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

Heath Ledger's Joker elevates The Dark Knight to the next level

Question: What is the best film in Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy?
Position‹2 of 3›: The Dark Knight
Argument: Heath Ledger's Joker elevates The Dark Knight to the next level

The Dark Knight paved the way for exceptional superhero films by utilizing the Batman mythos to create a grounded crime-thriller. The film is brought to the next level with Heath Ledger's award-winning take on Batman's greatest villain, the Joker.

The argument

Heath Ledger's take on the Joker makes The Dark Knight the best film in the trilogy. Ledger's Joker not only poses a physical threat to Batman, he is a mental force to be reckoned with as well. It is in this area that Ledger's Joker excels. Sure, the Joker is skilled with knives and gets the better of Batman countless times, going so far as blowing up the batmobile, but at the end of the day none of that matters if Gotham views Batman as a hero. Mentally though, Ledger's Joker is unstoppable. Throughout the film, Bruce Wayne's goal is to help Harvey Dent be Gotham's "white knight," the people's legitimate hero. Bruce Wayne understands that Batman, no matter how noble, will always be an illegitimate hero because he is a vigilante. Harvey Dent, as an honest elected official, offers the legitimacy that Batman lacks. The Joker knows this, he understands that physically beating Batman means nothing if Harvey Dent takes over. Ledger's Joker uses his mental prowess to outsmart Batman by corrupting Dent and turning all of Gotham against Batman. Ledger's Joker is on screen for just 33 minutes, but his presence is felt throughout the film. His Oscar-winning performance drives the film without having the film focus on him. It's an incredible feat that demonstrates the excellence of the screenplay and acting in The Dark Knight. This is what elevates The Dark Knight above the other two films in the trilogy.

Premises

[P1]A villain who threatens Batman mentally and ideologically poses a greater challenge than one who only threatens him physically. [P2] Heath Ledger's Joker operates on this mental level, outsmarting Batman by corrupting Harvey Dent and turning Gotham against him, which strikes at the legitimacy Batman depends on. [P3] Ledger's Oscar-winning performance drives the entire film despite only 33 minutes of screen time, showcasing the trilogy's strongest screenplay and acting. [C] Therefore, Ledger's Joker elevates The Dark Knight to be the best film in Nolan's trilogy.

Counter-arguments

While Ledger's performance is great, it is not accurate to the source material. In the comics, the Joker isn't a physical threat to Batman, but Ledger's Joker is. Due to the fact that the antagonist of the movie is not a faithful representation of the character, this film is not the best in the trilogy.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The ranking is stipulated rather than argued. A villain who works ideologically is not automatically the better character or the mark of the better film, and the other entries are built around different kinds of threat by design. [Rejecting P2] The corruption of Harvey Dent is as much an achievement of the screenplay as of the performance, and its consequence — a lie told to a city — is what the sequel then has to resolve. Crediting the film's standing to one character understates how much it draws from the trilogy around it. [Rejecting P3] Screen time and an award measure impact and recognition rather than the quality of a film. A performance that dominates a film it barely appears in can be read as an imbalance as readily as a feat, and the objection that this Joker departs from the source material is a version of the same point.

Proponents cited

Jim Woods
“Ledger’s portrayal of The Joker brought tension — real tension — to a Batman story for the first time on the big screen.”
Renaldo Matadeen
“Ledger truly helped set his film apart from contemporary superhero movies, garnering a posthumous Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role while reminding us these movies can be deep works of art too. What made him pop so much was the chaos and anarchy he represented. Ledger's Mistah J didn't just terrorize society, he wanted "a better class of criminal" for Gotham. His Joker even understood how more criminals could create more vigilantes, people who also might be monsters and, overall, a part of the problem.”
AJ Caulfield
“The Joker of The Dark Knight is both terrifying and genuinely funny, but more than that, he's got an air of mystery that's almost impossible for a character so well-known to cultivate. Virtually everything he says in the film is a lie, whether he's delivering origin stories that contradict each other, asking for literal piles of money he's only going to burn, or assuring other characters he doesn't have a plan while enacting a scheme that's complex and built on clockwork precision. Ledger's Joker has already become one of the most influential movie villains in recent memory, but the elements that might fall short with other characters work perfectly for a man who exists for the sole purpose of tearing down the order and control Batman has tried to hard to wrest from chaos.”