Watch This offers movie recommendations inspired by new releases, premieres, current events, or occasionally just our own inscrutable whims. This week: The Academy Awards are Sunday, so we’re looking back on times when an actor was nominated for the wrong film—and on the performances they should have been nominated for the same year.
Batman Returns (1992) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Pain, frustration, sadness, vulnerability—these are the quickest routes to an Oscar nomination for an actress. Look like you’re having fun and it probably won’t happen, because heaven forbid that a woman presents herself with independence and authority, turning up her nose at the patriarchy and forging her own destiny without suffering for it.
Just ask Michelle Pfeiffer and Anne Hathaway. Both did devilish, delightful work playing the same character, the devious Catwoman, in two Batman films from two decades apart, Batman Returns and The Dark Knight Rises. And both found themselves nominated for lesser, more woeful performances. Pfeiffer was up for Best Actress for basically playing what a Mad TV sketch once referred to as a “Nice White Lady” role—a woman who befriends a Black man and his child in the ’60s—in the forgettable Love Field. Hathaway, meanwhile, won Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of doomed prostitute Fantine in Tom Hooper’s draining adaptation of Les Misérables.
Both Oscar-honored turns reduce their nominated stars to lost, helpless ladies. It’s in the Batman movies, released the same years (1992 and 2012, respectively), that they figuratively and literally break free. Slipping into jet-black, skin-tight bodysuits, Pfeiffer and Hathaway go wild playing crafty, surprisingly acrobatic anti-heroines who take glee in outwitting (and often taking down) their male counterparts.
For Returns, director Tim Burton doesn’t even bother sticking with the canonical origin story of how Pfieffer’s Selina Kyle becomes the slinky, seductive cat burglar. Here, she’s a meek secretary who gets thrown out of a building by her corrupt boss (Christopher Walken, giving zero fucks), somehow gets resuscitated by stray cats, and wreaks havoc around Gotham as the reborn Catwoman. Christopher Nolan, on the other hand, decided to be faithful to the comic-book backstory in Rises, presenting Hathaway’s Kyle as a lethal, eye-rolling thief who ultimately becomes one of the many players involved in saving Gotham from an atomic blast.
Pfeiffer and Hathaway have their own distinctive approaches to playing Selena Kyle. After spending a few scenes as a weak, neurotic single gal/cat lady, Pfeiffer goes full-tilt mad-as-hell when the cats bring her back to life, trashing her apartment, sewing an outfit out of a latex raincoat, and going HAM on any dude who dares cross her. While there isn’t a major transformation from timid to ferocious for Hathaway, she does show how Kyle can be one manipulative maestra, shifting from sweet to sinister with just a mild expression change. Both actors find sympathetic souls underneath the BDSM armor. Effectively, they’re playing fed-up women who decide to take what they want and what they think they deserve, be that valuables or a new sense of agency.
Returns and Rises are watchable messes. (They’re better, certainly, than the actual Catwoman movie, starring Halle Berry—and that’s about all that should be said about that.) The two Kyles are initially presented as reckonings for corporate greed and upper-class entitlement, until the filmmakers remember they’re making popcorn entertainment and start burying those aspects under a pile of chaotic thrills in the second halves. Both films also somewhat clumsily shoehorn Catwoman into the plot, briefly making her an accomplice to the Big Bad (Danny DeVito’s Penguin in Returns, Tom Hardy’s Bane in Rises) before each Catwoman ultimately recognizes a kindred spirit in the Caped Crusader (Michael Keaton in Returns, Christian Bale in Rises). You have to wonder what a female screenwriter might have brought to the character. Nevertheless, both Pfeiffer and Hathaway obviously relish playing the sort of slippery femme fatale that inspired the Catwoman character in the first place. Their joy is easy to appreciate, even if the Academy didn’t.
Availability: Batman Begins is currently streaming on HBO Max, and can be rented or purchased digitally from Amazon, Google Play, Apple, YouTube, Fandango Now, Redbox, DirecTV, and VUDU. The Dark Knight Rises is available to rent or purchase digitally from Amazon, Google Play, Apple, Fandango Now, Redbox, AMC On Demand, DirecTV, and VUDU.
102 Comments
Thanks for reminding me Pfeiffer didn’t win for Fabulous Baker Boys. Complete bloody travesty! Also good question for everyone, who is the best on screen depiction of Catwoman? I think Hathaway and Pfeiffer are really good, but there’s something about Julie Newmar from the 60s series that always stuck with me most. Can’t go wrong with any of the major depictions aside from poor Halle Berry.
