7) Tim Burton – Batman, Batman Returns
It’s been a long time since Tim Burton made a genuinely great, or even good film (animation aside). Still, that doesn’t mean the director isn’t a fully-fledged auteur; if anything, he has a more instantly recognizable style than the vast majority of Hollywood filmmakers working today. If it’s dark, gloomy, a little bit OTT, and home to some oddball characters, chances are it’s a Tim Burton film.
And those are exactly the characteristics Burton brought to his two Batman outings some two-plus decades ago. Batman and Batman Returns aren’t just a case of filmmaker perfectly matching the material, though – Burton pushed the gothic nature of the darker Batman comics even further, whilst allowing a touch of the old pop-art Adam West Batman series to seep into the style.
Plus, he brought his Beetlejuice actor Michael Keaton over with him to play Bruce Wayne – who else would think to go for such a bold, unusual choice?