"A Personal Picture Driven by Genuine Moral Vision"

"And yet it's hard to look at this movie, made at a time of violent divisiveness in the country over issues of surveillance, of complicity, of violence born of fear, and not see a snapshot of a society—not Gotham's fictional one, but our own, real-life one—ready to plunge into the abyss of fragmentation, of self-serving chaos. Maybe that's why Nolan’s film now feels so poignant. Today, it's hard not to feel that humanity's worst impulses have won, that those without conscience or shame were allowed to sow endless dissension, hatred, and cruelty, using our own sense of guilt against us."

Bilge Ebiri at The Village Voice describes The Dark Knight as "perhaps the most powerful exploration of guilt the modern American blockbuster has given us."