark Knight Rises does have the most compelling story of the trilogy, its lack of a compelling villain is its downfall. Bane is built up to be a forceful and terrifying villain by physically and mentally breaking Batman. This is undercut with the revelation that he is just another masked goon working for Talia al Ghul. Once Talia reveals herself, Bane loses all of his credibility as a villain. Further, this reveal ties the film to Batman Begins in a way that inhibits The Dark Knight Rises from reaching its full potential.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Tying a trilogy together is a constraint, not an achievement, and "accomplishes this masterfully" restates the conclusion rather than arguing for it. The reading of Batman as a symbol rather than a man is also established in the second film, which is the entry this argument needs to beat. [Rejecting P2] The arc is asserted rather than shown to be well executed, and the sacrifice is not one: the audience is told almost immediately that he survived. A culminating beat that is walked back within a scene is a weaker version of itself than one that holds. [Rejecting P3] This is the argument's most strained move. It maintains that the emotional weight survives because the characters believe in the death while the viewer knows better, which relocates the payoff from the audience into the fiction — precisely where a film cannot afford to leave it. The counter adds the structural objection: a villain built up across most of the running time and then subordinated to a late reveal weakens the very story the premise is praising.