Film

Batman: The Long Halloween, Part One

Name: Batman: The Long Halloween, Part One
Genre: Animation, Mystery, Action, Crime
Released: 2021
Cast: Jensen Ackles, Josh Duhamel, Naya Rivera, Billy Burke, Jack Quaid

This is the first half of an animated adaptation of Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale's celebrated comic, playing Gotham as pure noir: a mysterious killer striking only on holidays, a mob war collapsing under Batman's pressure, and a young Harvey Dent still years from becoming Two-Face. It's moodier and slower than most superhero animation, built for people who want detective work and dread over spectacle.

TMDb rating

7.4

If you liked this

Batman: Year One2011no page yet

Drawn from the same iconic comics era, this quieter animated film follows Bruce Wayne's earliest days as Batman and Gordon's arrival in a corrupt Gotham, giving you the roots this whole story grows from.

But It's slower and more introspective, with almost no action set pieces and a two-hander structure that can feel thin.

Batman: Mask of the Phantasm1993

Still the gold standard of animated Batman films - a noir mystery-romance where an old flame resurfaces just as a masked killer starts picking off Bruce's enemies, wrapped in gorgeous Art Deco animation.

But The '90s animation style and PG-level violence might feel gentle after Long Halloween's grislier tone.

The Batman2022

A live-action, three-hour descent into detective work over punch-ups, with Robert Pattinson's Batman chasing a serial killer through a rain-soaked, riddle-obsessed Gotham that owes an enormous debt to this story.

But It's considerably longer and grimmer, with a pace that tests patience even for committed noir fans.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Maltese Falcon1941

Strip the cape off Gotham and you get Hammett's world exactly - a cynical detective threading through corruption and femme fatales that Sam Spade invented on screen eighty years before Bruce Wayne ever put on a mask.

Bogart's Sam Spade is the blueprint for every hardboiled detective who came after, navigating crooked cops, gangsters and liars with nothing but nerve and a sharp tongue.

But It's black-and-white, dialogue-driven and unhurried - no costumes, no powers, just talk and consequence.

Batman Begins2005

Christopher Nolan's origin story gives you the mob-controlled Gotham and the birth of Batman's war on organized crime, with a score and sense of gravity that still holds up.

But It's a different continuity entirely and leans harder into action-blockbuster spectacle than mystery.

Batman: Under the Red Hood2010no page yet

Jensen Ackles, who voices Batman here, plays the opposite role in this one - Jason Todd's vengeful Red Hood - in one of the best-regarded animated Batman films, heavy with grief and moral fury.

But It's more about legacy and revenge than whodunit mystery, so the detective-story itch may go unscratched.

Se7en1995

A relentless procedural with two detectives chasing a methodical serial killer whose crimes follow a grim, escalating logic, echoing the calendar-murder structure at this story's core.

But It's unremittingly bleak with no costumed hero to soften the horror - go in braced.

Zodiac2007

David Fincher's obsessive true-crime procedural follows investigators chasing a real unsolved serial killer across years, capturing the same slow-burn dread of a mystery that refuses to resolve neatly.

But Nearly three hours long with almost no action and a deliberately unresolved ending that frustrates some viewers.

L.A. Confidential1997

A twisty noir where corrupt cops, mob money and Hollywood glamour tangle together, told with the same appetite for institutional rot that runs through Gotham's police and DA's office.

But The ensemble cast and interlocking plotlines take real concentration to track early on.

Chinatown1974

The noir template itself - a private detective pulled into a conspiracy far bigger than he realizes, with a fatalism and moral rot that Gotham's crime bosses would recognize instantly.

But The 1970s pacing and dialogue-heavy style will feel slow next to modern crime thrillers.

The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst2015

Swap the masked vigilante for a documentary filmmaker and Harvey Dent's crusade against the untouchable rich for a real one - both are studies in how far money insulates someone from consequence, and what it finally costs to break through it.

A real, obsessive investigation into a wealthy, possibly murderous man who's spent decades untouchable, told across six unbearably tense episodes with an ending that genuinely happened.

But No score swells, no costumes - just interviews and court footage accumulating dread slowly, which some viewers find too clinical.

The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst poster

Dick Tracy1990no page yet

Same DNA as this story - a detective hunting a city's organized crime through garish villains and yellow trench coats - just pitched at the volume Bob Kane's Gotham was originally imagined at, before the shadows crept in.

Warren Beatty's lurid, primary-colour take on the same pulp mythology - an incorruptible detective versus grotesquely nicknamed mob bosses - played at full comic-strip volume with production design to match.

But It's broad, campy and family-friendly where Long Halloween is grim, and the tonal whiplash might be jarring.