Since the 1950s, DC Comics has been bringing its famous comic book characters to the big screen, starting with Superman in 1951. Since then, there have been plenty of attempts to showcase the heroes and villains of DC in their own films with some being overwhelmingly successful and others… not so much.
On top of its live-action film series, DC also has been extremely active in producing animated feature films for its cast and some of these have become more beloved than their real-life counterparts.
How many DC Movies are there?
There are 28 feature films produced by DC Comics and around 80 animated films. DC’s first time appearing in theatres was with Superman and the Mole Men in 1951.
The company found real success with its Tim Burton-directed Batman trilogy that received its first entry in 1989’s Batman. Following this, the studio attempted to bring other characters to the big screen with limited success, such as Steel and Catwoman. The next time that the studio struck gold was again using the Batman character, this time in Christopher Nolan’s trilogy for the character.
More recently, lesser-known stars of the comics have begun to get huge big screen recognition such as Shazam, Aquaman, and Harley Quinn. While there have been plenty of misses for DC in the film place, it found massive success with their solo film Joker which followed the notorious comic book villain in his own unique story disconnected from the DCEU.
Sticking the formula which at the time was having huge success, as well as being a method to tell further stories outside of the overall trilogy, Un 1993 DC released its first animated film, Batman: Mask of the Phantasm. The release schedule on the animated side of things has been extremely active, with the studio pumping out over 70 films in just under 30 years.
The animated films are often one-for-one retelling of events in the comic series and are a way for DC’s biggest characters to interact without the need for an expensive casting budget. So far in 2021, we’ve already had two animated films drop and the studio has plans to release three more before the year is out.
While there are plenty of movies we’ve already spoken about, DC has a whole variety of films that have released straight to TV or streaming services, as well as TV series based on its characters. There is no shortage of video content for DC fans in 2021.
