--- title: "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" year: 2016 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/batman-v-superman-dawn-of-justice" fi1m_score: 44 critics_score: 41 critics_reviews: 13 published: "2026-09-19T11:49:45.060689+00:00" updated: "2026-09-19T11:49:54.690343+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) Directed by Zack Snyder · 2h 32m · MPA PG-13 · Action, Adventure, Fantasy **Fi1m score: 44** · Critics 41 from 13 reviews *In a sentence:* Two rich orphans spend two and a half hours refusing to sit down and talk, and the city pays for it > Ben Affleck’s bruised, brutal Batman and ten good minutes of Gal Gadot give Zack Snyder’s 152-minute collision a spine it never uses. The script runs four stories and several dreams at once, and the climax is a computer-made brawl in the dark. ## Synopsis Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) is in Metropolis the day Superman fights General Zod above the city, and watches a Wayne Financial tower fall on his own employees. Eighteen months later he is back in Gotham, across the bay, branding the criminals he catches while Alfred (Jeremy Irons) patches him up and objects. In Metropolis, Clark Kent (Henry Cavill) is Superman and is summoned to Washington by Senator Finch (Holly Hunter) to answer for the damage he leaves behind. Lois (Amy Adams) chases a strange bullet from a desert firefight. Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg) has fished a lump of kryptonite out of the Indian Ocean and wants a licence to bring it home. At a party at Luthor’s house, Bruce meets Diana Prince (Gal Gadot), who is after the same thing he is. ## Review Zack Snyder’s *Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice* runs 152 minutes, and the best ten of them come first. Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) drives into Metropolis while the battle from *Man of Steel* is still overhead, gets out of his car and runs towards the dust, and the Wayne Financial tower comes down in front of him. Larry Fong shoots it from the pavement and David Brenner cuts it without a slow-motion flourish. For once Snyder shows us what his cities cost from the ground, and the film has a grievance it then spends two hours failing to build on. Affleck is the reason to stay. His Bruce Wayne is heavy, grey at the temples and openly cruel; he brands the criminals he catches. Jeremy Irons plays Alfred as a mechanic who has stopped pretending to approve, and their scenes in the glass lake house are the only ones where two people talk like adults. Michael Wilkinson gives Batman a bulky, plated suit and Affleck moves in it like a man who has been hit a great deal. One warehouse fight is cut by Brenner as a single readable brawl, the cleanest hand-to-hand action the character has been given on screen. The Superman half is thinner. Chris Terrio and David S. Goyer’s script gives Clark Kent (Henry Cavill) a fair question, put to him by Senator Finch (Holly Hunter) at a hearing: who asked him to do this, and to whom does he answer? Cavill can play the doubt but is handed almost no lines to play it with, and Lois (Amy Adams) spends the film carrying a bullet from one expert to another. Hunter is dry and good and gone too soon. Then there is Lex Luthor. Jesse Eisenberg plays him as a tech founder mid-breakdown, all tics and unfinished sentences, and he seems to be in a different, sillier film. We can see the argument: the one man in the picture who is not grieving should be unbearable. But every line is a riff, and by the end we wanted him to finish a thought. He is not frightening, and the plot needs him to be. Structure is where it comes apart. The script runs a Batman story, a Superman story, a Luthor story and Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) at the edges of all three, and Brenner cuts between them so often that none breathes. Bruce keeps falling into dreams: a desert under a black sky, winged creatures, soldiers wearing his own insignia. They are handsome, mean nothing to anyone who has not read the studio’s plans, and we sat through them bored, then irritated at being set homework for films that did not yet exist. Gadot is a pleasure whenever she is on screen, and when Junkie XL and Hans Zimmer hand her a snarling electric riff the film wakes up for the length of the shot. The fight in the title arrives late, lasts a few minutes and rests on reasons the script has assembled rather than earned. What follows we will not describe, except that the film stops being about two men and becomes a grey computer-generated brawl in a floodlit ruin, Fong’s greens