10 Best DC Animated Movies, Ranked

While live-action movies adapting DC Comics properties have a reputation for being hit or miss, DC’s line of animated films has remained largely solid in quality by comparison. DC has been steadily pumping out animated movies for decades, so here’s a ranking of the best.

Best DC Animated Movies, Ranked

10. Batman: Gotham Knight

As a tie-in to help promote 2008’s The Dark Knight, Warner Bros. released Batman: Gotham Knight, an anthology anime movie, the week before the Christopher Nolan film. Ostensibly set in between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, though the events of the animated movie are never referenced in any of the live-action films, Gotham Knight features six short stories. Each story is directed by a different Japanese filmmaker and written by a different American writer.

With Kevin Conroy voicing his most iconic role as Batman, albeit in a different continuity than the DC Animated Universe, and moody anime visuals, Gotham Knight is an immersive cyberpunk take on Gotham City. Each story is distinct in its examination of Nolan’s Dark Knight, though viewers don’t have to have necessarily seen Batman Begins to find the animated movie accessible. A solid anthology film, it’s a shame that Warner Bros. never explored this anime anthology concept further for Batman or any of its other DC properties.

9. Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay

After 2016’s live-action Suicide Squad, the misfit team of supervillains and antiheroes vying for redemption had become a major DC property in film, television, and video games. This extended to the 2018 animated movie Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay, set within the DC Animated Movie Universe that began with 2013’s Justice League: War. When a terminally ill Amanda Waller learns of a magical card that gets its holder out of Hell, she tasks the Suicide Squad to recover it for her, only for the team to face a like-minded Vandal Savage and his associates.

DC animated movies had grown significantly darker and violent than the DCAU starting with 2013’s Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox, but this maturation in tone really felt organic with Hell to Pay. The team’s penchant for dark humor and black ops action really gels well together as does its premise, straight from Gail Simone and Nicola Scott’s Secret Six comic book series. The DCAMU’s run was relatively uneven film to film, but Hell to Pay is a definite high point.

8. Catwoman: Hunted

Whoever thought a Lupin III-esque caper DC movie revolving around Catwoman, produced by celebrated anime studio OLM Team Inoue, could work deserves a raise. This premise is realized with 2022’s Catwoman: Hunted, directed by Shinsuke Terasawa from a script written by Young Justice creator Greg Weisman. The movie has Catwoman’s latest heist making her a target of the League of Assassins, leading to a globe-trotting getaway that ropes in Batwoman as her reluctant partner.

Right from Selina Kyle’s opening infiltration of a high society party thrown by Cheetah, there’s a freewheeling sense of fun to Catwoman: Hunted that is lacking in so many DC movies, both animated and live-action. Elizabeth Gillies brings a fresh take on Selina, with Stephanie Beatriz providing the perfect foil for Catwoman in her performance as Batwoman. A breezy romp and excellent anime take on DC characters far beyond the typical Gotham stories, Catwoman: Hunted is an underrated DC animated movie.

7. Constantine: City of Demons

Originally starting out as an animated webseries, Constantine: City of Demons was edited into a feature film and released on home video in 2018. With Matt Ryan reprising his live-action role as occult magician John Constantine shortly before his return on Legends of Tomorrow, the movie has Constantine and his friend Chaz visit Los Angeles to rescue the soul of their friend Trish. This leads to demons throughout the city plaguing Constantine, with the cynical hero finding himself on an adventure that puts the entire City of Angels at risk of a hellish invasion.

City of Demons is an excellent showcase for Ryan, who continues to prove that he provides a great interpretation of John Constantine in any medium, with him returning to the role in subsequent animated projects. The story itself is a relatively straightforward Constantine tale, delivering all the supernatural spectacle that the character is known for and taking advantage of its more mature edge. Filled with plenty of dark humor and a thrilling climactic confrontation, Constantine: City of Demons is a great animated take on the fan-favorite character.

6. Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker

The sequel series to Batman: The Animated Series and The New Batman Adventures, Batman Beyond brings the DCAU into a dystopian near-future where Gotham City has turned into the cyberpunk Neo-Gotham. Shortly after the premiere of the third and final season in 2000, the series received its own direct-to-video spinoff movie Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker. The movie more explicitly connects Batman Beyond to The New Batman Adventures, revealing a tragedy that shook the Bat-Family to its core decades before the events of Batman Beyond as the futuristic Dark Knight faces a mysteriously resurrected Joker.

Return of the Joker is the most sinister Mark Hamill performance in a DC animated movie, as well as the darkest story that the shared animated universe told across its celebrated run. Returning voice actors Kevin Conroy and Will Friedle match Hamill, with protagonist Terry McGinnis quickly proving why he’s worthy of the Batman mantle as he faces his mentor’s arch-nemesis. In a way, Return of the Joker feels like the Batman Beyond story that the series always wanted to tell but needed the right format and creative leeway to do so, which this movie provides.

