Batman 

1989. USA/Great Britain. Directed by Tim Burton. Screenplay by Sam Hamm, Warren Skaaren. With Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Kim Basinger. Eschewing the campy aesthetic of previous Batman movies, Burton’s cerebral, witty take on the Caped Crusader reinvigorated the Batman franchise. Burton, along with production designer Anton Furst, applied his eye for inventive set design to psychologically darker material than in his previous films to create an iconically twisted, phantasmagorical Gotham City—a place unrecognizable to citizens of any city in the real world. 126 min.

Vincent 

1982. USA. Directed by Tim Burton. Screenplay by Tim Burton. With the voice of Vincent Price. This stop-motion animated short, in which a bored little suburban boy imagines a world worthy of Edgar Allan Poe, anticipates Burton’s flair for dramatic visuals and witty wordplay. 6 min.

Edward Scissorhands 

1990. USA. Directed by Tim Burton. Screenplay by Tim Burton, Caroline Thompson. With Johnny Depp, Winona Ryder, Dianne Wiest, Alan Arkin, Vincent Price. Arguably Burton’s most personal film, Edward Scissorhands delves into one of his most recurrent themes: disconnection from the world at large and the search for true identity. Edward, left alone in a hilltop castle after his creator’s sudden death, is Burton’s most literal stand-in for Frankenstein’s monster. Incapable of directly touching others with his razor-sharp fingers, he is the physical manifestation of spiritual isolation. When a kind Avon lady discovers him and introduces him to suburbia, his ability to shape things—hedges, hair, ice—into wondrous sculptures engenders a brief welcome. But his acceptance is short-lived in this parable of teenage angst and alienation. 105 min.

Batman Returns 

1992. USA. Directed by Tim Burton. Screenplay by Sam Hamm, Daniel Waters. With Michael Keaton, Danny DeVito, Michelle Pfeiffer. The sequel surpasses the original as Burton plumbs deeper into the Dark Knight’s psyche. The complex villains Catwoman (a mousy, put-upon secretary who unleashes her inner ferocity while teetering on the edge of sanity) and the Penguin (who embraces his rage and penchant for chaos while secretly craving the acceptance he never received from his parents) contribute surprising emotional depth to the comic-book setting. 126 min.

Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas 

1993. USA. Directed by Henry Selick. Story and characters by Tim Burton. Screenplay by Michael McDowell, Caroline Thompson. With the voices of Danny Elfman, Chris Sarandon, Catherine O’Hara. With its ghoulish imagery and manic-depressive antihero, The Nightmare Before Christmas straddles the line between grim children’s fable and gentle horror story. Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King of Halloween Town, has grown weary of his crown. Obsessed with his recent discovery of this thing called “Christmas,” he attempts to shake off his malaise by usurping the mantle of “Sandy Claws” instead. 76 min.

Frankenweenie 

1984. USA. Directed by Tim Burton. With the voices of Shelley Duvall, Daniel Stern, Barret Oliver. Transporting Mary Shelley’s classic tale to Southern California, Burton imagines Frankenstein’s monster in the form of a reanimated family pet. 29 min.

Ed Wood  

1994. USA. Directed by Tim Burton. Screenplay by Scott Alexander, Larry Karaszewski, based on Nightmare of Ecstasy by Rudolph Grey. With Johnny Depp, Martin Landau. In this offbeat biopic, Burton depicts the titular “World’s Worst Director” with equal amounts of mockery and sympathy. Although unquestionably portrayed as a filmmaker who relied more on gumption than talent, Burton’s Ed Wood is also an earnest man with an absolute belief in his vision and craft. Armed with pure optimism in the face of abject humiliation and rejection, he is the embodiment of hope, Burton’s nod to uncompromising artistic integrity in the face of daunting obstacles. 127 min.

Mars Attacks! 

1996. USA. Directed by Tim Burton. Screenplay by Jonathan Gems, based on the Topps! trading-card series. With Jack Nicholson, Glenn Close, Annette Benning, Pierce Brosnan, Danny DeVito, Martin Short, Sarah Jessica Parker, Natalie Portman, Michael J. Fox. Aliens (of the green, bulbous-brained, bug-eyed variety) come to Earth, and they do not come in peace. Burton’s hilarious homage to—and parody of—1950s sci-fi B-movies features an ensemble of A-list actors who gamely inhabit outrageous characters in a series of vignettes that build to an apocalyptic climax. 106 min.