and greys turning to mud and Patrick Tatopoulos’s wrecked Gotham buried under more wreckage. The last forty minutes are loud, dim and long. Snyder’s [*Watchmen*](https://film.one/tv/watchmen-2019) was also long, solemn and about what a mask does to the person wearing it, and it worked because Alan Moore had done the thinking first. Here the thinking has been split between two writers and a franchise plan, and what reaches the screen is a set of good images without a story to hold them. Most critics were harder on it than we are, and we understand why: it has no jokes and its heroes kill. But Affleck and Gadot deserved better from the reception as well as the script. Watch it for the first hour, for Affleck and Irons, and for the moments Gadot is allowed into it. The 12A is right; there is a great deal of death and almost no blood. A longer cut exists; at 152 minutes this one feels like two films stapled together. *Fi1m score 44, published 19 September 2026.* ### Reviews we read (13) - **Los Angeles Times**, Kenneth Turan (70/100, inferred): The critic describes the film as a gritty superhero showdown that goes on too long but praises the adept script for raising interesting issues and the convincing portrayal of a despairing, decaying Batman. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-batman-superman-review-20160325-column.html) - **The Guardian** (70/100, inferred): The film successfully merges the worlds of Batman and Superman while setting up future franchises, with Ben Affleck acquitting himself well as a careworn Batman. Gotham and Metropolis stand out more than the lead performances, and the visual polish is effective even if subtlety is lacking. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/mar/22/batman-v-superman-dawn-of-justice-review-ben-affleck-henry-cavill) - **Radio Times**, Jeremy Aspinall (★★★): Praises the spectacular if overstuffed epic for its wow moments, particularly Gal Gadot's showstopping Wonder Woman debut and Ben Affleck as the class act in the role of an older, wiser Batman, while noting Cavill is somewhat overshadowed. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movies/batman-v-superman-dawn-of-justice-review-ben-affleck-is-the-class-act-in-this-spectacular-if-overstuffed-epic/) - **Empire**, Nick de Semlyen (30/100, inferred): The film delivers a visually striking but overly solemn and narratively cluttered spectacle that doubles down on the gloom of Man of Steel. It introduces an intriguing new Batman and features a satisfying central fight, but the story is wonky, lacks fun, and ends with generic CGI overkill. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/batman-v-superman-dawn-justice-review/) - **Screen Daily** (30/100, inferred): Describes the film as crammed to bursting, loud, sprawling and distracted, gorging on bombast and self-importance while swamped by its own mythology, with action that jumps around and hard for performances to register amid the pounding beats. [Read](https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/batman-v-superman-dawn-of-justice-review/5101801.article) - **Sight and Sound**, Kim Newman (30/100, inferred): The critic finds the film overly long and dim-lit, criticizing its focus on might over right and the unredeemable, homicidal portrayal of the heroes in a monotonous spectacle of fights and destruction that opens and closes with funerals. [Read](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/batman-v-superman-dawn-justice-review) - **Slant Magazine**, Christopher Gray (30/100, inferred): The critic sees the film as an origin story and harbinger of an overpopulated expanded universe, leaving the impression that Man of Steel was the last pure superhero movie. He praises some striking images and performances by Cavill and Affleck but criticizes the ultimately pointless narrative driven by commercial motives. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/batman-v-superman-dawn-of-justice/) - **The Hollywood Reporter**, Todd McCarthy (30/100, inferred): The critic describes the film as a lumbering steamroller that is big but not fun. He singles out Jesse Eisenberg's intensely annoying Lex Luthor as a major flaw that disrupts the solemn atmosphere. