Top 10 Joel Schumacher Movies

Joel Schumacher’s directorial career is perhaps best remembered for putting nipples on the Bat suit in his campy mid-90s silver-screen adaptations of the famous comic book character, Batman Forever (1995) and Batman & Robin (1997), but throughout the years he has also been responsible for a number of well known thrillers like Phone Booth (2002) and Falling Down (1993) as well as his fair share of era-shaping outings at the helm of the likes of Flatliners (1990) and St. Elmo’s Fire (1985). In this list, I’ve been tasked with selecting just 10 of Schumacher’s 23 feature length releases for this, the Top 10 Joel Schumacher Movies.

Fear not, there shall be no Bat-nipples here…

10. The Phantom of the Opera (2004)

If ever there was a stage production that was perfect for a director as visually focused as Joel Schumacher, it was the vibrantly coloured melodramatic musical “The Phantom of the Opera”, which he adapted for Warner Bros. in 2004.

Starring Gerard Butler as The Phantom and Emmy Rossum (‘Shameless’), this stage adaptation was widely accepted as a good big screen musical, though it didn’t seem to blow many people’s socks off. Like much of Schumacher’s catalogue, The Phantom of the Opera seems very much a film of its time despite its setting, and as such it probably isn’t going to be as enjoyable for first-time viewers in the current day (nearly 15 years later) as it will be for those who managed to catch the film at the time.

Recommended for you: Universal Monsters Movies Ranked

9. Flatliners (1990)

Arguably as iconic of a late-80s/early-90s movie as there is, this star-studded movie about some college students attempting to discover what awaits on the other side of death is the sort of thinly veiled anti-drugs lesson that most people actually enjoy.

Julia Roberts, Kiefer Sutherland and Kevin Bacon headline this thriller that has gone down as somewhat of a cult classic; a movie that may only be number 9 in terms of quality but is certifiably one of this director’s top 3 most famous releases.

Pages: 1 2 3 4