Sleepy Hollow 

1999. USA/Great Britain. Directed by Tim Burton. Screenplay by Andrew Kevin Walker, based on The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving. With Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci, Christopher Walken. Burton’s film transforms Irving’s folktale into a supernatural whodunit, and the original meek schoolteacher, Ichabod Crane, into a priggish New York City constable who is sent up the Hudson River to investigate a series of bizarre murders. The film’s macabre humor melds perfectly with the “stylized naturalism” of Burton’s sumptuous production and the addition of Expressionist flourishes to the Dutch Colonial setting. 105 min.

Planet of the Apes 

2001. USA. Directed by Tim Burton. Screenplay by William Broyles Jr., Lawrence Konner, Mark Rosenthal, based on La Planète des Singes by Pierre Boulle. With Mark Wahlberg, Tim Roth, Helena Bonham Carter. This adaptation of Boulle’s novel about humans in an ape-dominated world departs dramatically from Franklin J. Schaffner’s 1968 film version—so much so that it was coined a “reimagining” rather than a “remake.” Burton’s recurrent archetypes abound: his hero finds himself a misunderstood outcast among the native humans and their simian masters; and his ape ally Ari, a part of the established order who nonetheless calls for “human rights,” is a variation on the progressive women common in Burton’s films. 119 min.

Big Fish 

2003. USA. Directed by Tim Burton. Screenplay by John August, based on the novel by Daniel Wallace. With Ewan McGregor, Albert Finney, Billy Crudup. On his deathbed, Edward Bloom retells his life through exaggerated tall tales. This lifelong habit of subjective recollection alienates him from his son Will, who longs to know his “real” father. Burton’s adaptation shifts the focus and sympathy toward the elder Bloom, a character who fits the mold of Burton’s archetype of the flawed and imperfect, yet revered, father. Edward is finally redeemed in his son’s eyes only when the younger Bloom realizes that manipulated and invented reality is often preferable to "the real world." 125 min.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory 

2005. USA/Great Britain. Directed by Tim Burton. Screenplay by John August, based the book by Roald Dahl. With Johnny Depp, Freddie Highmore, Helena Bonham Carter. Simultaneously one of Burton’s funniest and most poignant films, this perfect union of the sensibilities of Burton and Dahl is filled with unapologetic whimsy, a delight in gruesome humor, and the enduring appeal of the fancies and freedoms of childhood 115 min.

Corpse Bride 

2005. USA/Great Britain. Directed by Tim Burton, Mike Johnson. Screenplay by John August, Caroline Thompson, Pamela Pettler. With the voices of Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Emily Watson. For his second feature-length stop-motion film, Burton transformed a nineteenth-century European folktale about a man caught between two women—one breathing, one not so much—into a musical filled with exquisitely crafted characters who prove that what appears frightening is often just misunderstood. 76 min.

Sweeney Todd 

2007. USA/Great Britain. Directed by Tim Burton. Screenplay by John Logan, based on the musical by Stephen Sondheim. With Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman. Burton’s filmic adaptation of Sondheim’s tale of tonsorial terror is replete with the filmmaker’s recurrent visual and thematic motifs. The musical numbers allow for fantastic set pieces that alternate between light and dark, revelatory and horrific, and the twisted narrative sets comedy amid the grotesque. 116 min.

Vincent 

1982. USA. Directed by Tim Burton. Screenplay by Tim Burton. With the voice of Vincent Price. This stop-motion animated short, in which a bored little suburban boy imagines a world worthy of Edgar Allan Poe, anticipates Burton’s flair for dramatic visuals and witty wordplay. 6 min.

Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas 

1993. USA. Directed by Henry Selick. Story and characters by Tim Burton. Screenplay by Michael McDowell, Caroline Thompson. With the voices of Danny Elfman, Chris Sarandon, Catherine O’Hara. With its ghoulish imagery and manic-depressive antihero, The Nightmare Before Christmas straddles the line between grim children’s fable and gentle horror story. Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King of Halloween Town, has grown weary of his crown. Obsessed with his recent discovery of this thing called “Christmas,” he attempts to shake off his malaise by usurping the mantle of “Sandy Claws” instead. 76 min.

Pee-wee’s Big Adventure 

1985. USA. Tim Burton. 90 min.

Beetlejuice 

1988. USA. Tim Burton. 92 min.