It's Oscars weekend again as the toast of Hollywood make final preparations for the 96th Academy Awards, which is being hosted by Jimmy Kimmel.
The nailed-on favourite to take home his first-ever Best Director gong is Christopher Nolan, with his atomic biopic Oppenheimer also set to be the night's big winner, not least in the Best Picture category.
Oppenheimer's potential triumph reminded us that it was another one of Nolan's movies that provided the catalyst behind the Oscars' last significant systemic change, which happened 14 years ago in the Best Picture category.
During the build-up to the 2009 awards, much was made of The Dark Knight's absence across some of the more eye-catching categories. Yes, the late Heath Ledger was posthumously awarded the Best Supporting Actor win (and rightly so), yet snubs within the Best Picture and Best Director pool were borderline offensive.
Related: 11 things you never knew about The Dark Knight
Due to the five-movie limit in the former category, Nolan's blockbuster was ushered into the shadows in favour of Slumdog Millionaire, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Reader, Frost/Nixon and Milk. It did receive a handful of technical nominations, though, including Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects and Best Film Editing.
A year after this controversy, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences responded to this snub by increasing the number of Best Picture hopefuls to a maximum of 10. It's not just our opinion – it's become widely known as 'The Dark Knight Rule' ever since.
As a whole compendium of column inches can attest, not only was The Dark Knight the box-office behemoth of 2008 – collecting $1 billion to become the fourth highest-grossing movie in history at the time – it laid new ground for comic book superheroes on the big screen.
Inspired in part by the Michael Mann masterpiece Heat, The Dark Knight transformed the well-trodden freakscape of Gotham City into something much more akin to our own criminal world.
The theatrics were rendered through Ledger's sharp-suited Joker, a maniacal proponent of inner-city anarchy rising from obscurity to hijack the mob, corrupt politicians and plant bombs on ferries as opposed to surviving a vat of bubbling acid and killing everyone in a cartoonish, vengeful haze.
In simpler terms, cinemagoers were presented with real-life concerns (terrorism being the main one) through the prism of a popcorn spectacle in a genre that had historically been considered lowbrow. It was the dawn of a new era.
Related: Oscars makes big change to Best Picture rules
While hosting the 2009 Oscars, Wolverine actor Hugh Jackman's opening monologue paid tribute to both The Dark Knight and Jon Favreau's Iron Man (another pioneering comic book gem) by quipping:
"I haven't seen The Reader. I was going to see it later, but I fell behind. My Batmobile took longer than I thought to design. I even went down to the theatre, but there was a line — all the people watching Iron Man a second time."
On the night, The Dark Knight also won Best Sound Editing alongside Ledger's posthumous win, but it missed out in every other category it was nominated in.
Four months after guest announcer Steven Spielberg confirmed Slumdog Millionaire as the Best Picture winner, the Academy's president, Sidney Ganis, revealed a change for the forthcoming year at a press conference in Beverly Hills.
"We will be casting our net wide," he told the media, confirming the doubling of its big category's nominations (via The New York Times). "I would not be telling you the truth if I said the words 'Dark Knight' did not come up".
At last, a hollow apology to the genius of Nolan and his team.
Fast-forward to the subsequent ceremony and this change opened the door for genre fare like District 9 and Avatar, as well as Pixar classic Up, to nestle in nicely beside The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds and The Blind Side in the Best Picture section.
Speaking to Deadline in January 2023, Spielberg name-checked The Dark Knight while applauding the Best Picture nominations for Avatar: The Way of Water and Top Gun: Maverick.
"I'm really encouraged by that. It came late for the film that should have been nominated a number of years ago, Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight," said the filmmaker.
"That movie would have definitely garnered a Best Picture nomination today, so having these two blockbusters solidly presented on the top 10 list is something we should all be celebrating."
What a legacy.
The 96th Academy Awards take place on Sunday, March 10, in the US. It will be broadcast live on ITV in the UK.
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Reporter, Digital Spy
Dan is a freelance entertainment journalist. Beginning his writing career in 2014, Dan's work first graced the pages of cult publications Starburst magazine and Little White Lies before moving onto Total Film, Digital Spy, NME and Yahoo Entertainment.
In the film and TV universe, he kneels at the altar of Jim Carrey, Daniel Plainview, Mike Ehrmantraut and Paulie Walnuts.
