10 Darkest Tim Burton Movies, Ranked
Tim Burton is likely one of the few administrators who might be seen as a grasp of the macabre. While he has not at all times made full-on horror movies, his filmography maintains a predominantly Gothic tone with uncommon characters, and they don’t at all times have completely satisfied endings. Even his comedies like Beetlejuice, Mars Attacks, and Pee Wee’s Big Adventure take care of dying, play with the supernatural, or have unsettling imagery. Even the flicks he merely produced beneath different administrators, like The Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach characteristic his design aesthetic so closely that many neglect he didn’t technically direct these motion pictures.
His movies usually have a whimsical tone or setting, however in addition they take care of monsters, darkish human impulses, and visuals that come straight out of a kid’s nightmares – which to some makes them much more unsettling. Burton’s movies will not be completely as bleak as movies made by the likes of Wes Craven, David Cronenberg, or Stanley Kubrick, however they famously go to darker locations than the likes of Stephen Spielberg or George Lucas.
10 ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’ (2024)
Written by Alfred Gough & Miles Millar
It could keep on with the unique’s enjoyable tone, however Beetlejuice Beetlejuice nonetheless has a narrative stuffed with black comedy that goes to extra excessive locations than its predecessor. Lydia Deetz’s (Winona Ryder) reward to speak to ghosts has introduced her nice skilled success, it has additionally made a rift between her and her daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega). Amid a household tragedy, Astrid is whisked away to the afterlife, and Lydia realizes there’s just one one that may help her – the identical ghost who tried to power her to marry him all these years in the past.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice has a supporting forged that features far much less sympathetic characters than the unique, together with a person who takes benefit of a lady in grief, a teenage ghost who is much extra psychotic than he lets on, and Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton) himself is proven to be a real menace regardless of his goofy demeanor. It’s the funniest movie Burton’s made in years, but it surely additionally matches his sense of darkness.
9 ‘Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children’ (2016)
Written by Jane Goldman
Based on the darkish fantasy guide by Ransom Riggs, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is a spot advised in tales by an previous man (Terence Stamp) to his grandson Jacob (Asa Butterfield). After his grandfather’s dying, Jacob travels to see the house, an previous home caught in a time loop years earlier than it was destroyed in a WW2 raid. He befriends the titular headmistress (Eva Green) and her adopted youngsters, all born with stage and distinctive powers – and all in peril from creatures known as Hollowgasts that feed on the eyes of Perculiars like them.
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children has a well-recognized setup of a secret dwelling for youngsters born with distinctive skills who reside shielded from a world that persecutes them. Still, Burton’s knack for darkish storytelling helps this one stand out, opening with a horrifying dying of a member of the family, youngsters with skills that wouldn’t be misplaced in Halloweentown, and some actually horrifying villains with the Hollowgasts. It’s a darkish fantasy movie for teenagers that’s greatest watched with a member of the family at their aspect.
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8 ‘Corpse Bride’ (2005)
Written by John August, Caroline Thompson & Pamela Pettler
Corpse Bride is the primary stop-motion movie directed by Burton, and it has a decidedly extra mature premise than his different stop-motion works. Victor Van Dort (Johnny Depp) is because of be married to a lady he hardly is aware of. When the rehearsal goes incorrect, he decides to follow his vows on what he thinks is a root – solely to understand he’s unintentionally married a corpse. Once he’s whisked away to the land of the lifeless, he begins to bond together with his new bride Emily (Helena Bonham Carter), whereas making an attempt to get again dwelling and save his dwelling fiancée from assembly his corpse bride’s destiny.
Corpse Bride has the same religious vibe to The Nightmare Before Christmas, but has a far much less whimsical tone and story-line. The titular bride is a tragic determine with a darkish backstory, and the movie’s villain is a chilly, calculating assassin whose strategies are extra calculating than the likes of Oogie Boogie. The darkness extends to the visible palette, the place the world of the dwelling is so bleak, colorless, and unromantic that those who recognize life essentially the most are the lifeless.
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7 ‘Alice in Wonderland’ (2010)
Written by Linda Woolverton
While blamed by many as the beginning of a low level in Burton’s profession, Alice in Wonderland on the very least has a sure darkness to it that units it aside from different live-action Disney remakes. Thirteen years after her first journey down the rabbit gap, Alice (Mia Wasikowska) finds herself again in Wonderland (or Underland because the locals name it) – but it surely’s a far completely different place than when she noticed it. The Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) has taken over, and all who oppose her are both beheaded or killed by her pet dragon, the Jabberwocky (Christopher Lee).
While having a narrative that appears to exit of its approach to be completely different from the guide and the animated Disney movie, it has extra darkish creativity than some have given it credit score for. It may even get violent, with on-screen decapitation, eyeballs getting stabbed and even the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp) will get a tragic backstory. It’s not at all one of the best adaptation of the story, but it surely nonetheless has a Burton appeal to its design.
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6 ‘Batman’ (1989)
Written by Sam Hamm & Warren Skaaren
Before 1989, Batman was seen by the general public as a jokey, campy character, due in no small half to the popularity of the Adam West TV present. But all that modified largely due to Burton. This Batman (Michael Keaton) is just not a quippy super-detective, however fairly a brooding, quiet power of nature that terrifies all who greet him. And then there’s the movie’s tackle the Joker’s origin, with mobster Jack Napier (Jack Nicholson) not solely getting the usual pores and skin bleach but in addition a disfigurement that leaves him with a everlasting grin on his face.
