The best Tim Burton movies of all time

It’s fitting Beetlejuice Beetlejuice reintroduces the world to the twisted mind of Tim Burton. While the original was only the director’s second film, it was the first to clearly bear his signature. Michael Keaton plays a mischievous spirit hired to drive a young family – including Winona Ryder’s goth kid – from their gaudily decorated home. Funny, disturbing, and packed full of head-spinning set pieces, they simply don’t make films like Beetlejuice any more. Which is presumably why Burton finally got around to making another one.

Recent decades have seen Christopher Nolan scoop up all the awards with his Dark Knight trilogy, while Matt Reeves has focused on the gritty detective angle with The Batman. Both owe a huge debt to Burton’s original 1989 film, which proved superhero movies can be dark and complex whilst retaining their box office appeal. Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson face off as the borderline-unhinged caped crusader and the definitely-doolally Joker, while Burton’s infernal Gotham and Danny Elfman’s stirring theme add to the stylised splendour.

Edward Scissorhands sees Burton’s first and arguably best team-up with Johnny Depp. Then seen as a young Hollywood heartthrob, Depp boldly flew his freak flag as Edward, the Frankenstein’s-monster-meets-Pinnochio creation of an old scientist who dies before he can finish his work. Left with scissors for hands, our painfully naive and borderline mute protagonist first enthrals then outrages the local community. For all its campy style and fantastical trappings, Edward Scissorhands is an appropriately heart-skewering depiction of small-town prejudice and misunderstood creativity.

Tim Burton takes the ostensibly grounded subject matter of parental strife and generational estrangement, and sprinkles in his particular brand of fairytale magic. Big Fish sees Billy Crudup’s adult son losing patience with his serially mendacious father, played in old age by Albert Finney. Various flashbacks from his father’s perspective (played as a younger man by Ewan McGregor) paint a highly fanciful picture of the man’s early life, involving improbable sporting success as well as encounters with giants and witches.

Burton went all-out horror in Sleepy Hollow – or at least, all-out horror from the perspective of this particularly idiosyncratic director. That means an oddball lead performance from Johnny Depp as 18th century police constable Ichabod Crane, who at the outset finds himself investigating a series of grisly murders by a folkloric headless horseman. Christina Ricci plays the classic blonde damsel in distress, while Miranda Richardson, Michael Gambon, and a cameo from Christopher Walken, lend some heavyweight gravitas.

The outsized effect that Beetlejuice had on Tim Burton’s career has led to the popular misconception it was his first film. That honour actually belongs to Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, which was a spin-off from a popular early ’80s stage show. In retrospect, this tale of a strange, child-like man travelling across the US in search of his stolen bike sounds every inch like a Burton joint. It also happens to be a raucous, free-wheeling comedy movie in its own right.

After the original film smashed box office expectations and laid the foundation for the modern superhero movie industry, Batman Returns threw Warner Bros. executives for a loop. Burton opted to double down on the dark fairytale weirdness while essentially relegating his hero to being a member of an extended ensemble. Michel Pfeiffer’s outrageously kinky Catwoman and Danny Devito’s grotesque Penguin weren’t exactly lunch box-selling material, spelling the end of Burton’s brief DC reign. However, it undoubtedly made Batman Returns one of the most distinctive superhero movies ever made.

You can see Burton’s love for 1950s B-movies in virtually everything he does, which probably explains why Ed Wood feels like one of his most personal movies. It’s also among his most critically lauded, and saw Martin Landau win an Oscar for his depiction of horror veteran Bela Lugosi. Johnny Depp plays the titular role as the real life director behind Plan 9 From Outer Space, which is widely held to be one of the worst films ever made. This black and white biopic showed Burton not just trying something new, but thriving outside of his comfort zone.

Mars Attacks could be Burton’s most flamboyant and downright kitsch film, which is really saying something. It’s a surreal alien invasion story in which psychotic martians, seemingly lifted straight from a ’50s serial, zap their way through Earth’s great and not-so-good. Among a star-studded cast, Jack Nicholson plays both the US president and a flamboyant casino operator, Pierce Brosnan plays a hammy scientist, and Welsh singer Tom Jones plays himself. It’s the sort of movie that leaves you wondering whether someone slipped something a little stronger than expected into your drink.

The idea of a Tim Burton musical might have seemed more fanciful than any of the man’s films, but his decision to adapt the Sweeney Todd stage play to film makes perfect sense. There’s the legendary subject matter, of course, which in this telling is shot through with a macabre morality fit for a child’s fairy tale. Burton mainstays Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter take the lead roles of Todd and his partner in crime, Mrs. Lovett, while the late Alan Rickman is a riot as the corrupt Judge Turpin.