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/batman-v-superman-dawn-justice-review-877477/) - **Total Film** (30/100, inferred): Ben Affleck’s Dark Knight and Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman are welcome additions, but the title fight fails to live up to expectations or its comics heritage. The film is at its best when the heroes are apart; the clash itself feels like an anti-climax that never fully earns the animosity or justifies the hype. [Read](https://www.gamesradar.com/batman-v-superman-dawn-of-justice-review/) - **Time Out**, Joshua Rothkopf (10/100, inferred): The reviewer sees it as a lumbering, strenuously empty blockbuster lacking humor, self-deprecation, strong performances and human stakes, with inert leads and an annoying Lex Luthor that feels like a tombstone for the genre. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/batman-v-superman-dawn-of-justice) - **Den of Geek**, Don Kaye (3/5): The critic finds the film a mixed bag: a big, unwieldy mess but not un-entertaining, with a patchwork script and excessive world-building. Strong praise goes to the casting, particularly Ben Affleck's Batman and Jesse Eisenberg's Lex Luthor. [Read](https://www.denofgeek.com/comics/batman-v-superman-dawn-of-justice-review/) - **/Film**, Peter Sciretta (6/10): The first hour delivers a strong visual feast and promising setup, but the overstuffed final stretch turns into a messy mash-up of plots and Justice League teases. The critic preferred the preceding Man of Steel. [Read](https://www.slashfilm.com/543331/batman-v-superman-review/) - **Collider**, Matt Goldberg (D): The critic finds the film a convoluted mess that buries interesting ideas about heroism under poor storytelling and unlikeable characters, particularly a murderous Batman and underdeveloped Superman. They single out the lack of nuance and joy in Snyder's direction as a major flaw. [Read](https://collider.com/batman-v-superman-review/) ## Details - **Director:** Zack Snyder - **Director:** Zack Snyder - **Screenplay:** Chris Terrio, David S. Goyer - **Cinematography:** Larry Fong - **Editor:** David Brenner - **Music:** Hans Zimmer, Junkie XL - **Production design:** Patrick Tatopoulos - **Costume design:** Michael Wilkinson - **Producer:** Charles Roven, Deborah Snyder - **Cast:** Ben Affleck as Bruce Wayne / Batman; Henry Cavill as Clark Kent / Superman; Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor; Gal Gadot as Diana Prince / Wonder Woman; Amy Adams as Lois; Diane Lane as Martha Kent; Laurence Fishburne as Perry White; Jeremy Irons as Alfred - **Runtime:** 2h 32m - **Certificate (MPA):** PG-13 - **Release (the US):** 25 March 2016 - **Genres:** Action, Adventure, Fantasy - **Budget:** $250 million - **Box office:** $874 million - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9EkdAHqtvU ## Where to watch in the US - HBO Max: streaming, uhd - The Roku Channel: add-on, hd - Amazon Prime Video: add-on, uhd - Hulu: add-on, hd - Apple TV: rent $3.99, hd - Amazon Prime Video: rent $4.99, uhd - Apple TV: buy $7.99, hd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $12.99, uhd *Checked 2026-09-19.* Also available in: AE, AR, AT, AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EC, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, HK, HR, HU, ID, IE, IL, IN, IS, IT, JP, KR, LT, MX, MY, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PE, PH, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, TH, TR, UA, US, VN, ZA. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off or Sequel 2017: Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off or Sequel (won) - Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Screen Couple/Ensemble 2017: Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Screen Couple/Ensemble (won) - Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Screenplay 2017: Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Screenplay (won) - Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actor - Razzie Award 2017: Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actor - Razzie Award (won) - Kids' Choice Award for Favorite Movie 2017: Kids' Choice Award for Favorite Movie (nominated) - Golden Trailer Awards 2016: Golden Trailer Awards (won) ## If you liked this - *Watchmen* (2009): Snyder’s earlier long, solemn masked-men film, with a story that holds - *Unbreakable* (2000), Fi1m 81: A superhero origin told quietly, in ordinary rooms, by people who doubt it — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/unbreakable.md) - *Batman: Mask of the Phantasm* (1993), Fi1m 82: Seventy-six animated minutes that understand Bruce Wayne better than most live-action attempts — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/batman-mask-of-the-phantasm.md) - *Superman* (1978): The case for a Superman who smiles, made without apology - *Man of Steel* (2013): The predecessor whose collapsing city this film opens by walking through --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/batman-v-superman-dawn-of-justice