3. Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
The 1993 animated film Mask of the Phantasm communicates what made Batman: The Animated Series so iconic. Like the TV series that spawned it, whose reruns defined my teenage years, Mask of the Phantasm treats animation like a serious medium for serious material—it doesn’t hesitate to show you Batman as both a romantic and broken man.
The movie, which features Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill’s perfect voice acting for Batman and the Joker, also loosely references Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One and Mike W. Barr’s Year Two comics. In it, Batman faces murder accusations and the reality that his ex-fiancée is a lying Grim Reaper, who might still love him. It’s all as emotionally complex and volatile as you’d think, making endless rewatches a necessity.
