Both The Dark Knight and Man on Wire were phenomenally successful at the box office this past weekend. The former, a huge Hollywood blockbuster based on a comic book, broke the record for greatest second weekend ever and the record for quickest movie to break the $300 million mark. The latter, an award-winning documentary about a man who walked a tightrope between the Twin Towers, had the best non-IMAX per-screen average and the best opening for a documentary so far this year.

But the two films have more in common than their box office achievements, and I detail ten similarities between them below. My reason for the comparisons––some of which are, I admit, a bit of a stretch––is not just for the amusement of highlighting parallels between a blockbuster and a documentary. Rather, I hope that this list will encourage the millions of people who saw The Dark Knight to also seek out and watch Man on Wire, which is by far my favorite film of the year, so far, and is quite possibly the best doc I’ve seen in years.

Man on Wire certainly features everything that’s entertaining about The Dark Knight — save for a posthumous performance from Heath Ledger — though it does have a terrific posthumous performance by the World Trade Center. And it also appeals to moviegoers who aren’t into comic book movies (even those as non-comic-book-movie-like as TDK), too.

1. Criminal Clowns - Man on Wire’s Philippe Petit and The Dark Knight’s Joker (Heath Ledger) are each a form of jester jailed for unlawful acts. Petit doesn’t kill anyone, of course, and The Joker exhibits no ability to juggle, perform magic tricks or ride on a unicycle. Yet the two clowns share a common bond: neither can really answer the question of why they do what they do. Sure, their respective motives may be labeled — Petit acts out of pure passion; The Joker is an agent for chaos — but not in any way that satisfies the police or media. Man on Wire’s inclusion of a hilarious press conference held by the NYPD wins points over The Dark Knight’s cliché use of anger-filled interrogation scene.
2. Height-Induced Thrills - It may not seem in theory that Petit’s tightrope walks would compare to Batman’s IMAX-friendly skyscraper scaling, rooftop emoting, Skyhook airlifting and building-plunging Rachel rescuing, but I definitely felt more thrill watching the sequences in Man on Wire of Petit conquering the air between the towers of Notre Dame, the Sydney Harbour Bridge and especially the World Trade Center. Maybe it’s the reality of these events and the fact that there were no special effects used in the footage atop the Twin Towers that make them more exciting than anything in The Dark Knight.
3. Heist Opening - The first six minutes of The Dark Knight is an incredible little heist film on its own — enough that it worked separately when previewed ahead of I Am Legend back in December. Similarly, Man on Wire details what seems like a bank robbery — or a terrorist attack — in its first few minutes before the opening credits. It’s hard to say which sequence is better, either on its own or as part of the big picture. I guess as a consolation prize, I should let The Dark Knight win this one, but after considering the continuation of the “heist” in Man on Wire, particularly the moments involving Petit and one of his accomplice’s lengthy dealings with a security guard on the top floor of the South Tower, it’s the documentary hands down (and 415 meters high).
4. Response to 9/11 - One of the celebrated elements of The Dark Knight is the way it utilizes post-9/11 topics like surveillance, torture and other anti-terrorist measures. On the other end of the spectrum, Man on Wire appears to have been made because of the loss of the World Trade Center. The film is as much a love letter to the Twin Towers as it is a portrait of Petit and his high wire passion. Also, as noted above, some of the “heist” sequences parallel the Towers’ terrorist attacks, including the 1993 bombing. One thing that amazed me, though, was Man on Wire’s lack of direct acknowledgment of even the fact that the Towers no longer exist. A number of other documentarians would have surely put in a shot of Ground Zero or, worse, exploited the footage of the planes hitting the buildings for the millionth time. Filmmaker James Marsh, on the other hand, avoids even asking Petit about his reaction to 9/11 (such a question is almost as pointless as asking Petit why he performed his incredible feats).
5. British Filmmaker - The Dark Knight was co-written and directed by London-born Christopher Nolan, while Man on Wire was helmed by James Marsh, originally from Cornwall. This is a rather insignificant connection between the films, and one birthplace doesn’t seem to have any benefit over the other. In my opinion, though, looking at just these two films, Marsh is the better cinematic storyteller.
6. Medical-Related Fraud - One of the favorite parts of The Dark Knight is when The Joker is dressed in a nurse’s uniform, a masquerade used to gain access to a hospital room. One of the most amusing parts of Man on Wire is comparable: after Petit injures his foot and is forced to get around on crutches, he discovers that having a medical handicap gives him easier access through security. The fraud comes when he continues to take advantage of his injury and crutches even after he’s sufficiently healed.
7. Disguises and Hiding Places - More generally, both films include a lot of disguises and fake-outs. The Dark Knight has obvious costumes like the Batsuit and the Joker face paint and other acts of deception and hiding that I won’t spoil. Meanwhile, Man on Wire has that crutches trickery, undercover schemes in which Petit and friends masquerade as journalists and one of the greatest scenes involving two guys hiding under a tarp that you’ll ever see.
8. Girlfriend Who Has Difficulty Supporting the Decisions of the Hero - In The Dark Knight, Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) continue the discussion of how she can’t be with him as long as Gotham City (or Wayne) still needs Batman. In Man on Wire, we learn of the struggle that Petit’s girlfriend, Annie, goes through in dealing with the tightrope walker’s dangerous endeavors and, later, with the fame that comes with it. Due to the fact that Gyllenhaal is extremely lame in The Dark Knight, Annie easily wins this round.
9. Characters - The Dark Knight employs one of the greatest living character actors, Gary Oldman, and allows him to be as normal and real a guy as Oldman can possibly be. In fact, as many characters there are inhabiting the film, The Dark Knight grounds them, portraying them as more realistic than comic book movies tend to do. In contrast, Man on Wire features some real people that are such characters, it’s hard to believe they really truly exist. One look at Barry Greenhouse, and you’d believe it if I told you he just walked off the set of the ’60s Batman TV series. And he’s not the only oddball in the documentary. It’s as if the two movies switched ensembles.
10. The City as a Character - I don’t need to go too much into the way Gotham City is the real heroine of The Dark Knight, because our own Kevin Buist already did that quite nicely. But I will reiterate that Man on Wire is as much about the World Trade Center as it is about Petit — the WTC can be seen as the film’s heroine, I guess — and thanks to all the beautiful shots of New York from atop the Towers, you could say that in the documentary the city is also represented as a separate character. Maybe not as upfront as Gotham, but the Big Apple steals any movie she appears in.