Having re-energised the franchise with 2005’s Batman Begins, Christopher Nolan delivers a stunner of such ferocity that audiences are well advised to duck for cover. It’s not just the dazzling action, exhilarating set pieces and thrilling adventure (all present in spades) that make The Dark Knight the best of the best: this is an adrenaline-soaked battle for the soul, specifically that of Gotham City, on a scale where good and evil begin to blur, and where demons escape to dance in the shadows.

Enter the Joker, who wants to plunge Gotham into chaos. “I don’t want to kill you,” he cackles to Bale’s Batman. “You complete me.” Scary stuff. Mind-bending, emotionally draining, distressingly scary stuff.

It’s well known that Ledger’s sleeping disorder was compounded by the Joker, and it’s all here on screen. His performance is so mad-crazy-blazing-brilliant that he virtually disappears, leaving us to face this hound from hell alone. As he sniffs around prey like the feral creature he is, flipping between unruly sadism and stomach-churning masochism, it soils the mind. The Dark Knight is an exhausting experience that takes up residence in the black spaces inside your head. It will be the first thing you think of at 4am.

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