Did they actually hire Adam West to voice himself?
They did, back in 1992 or thereabouts, when his career was at its low ebb. And he totally committed to playing himself as a weirdo with a chip on his shoulder signing autographs at a car show. It’s genuinely impressive.
You can’t say he didn’t have a sense of humor about his best-known role…
Say what you want about Family Guy, but using this bit to springboard Adam West into an awesome supporting role (and a career resurgence as a voice actor) is one of its finest achievements.
Man, Pfeiffer has had so many amazing parts, Love Field probably isn’t even in the top 10. Hell, Ladyhawke was more interesting.
There is only one Julie Newmar & I don’t think any of the other actresses playing Catwoman have topped her
Damn.
I will never forget the image of her “enjoying” the periscope in the 60s Batman movie. I think I moved a little bit more down the boy->man transition.
Here here! Merriweather and Kitt were great but Newmar to me is the best. Interesting because I don’t associate best depiction with almost anything with the 66 show. Love it but Romero isn’t best Joker, closest is Frank Gorsech as the Riddler.
Maybe Burgess Meredith as the Penguin? But in general I agree
Meredith was great. He always seemed so game for hamming it up as the Penguin.
Lee Meriwether, I think you mean.
I’d have topped 1960s Julie Newmar…/sorry
Look, we can all agree that for most 80s/90s kids Catwoman was definitely influential in our…*ahem*….developement.The only difference between Newmar and Pfiffer is which particular type of skintight material gets your kink going.
Good lord, I just love Susie Diamond.
“You said ‘Fuck!!’”“I said it, I didn’t do it.”I swear to God I hope they never remake that film, because no one will capture the dynamic of the Bridges brothers and Pfeiffer. The chemistry is just flowing during the entire film.
for me it’s Eartha Kitt, Zoe Kravitz is pretty good casting, but they’re never going to get an Oscar nom for Catwoman unless they find a motivation for her that is more than stealing jewelry and passes the BechdelBatman test
Eartha Kitt for the win.
The Fabulous Baker Boys is such a throwback to 1950’s-60’s romances, but with a modern day flavor. I was home alone right after Cinemax got it (probably 1990) and mid-teens roguelike was never in love with Michelle Pfeiffer more. You cannot watch the red dress/piano scene without thinking that, yup, this oozes sexuality like none other. The soundtrack holds up as well, and IIRC, Dave Grusin was competing against himself for best Oscar soundtrack that year. Oddly, I believe he lost to himself.
Michelle Pfieffer is the absolute best imo, the one who best combines all the best elements of Selina Kyle — cat like physicality and sensuality, seductiveness, amorality, deceptiveness, the ability to ride the razor’s edge of being dangerous, mischievous, sympathetic and almost admirable.I think Julie Newmar edges out Eartha Kitt because while both were bold takes, its strangely Newmar’s alluring performance that feels more dangerous. Her Catwoman is right on the precipice of insanity, as likely to gleefully drop Batman into a death trap as caress him with an urgent sexual neediness.Kitt was an intense, sexy electric villainess who moved like she was possessed by the spirit of an angry cat goddess. There was none of Newmar’s neediness in her, just obsession and drive. And like Batgirl actor Yvonne Craig, she had a dancer’s lithesome athleticism that seemed to actually belong in a comic book.There’s nothing wrong with Hathaway’s Catwoman — she is always the well prepared pro— but she doesn’t quite have the passion and fire that manifests in unique ways with the first three. The cynicism of her Selina Kyle is on brand, but underlying fear foisted on her by the script (which Batman helps her overcome) dilutes her fierceness. Hathaway is wonderfully deceptive and dry, her Selina acts and lies better than any of the other versions.Lee Merriweather had the misfortune of following two incredibly distinctive performances in Newmar and Kitt, but like Hathaway she is a very solid, well rounded Catwoman and excels as Selina Kyle the actor. Hathaway’s hairpin turns from lying to dropping her mask edge out Merriweather imo, but neither Kitt or Newmar could probably have delivered a campy Russian accent and feigned innocence (while leaving the impression she wishes she could actually be that innocent) as successfully as Merriweather.
Wow I can’t disagree with anything you said. None are bad and they all do something unique so it really comes down to preference.
cat like physicality and sensualityStay away from my cat.
Its not my fault that your cat thinks I’m purrrfect.
