In the 25 years since the Michael Keaton-starring BATMAN came out, comic book movies have taken over. They’re no longer the rare breed they were in the 80s. Now they’re housecats—a standard sometimes-cute sometimes-annoying presence, stationed constantly and arrogantly within our multiplexes. BATMAN didn’t start that though. Even multiple reboots later, this ‘89 entry stands apart from all the other films in the comic book genre. That’s because, first and foremost, this isn’t even a Batman movie. More than anything else, it’s a film by Tim Burton. Yes, it’s about a guy who wears a cape and beats up muggers and fights another guy who dresses like a clown, but it’s still more Burton than Batman. This is the work of a wacko auteur who, in the pages of comic books and in the mythos of cartoons, found a dance partner for his own intensely strange sensibilities.