The movie’s depiction of Gotham City is a darkish, hellscape model of Metropolis, placing Burton’s love of German Expressionism to good use. While not at all times having constancy to the supply materials, it nonetheless made audiences take Batman severely once more. In massive half, Burton caught to the character’s true darkish tone and Gothic stylization that made him beloved within the comics.
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5 ‘Edward Scissorhands’ (1990)
Written by Caroline Thompson
Edward Scissorhands will not be Burton’s darkest work visually, but it surely’s no doubt his most bittersweet. Up in a citadel above a small city lives Edward (Johnny Depp), a man-made man whose inventor died earlier than ending his work. When he’s found by a pleasant household, he’s introduced into the center of American suburbia, who at first marvel at him and make him an area superstar. But their mutual lack of expertise quickly drives the neighborhood towards him, with solely the love of a lady giving him hope.
Edward Scissorhands has one in all Burton’s brightest shade palettes, but that solely highlights how tragic the story of Edward is. While Edward tries to slot in, his lack of communication expertise and the city’s lack of foresight results in a everlasting wedge between the 2 – and leads to Edward committing an act of violence that each one however ensures he’ll by no means be capable to be part of what we take into account to be regular society. In different phrases, a darkish fairy story for the goth child in us all.
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4 ‘Dark Shadows’ (2012)
Written by Seth Grahame-Smith
Based on the cleaning soap opera of the identical identify, Dark Shadows tells the story of Barnabas Collins (Johnny Depp), a vampire who reawakens in 1972 and returns to his property to fulfill his descendants. While many jokes are made about an 18th-century creature of the night time making an attempt to cover his true nature while adjusting to Nineteen Seventies sensibilities, his household is proven to have their very own darkish secrets and techniques. All the whereas, the witch (Eva Green) that cursed him tries to destroy his household as soon as and for all.
Dark Shadows has excessive tonal clashes between a campy comedy and melodramatic horror. While the lead vampire is one thing of a sympathetic determine, he nonetheless kills harmless folks left and proper. As a consequence, the morality of the movie is consistently in flux, with each the heroes and villains having their the reason why they do what they do however usually take issues too far. If Dark Shadows is a movie about household, then the Collins are one of many darkest households on the market.
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3 ‘Sleepy Hollow’ (1999)
Written by Andrew Kevin Walker
While Burton’s aesthetics have at all times leaned on the darker finish of the style spectrum, Sleepy Hollow is his first straight horror movie. Loosely impressed by the basic Washington Irving story, police constable Ichabod Crane (Johnny Depp) is shipped to the quiet little village of Sleepy Hollow, a Dutch settlement affected by murders that the locals insist had been dedicated by an area spirit – the Headless Horseman (Ray Park & Christopher Walken). Now Ichabod should try to uncover the reality behind this supposed folktale earlier than extra heads begin to roll.
Most of Burton’s movies pay tribute to numerous forms of horror (predominantly German Expressionism), however Sleepy Hollow stands out as following the type of a classical Hammer Horror movie. This means moody appearing, a largely grey shade palette, and blood that’s so pink it appears to pop off the display screen. The movie turns the basic story into one thing of a supernatural slasher film, with a number of characters assembly grisly fates in a respectful tribute to a type of horror that generally goes ignored.
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2 ‘Batman Returns’ (1992)
Written by Daniel Waters
While the unique Batman film was embraced by audiences, Batman Returns proved to be a bit too darkish for many audiences’ liking. In massive half, this alienating darkness got here from a single character – The Penguin (Danny DeVito). Compared to the gentleman villain of the comics, this model of Oswald Cobblepot is a deformed, perverted, animalistic freak who seeks to get revenge on Gotham’s elite by first operating for mayor and unleashing his gang of circus freaks on town, then by making an attempt to homicide all of Gotham’s firstborn youngsters in a contemporary biblical plague. If that wasn’t sufficient, Batman and Catwoman’s (Michelle Pfeiffer) romance ends in tragedy, with one seemingly dying, and one going to spend Christmas alone.
These parts, in addition to the chilly distinction to the movie’s Christmastime setting, resulted in additional backlash than Warner Bros. was ready for, leading to Burton handing the reigns to Joel Schumacher for the way more family-friendly Batman Forever. But in time, Batman Returns’ darker parts have develop into celebrated by cult audiences and helped set it aside from different Batman movies.
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1 ‘Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street’ (2007)
Written by John Logan
Based on the hit Broadway present of the identical identify, Sweeney Todd is a musical that tells a darkish story of vengeance and homicide. It begins with Sweeney Todd (Johnny Depp) returning to London after serving 15 years in jail for a criminal offense he didn’t commit, searching for vengeance on the Judge (Alan Rickman) who tore his household aside. When his alternative for revenge is taken, Todd goes off the deep finish and decides to kill everybody who comes into his barbershop for a shave. That’s when his lovesick neighbour Mrs Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter) decides so as to add a brand new recipe to her meat pies.
Rather than becoming the same old Burton archetype of a misunderstood loner with a present, the lead of this musical thriller believes everyone seems to be terrible and everybody deserves to die. Few characters survive to the top and are completely scarred by what they undergo. While the unique Broadway musical is a black comedy, the movie carries extra of a deadpan, moody tone that makes it Burton’s darkest movie but.
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