5. Justice League: The New Frontier

The late great comic book creator Darwyn Cooke had a signature visual style with his artwork that was at once timeless and immediately unique to him and his work. In what was likely his most well-known title, 2004’s DC: The New Frontier, Cooke reimagined the transition of the DC Universe from its inaugural Golden Age to its more science fiction-tinged Silver Age in the 1950s. This award-winning story was adapted into an animated movie in 2008, titled Justice League: The New Frontier, maintaining the core narrative and its broader artistic aesthetics.

Taking place from the end of World War II through the mid-’50s, The New Frontier has the classic heroes and the new generation of heroes band together to stop an impending alien invasion. The New Frontier marries postwar noir with Atomic Age sci-fi sensibilities, with more established DC characters than can be counted in a single viewing. Evoking Cooke’s artistic style and faithfully adapting his story, The New Frontier offers a welcome change of pace from the usual DC animated aesthetic.

4. All-Star Superman

The widely acclaimed 2005 comic book series All-Star Superman by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely was adapted into an animated movie of the same name in 2011. After rescuing a research team from plummeting into the sun, Superman is overloaded with solar radiation and learns that his resulting physical condition will gradually kill him. As the Man of Tomorrow gets his final affairs in order, he undergoes a series of labors to ensure the world is ready to fend for itself without him.

There is a timeless quality to All-Star Superman, separated from the narrative constraints of being set in a shared universe or maintaining a long-running continuity, giving it a mythic feel. While there are considerable deviations from Morrison and Quitely’s original story, the movie has the herculean task of condensing a 12-issue story into a 78-minute movie, which it accomplishes. All-Star Superman is also one of the last projects of celebrated comic book and television writer Dwayne McDuffie, who died shortly after the film was released.

3. Batman: The Dark Knight Returns

Originally released in two parts, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns adapts the seminal story of the same name by enormously influential comic book creator Frank Miller. The story is set in a dystopian future of the DC Universe where Superman is a glorified lapdog of the President and Gotham City has fallen prey to roving gangs in the wake of Batman’s retirement. After Bruce Wayne abruptly reevaluates his life, he restarts his crime-fighting as Batman, despite the consequences this causes for the entire world.

Peter Weller and Michael Emerson lead the voice, playing Batman and The Joker, respectively, and offer more gravitas than several of DC’s other Batman animated depictions. The story itself is largely faithful to Miller’s story, with the extended runtime giving the filmmakers the real estate to give the source material justice. Stirring and lovingly rendered, The Dark Knight Returns is a solid adaptation that demonstrates why the comic it was based off of was extraordinarily groundbreaking for its time.

2. Batman: Under the Red Hood

Comic book creator Judd Winick flipped that Bat-Family on its head with modern classic story Batman: Under the Hood in 2005 by revealing Batman’s second Robin had risen from the grave to become the new Red Hood. Winick wrote the animated adaptation screenplay for his comic story, titled Batman: Under the Red Hood, which streamlined the story into a 75-minute animated movie. Like the comic, Under the Red Hood has Black Mask and the Joker targeted by a lethal vigilante calling himself the Red Hood, with Batman and Nightwing scrambling to stop the gangland violence.

Top-down, Under the Red Hood has one of the best ensemble casts assembled for a DC animated movie, from Bruce Greenwood’s Batman and Jensen Ackles’ Red Hood to a memorably creepy turn from John DiMaggio as The Joker. As the screenwriter, Winick is given the rare opportunity to not just adapt but refine his original story, free of the baggage of comic continuity. Dark and moody, but packed with plenty of action and an undercurrent of humor to keep it from becoming overly dour, Under the Red Hood is the best post-DCAU DC animated movie.

1. Batman: Mask of the Phantasm

After the universal acclaim received by Batman: The Animated Series, the series received a spinoff theatrical film in 1993, a little over a year after the show premiered. Batman: Mask of the Phantasm explores Bruce Wayne’s past prior to becoming the Caped Crusader while a masked killer picks up mobsters around Gotham City. The arrival of the Phantasm coincides with the return of Andrea Beaumont, Bruce’s old flame whose abrupt departure prompted him to accept his superhero destiny and create the mantle of Batman.

Taking on a slightly more mature edge than the animated series, Mask of the Phantasm is a neo-noir classic that reflects a purer vision of what this adaptation of Batman could be without network considerations. The voice cast of the animated series reprise their roles for the movie, with Kevin Conroy delivering a more tortured performance as Bruce Wayne, while Mark Hamill is deliciously unhinged as a more murderous Joker. A strong contender for the best Batman movie of all time, Mask of the Phantasm’s reputation has rightfully grown over the decades as a monumental achievement for DC adaptations.

And those are the 10 best animated DC movies, ranked.

Most of the movies on this list can be streamed on Max.