Batman Begins (2005)

A superhero franchise rises from the popcorn ashes, bolder and more brilliant than ever before. As the title suggests, Christopher Nolan takes us to the roots of the brooding comic book tale. Meet billionaire orphan Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale), a pretend playboy on the outside, wounded man on the inside. Traumatised by the fatal shooting of his parents and a childhood incident in a well that triggered his fear of bats, Wayne has lost his way in life. Recruited by the League of Shadows, a group of assassins bent on banishing society's menaces, our protagonists finds his path as a lean, mean fighting machine.

Returning to Gotham, a city crumbling under the weight of a crime epidemic, Brucie determines to tackle society's ills his own way, a way that involves dressing up as a winged creature of the night. Up against a truly venomous villain, the nightmare-inducing Scarecrow and his army of crazed convicts and cronies, how will Batman fare? A production that oozes quality, from its special effects to its top-notch thesps, Batman Begins soars where its predecessors stalled.