It’s a tie to me – between Newmar and Eartha Kitt. but I do have to say… Pfeiffer certainly remains in my head all these years later. I kinda skipped the Nolan movies since, well… I don’t like Christopher Nolan as a director so I saw no reason to get into the hype of his stuff. So I can’t remark on that one.
Thats fair. I have high hopes for Zoe Kravitz in the upcoming film but beating Kitt, Newmar and Pfeiffer is going to be hard.
Both Catwomen are great. Returns is the best Batman movie and up there as one of the best Burton movies. Rises was the last Nolan I really liked and Hathaway Catwoman and Bane were a huge part of it.
“Catwomen”?Catwomans?
Catswomens!
(bewildered) … that can’t be right
Nope, it’s true. It’s like attorneys general, or leagues of shadows.
I’d say a bunch of the lady burglars are Catwomen; I think a stack of her self-titled comic books are Catwomans.
Catswoman, like Attorneys General.
Catwombmen!
Catwoman^3.
Catwomyn
Persons of Catness.
I agree about Batman Returns being an incredible film, there’s something very special that was captured in that film. It’s just the most perfect balance of gothic and camp.
It’s the perfect balance between kink and camp.
As a WASP, my absolute favorite is the depiction of Penguin’s parents. The bit where they view their mutant son, exchange a look and then toss back martinis—*chef’s kiss.* That is my people.
Wow. We’re pulling the sexist card on this? Look those rules aren’t anywhere near Oscar worthy. Both actresses have done some Oscar worthy times maybe but it’s not those roles. And since when does there have to be a correlation just because two people playing Joker got an Oscar?
Camren Bicondova did a nice job as Selina on Gotham. I liked her feline grace and certainly bought her effortless manipulation of (but also loyalty to) young Bruce
The last episode when she was all grown up was as good too. They should’ve used that as a launchpad for a spin-off Catwoman franchise.
Lili Simmons was good as grown up Catwoman in the Gotham finale but I would have been more interested in a spinoff with Camren Bicondova
Gotham may have been a bizarre show (a good thing IMO, since I grew up on weird-ass Burton Batman), but it deserved more recognition for its performances. Not all of them were gold, but Bruce, Selina, and Not Joker But Actually Joker But Nope But Yes were as good as anyone could ask.
I agree & think Gotham’s Penguin was also excellent though his storylines were usually not great
Maybe she can show up on Batwoman.
Are you really wondering why Anne Hathaway didn’t win an Oscar for playing Catwoman? K.
I think roles like the Joker get a lot of attention because, well, they demand a lot of attention. Work that is more subtle often goes unsung, despite the fact that nuance and subtlety are inherently, obviously more difficult in a lot of ways. Going big is not always the bigger challenge – as I like to say, more acting is not proof of better acting.
Not that wearing a black leather jumpsuit and cracking a whip between trading punches with Batman is the most subtle work in the world. I’m just saying, compared to someone chewing the scenery as a madly laughing, anarchist murder-clown, it’s basically the Cherry Orchard.
I actually think that if they made a movie like Returns now (they wouldn’t) and an actress gave the same performance Pfeiffer gave in it (she wouldn’t) she’d get nominated. The Academy has been more flexible recently about giving supporting actresses who give balls to the wall performances like that a nom from non-dramatic movies. If Nicholson couldn’t get a nom for his Joker, was no chance Pfeiffer was for Catwoman (I bet Jack would’ve been nominated for that role today too).Hathaway was very solid, but there’s a pretty big chasm between Pfeiffer’s role and her role. Just not as interesting a part in, as you said, a mess of a movie. Not that Returns isn’t a mess, but Pfeiffer is just so unforgettable in it in a way Hathaway, through no fault of her own, isn’t.
I’m sure Pfeiffer’s LOVE FIELD performance wasn’t half as good as her phenomenal Catwoman, and have no doubt that the Oscar nom for that was a guilty stealth nomination for BATMAN RETURNS (because we obviously can’t nominate her for a. . . comic book movie).
But Hathaway’s Catwoman wasn’t especially noteworthy. Very good, no complaints. But her Fantine, despite any other weaknesses in the Hooper’s film, was heartbreakingly good.
Between the two, Michelle Pfeiffer wins it for me as the best. Seeing Anne Hathaway in Princess Diaries and Ella Enchanted kind of ruined me being able to see her in serious roles without it feeling fake or forced. Though I really loved her in Ocean’s 8.
I guess you never saw Grease 2.
To be fair, Pfeiffer filled the John Travolta badass J.D. role in Grease 2 it was the boy pining after her who was the nerdy, virgin Olivia Newton John character. In all honesty, Pfeiffer was more believable as a greaser than John Travolta.
