Steven Spielberg thinks this superhero movie should have been nominated for best picture

entertainment

The night is at its darkest just before the Oscar nominations.

Steven Spielberg, one of the greatest directors of all time, has been making the rounds while discussing his new film The Fabelmans, which just earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Director. However, one of his latest opinions would have made a certain Gotham hero proud.

The director has always been a box-office whisperer, and speaking to Deadline he said the year’s biggest hits, Avatar: The Way of Water and Top Gun: Maverick, deserved Oscar nominations for Best Picture. Then he checked The Dark Knight’s name and put it in the same box:

“He was late for the film that should have been nominated years ago, Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Dark Knight.’ This movie definitely would have gotten a Best Picture nomination today, so let’s all celebrate that these two blockbusters make the top 10 list solidly.”

One of the biggest box office hits of all time, Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight tells the story of the struggle between Batman (Christian Bale) and the Joker (Heath Ledger) for the soul of Gotham. The film grossed $1 billion worldwide, becoming the first superhero film to gross $1 billion at the box office, as well as the highest-grossing film of 2008 and the fourth-highest-grossing film of all time. No small thing, right?

As if that wasn’t enough, the film’s reception was also excellent, as the film still holds a 94 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes from both critics and audiences. Even then, The Dark Knight wasn’t nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award, but Heath Ledger did posthumously win an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of the Joker.

The Dark Knight was directed by Christopher Nolan and starred Christian Bale (The Fighter), Heath Ledger (Brokeback Mountain), Aaron Eckhart (Thank You for Smoking), Michael Caine (The Cider House Rules), Maggie Gyllenhaal (Stranger than Fiction), Gary Oldman (Darkest Hour) and Morgan Freeman (Seven).