The Dark Knight (2008)

Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight, starring Christian Bale and Heath Ledger as the Joker, became the first superhero film to gross over $1 billion ($1.005 billion worldwide) and spent 4 days as the highest-rated film on IMDb with a score of 9.5. Ledger's posthumous Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor — the first in the superhero genre — acknowledged one of cinema's most celebrated villain performances. The film fundamentally elevated the commercial and critical expectations for the entire comic book movie genre.