I did see Grease 2, probably 50x in one summer, but it didn’t seem like a young adult role like the others. It’s could also be Anne’s doe eyes. She has such a youthful appearance whereas Michelle Pfeiffer has looked in her late-20s for years and years.
TIL that apparently Catwoman is a “serious role”. This is a role in which a woman literally dresses up in a cat costume in movies about a guy who dresses up like a bat and who likes to punch clowns.
Fun fact: ‘Punching the clown’ is a euphemism for masturbation!
Playing Joker in the 1960s: You don’t have to shave your moustache, we’ll just put some makeup on top of it, it won’t really work but who cares?
Playing Joker in the 2010s: Non-Oscar winners need not apply. You’re going to have to go full method, either starve yourself to death or engage in actual potentially criminal behaviour. On the plus side, there’s a 50% chance you’ll get an Oscar. Or become a laughing stock. Still, worth the risk, eh?
Maybe not the progress we’d have chosen to make, but it’s something I guess.
TIL that apparently Catwoman is a “serious role”. This is a role in which a woman literally dresses up in a cat costume in movies about a guy who dresses up like a bat and who likes to punch clowns.Fun Fact: Hathaway’s Catwoman comes from the same trilogy that not only produced a Best Picture nomination, but who’s punched clown won an Oscar for his performance.Don’t know how you miss that when it’s the entire point of this article.
Although the stereotypical “best picture” or “Oscar winning role” is indeed for a movie about a serious social problem like racism or homophobia, plenty of escapist movies and actors in them have gotten Oscars as well. That doesn’t mean the movies or roles are serious.
I like Anne Hathaway, but she didn’t really do it for me as Catwoman, but then DKR was kind of a mess throughout.Pfieffer, otoh, absolutely killed that role and looks like she had a blast doing so.
Supposedly she trained intensively to do all her own whip-work in the movie. Which I really hope she gets to employ in another role someday… 😉
Apologies that it’s not solely the stunt footage.
Still has it indeed! 🙂
Hathaway is probably the best part of DKR if you ask me.
I realize that’s faint praise considering the rest of the movie, but I’m trying to say she did a good job.
Yeah, she was a great Catwoman who deserved a better movie.
Yah, she was amazing in that movie. It would have been a chore to make it through the full film without Hathaway’s fun scenes.
“the quickest routes to an Oscar nomination for an actress… because heaven forbid that a woman presents herself with independence and authority, turning up her nose at the patriarchy and forging her own destiny”Um are we forgetting Julia Roberts’ win for Erin Brokovich? Or Frances MacDormand for Fargo? Or Cher for Moonstruck?
Or the fact that there’s long been a very well known tendency to nominate male actors for dramatic roles over lighthearted roles too?
I mean heck, Marissa Tomei in My Cousin Vinny ain’t exactly a wilting wallflower either.
AV Club’s occasionally lapsing into WokeShrillness never let truth get in the way of a good pearl-clutchin’ session.
Um are we forgetting Julia Roberts’ win for Erin Brokovich? Or Frances MacDormand for Fargo? Or Cher for Moonstruck?Yes. We are purposely ignoring everything that does not conform with our preferred narrative. Y’know, like every black superhero movie before Black Panther. Like every action heroine lead in a movie before (insert this year’s film here). Truth and honesty have no place here.
Shhh. This article doesn’t work if we point out the very premise of it is broken.
Be quite!
Or Katharine Hepburn in all four of her Best Actress winning roles.
What a weird article, lol. Like you could probably write a great essay with the thesis of which types of personality traits have garnered female Oscar winning performances vs. men. But these examples?? Anne Hathaway was totally forgettable in a totally forgettable movie. In zero of the multiverses did she come even close to an Oscar nomination.
I just rewatched Rises last week, and realized that I’d never actually seen the first 20-30 minutes. Like, ever. Never seen the initial introduction of Bane at the beginning. The film is definitely a cluster of nonsense. It suffers from the final Schumacher Batman film problem of too many characters and trying to do too much with…too little? It’s such a mess, but still one of those films I will rewatch every so often just because I keep thinking I’m gonna be able to figure it all out.
That opening scene where they’re dragging a plane behind a larger plane is nicely staged. It would’ve been cooler if Batman showed up, but it’s not that kind of movie.
Also no actor ever got an oscar for playing batman, can you believe that can you believe that.
It has to do with the patriarchy somehow.
I would like to take this moment to thank Michelle Pfeiffer on behalf of all women who watched her performance as Catwoman and had our Lesbian Awakening.
Pfeiffer’s performance as Catwoman fueled a broad spectrum of sexual awakenings.
I definitely don’t think you can compare the two. I never really bought Hathaway’s Selina. I always think it feels like she’s just forcing the “I’m a bad girl” kind of thing. Like she’s trying too hard. Granted, Pfeiffer isn’t exactly playing the part with subtlety, but that’s not what you go for in a Tim Burton movie. Her part just works so much better I think.
Halle Berry accepted her Razzie for “Catwoman” while holding an Oscar. That sorta counts, right?
We know why:
Newmar^
Pfieffer^Hathaway(Merriwether and Kitt respectfully left out because I haven’t gotten back up to them in the series yet.)
Eartha Kitt is just purrrrrrrfect as Catwoman.
To be fair – Catwoman DID win awards.
for years, and only until recently, i always thought Pfeiffer was nominated for Batman, not Fabulous Baker Boys.
“Look like you’re having fun and it probably won’t happen”Would Emma Stone for La La Land be the most recent exception? Or Olivia Colman for The Favourite, even if she does get sad about looking like a badger and vomits up cake?
Is the headline a serious question? Don’t get me wrong, both Michelle Pfeiffer and Anne Hathaway took great turns as Catwoman (well, Pfeiffer more so, but Hathaway’s shortcomings weren’t her fault) but let’s be honest. The performances put in by Ledger and Phoenix were leagues ahead. I appreciate Pfeiffers Catwoman for what it is (a campy, albeit dark take on a classic comic book character) but it did not have nearly as much depth as either Joker. Also, it’s not all that fair to compare Joker (the film) to any other superhero movie. It’s extremely different in tone and genre.
I think to be honest the main reason Ledger was nominated was because of his untimely death. Phoenix was nominated because of a lousy field and the movie was more of a thriller and drama than a straight superhero movie.Pfeiffer was not nominated because people did not take these kinds of movies seriously back in 1993. And hathaway’s catwoman really did not have that much to it. She was in it, but what scene in it was really “oscar worthy”? At least the Dark Knight was all about Ledger’s Joker. Catwoman was not even the main villain.
Thank you. This isn’t a mystery. Pfeifer was playing a cartoon, and had that been enough, Jack Nicholson would have got an Award for his Joker as well- which is even better.Hathaway had charisma for days in TDKR, but what’s the Oscar clip? When she makes Bruce Wayne fall down? Or one of her many fights? To compare that to either Ledger or Joaquin’s work, (both of which were chilling enough to blow up in the zeitgeist) is laughable on its face.
Yep, the article is trying to act like this is an apple to apples comparison where it isn’t at all. As you said, Jack Nicholson was the biggest actor there was back then and his Joker basically made that film and what it is really known for today and no one even suggested he be nominated for anything. The thought that an actor would win for such commercial work back then was absurd to the voters on its face. It just wasn’t done as it was commercial and seen as “not serious” and a paycheck
The Academy is guilty of many offenses, but snubbing Catwomen isn’t one of them.
Widespread critical acclaim, with receipts from critics that could go on for days (including from the AV Club). In what world is Anne Hathaway’s amazing work in Les Miserables a “lesser” performance than her being not terrible in The Dark Knight Rises?
Three Catwomen. Three.
Pointy-eared felines aside, I hope anyone with human ears can agree that Les Miserables should have been shut out of awards contention based on the aural assault alone. Love me some Annie Hathaways, but crying is not singing. Cats (the movie musical, not the Batman roles) has retroactively cemented what a shit-show Les Miz was.
I love both actresses – and both performances – but this is reaching. First of all, no actor had ever won an Oscar for a superhero movie before Heath Ledger, and that’s before Pfeiffer’s time. Jack Nicholson didn’t get a nomination either and at that point in his career, he was getting nominated every 2 to 3 years.Secondly, neither movie is all that good. The Dark Knight and Joker were talked about well beyond the usual geek circle, which helped both actors get some momentum. Batman Returns and The Dark Knight Rises performed fine but were not exactly remarkable blockbusters.If you add this to the fact that Pfeiffer was always an underrated talent, and that Hathaway was in the period of her career where everyone was mean to her for no reason, they never really stood a chance.
Oh, wow. This is a real article. I assumed it was tongue-in-cheek based on the headline. Pfieffer’s Catwoman was good fun, but I think the movie
was too out there for her to get consideration. But Hathaway? Come on.