"Tim Burton. Right... Lots of eyeliner... Vertical stripes... Danny Elfman... Daddy issues... Blonde ingenue..."
Timothy Walter Burton (born August 25, 1958) is an American animator, film director and producer, and the king of the Perky Goths.
He studied at CalArts before being hired as a Disney animator, working together with Andreas Deja. Before rising to fame, he made a live-action short adaptation of "Hansel and Gretel", the animated short Vincent (narrated by a personal idol of his, Vincent Price), the original short version of "Frankenweenie" and "Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp" for Shelley Duvall's Faerie Tale Theatre.
Burton's signature style usually combines creepy situations with childlike wonder and a morbid sense of humor. His work tends to combine goth aesthetics (black and white sets and protagonists that harken back to German Expressionism, Gothic Horror, Creepy Shadowed Undereyes, spooky monsters and the like) with high-kitsch suburban settings.
Feature films & other works directed by Burton
- Vincent (1982)
- Hansel and Gretel (1983) - TV special created for The Disney Channel and starring an all-Asian cast. He doesn't like to talk about it.
- Frankenweenie (1984) - Live action short. Later remade into an animated feature (see below).
- Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985)
- Beetlejuice
- Beetlejuice (1988)
- Beetlejuice 2 (2024)
- Batman Film Series:
- Batman (1989)
- Batman Returns (1992)
- Edward Scissorhands (1990)
- Ed Wood (1994)
- Mars Attacks! (1996)
- Sleepy Hollow (1999)
- Planet of the Apes (2001)
- Big Fish (2003)
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)
- Corpse Bride (2005; co-director)
- Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)
- Alice in Wonderland (2010)
- Dark Shadows (2012)
- Frankenweenie (2012; a remake of Burton's 1984 short)
- Big Eyes (2014)
- Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2016)
- Dumbo (2019)
- Wednesday (2022)
Other Works Burton was involved in:
- Amazing Stories (1986) - Character designs for the episode Family Dog.
- The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) - Character designs and story. Contrary to popular belief, he did not direct it, Henry Selick did. Burton did intend to direct that film, but production on Batman Returns and pre-production on Ed Wood got in the way. Burton would also co-produce Selick's next film, 1996's James and the Giant Peach and the feature-length version of Shane Acker's 9.
- Batman Forever (1995) - Credited as a producer, though his only real involvement was appearing in a few meetings and approving the screenwriters before leaving the project altogether. Notably, he had no involvement whatsoever with Batman & Robin, the next (and final) film in the series.
- The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories (1997) - Collection of poems which he wrote and illustrated.
- The World Of Stainboy (2000) - Six-episode animated web series based on one of the characters from Oyster Boy.
- A series of Timex Watch commercials.
Tropes applying to Tim Burton and his work.
- Adam Westing: Plays up his eccentricity in a commercial for Samsung Galaxy S II
as the director of a movie adaptation of a dark, quirky mobile app game."Did you know that the unicorn is technically a goat?" - Associated Composer: Danny Elfman. Who else? The two had a falling out over Batman Returns and The Nightmare Before Christmas, leading to Howard Shore scoring Ed Wood before Elfman returned for Mars Attacks!; Elfman was also unavailable for Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children due to being too busy with Alice Through the Looking Glass.
- Auteur License: He got his after Batman (1989) hit it big.
- Author Avatar: One gets the sense that he is the main character in many of his own movies. Maybe the most obvious was Edward Scissorhands, whose main character was a messy haired Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette with a macabre look about him who had trouble fitting in. This goes double if played by Johnny Depp — one Hollywood producer explained that "Basically, Johnny Depp is playing Tim Burton in all his movies." Depp actually agreed.
- Bizarrchitecture: This trope often crosses over with Scenery Porn.
- Black Comedy: Some of his movies in varying degrees, especially Mars Attacks!.
- The Cameo: He doesn't cameo in his own films, but he has a classic one in Singles.
- He does cameo in Pee-Wee's Big Adventure as the leader of the gang of thugs who accost Pee-Wee in the alley early in the movie.
- Central Theme: His films are usually about isolation, individuality, loneliness and finding your inner self.
- Chekhov's Armoury: On a regular basis.
- Circus of Fear: While not outright coulrophobic, he's terrified of circuses, and loves to play off of this. It crops up in Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, Beetlejuice, both of the Batman films he directed, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and Mars Attacks!, among others. Subverted in Big Fish, whose circus people are genuinely friendly folks (although the ringmaster is a werewolf).
- Creator Breakdown: He hated drawing Dixey, the love interest in The Fox and the Hound, because he found it dull.
- Creator Thumbprint: As listed at the trope entry, there's unusual hands, German Expressionism, dogs, Goth Spirals, and stripes. To a lesser extent, snowy settings, especially if Christmas is involved. Above all these, he loves protagonists who are outcasts in some way.
- He also seems to like casting his attractive girlfriends alongside much hotter male leads. He also seems to like killing off (Mars Attacks! (shot), Sleepy Hollow (iron maiden), Sweeney Todd (roasted alive), or at least giving a less than happy ending to said girlfriends (Big Fish (spinster cat lady), Alice in Wonderland (exiled), Dark Shadows (seemingly killed and dumped in the ocean, but survived), and Planet of the Apes (then girlfriend Lisa Marie and future girlfriend Helena Bonham-Carter were implied to be erased from history). On the positive side, in Ed Wood Lisa Marie played a woman completely annoyed by the main character and so embarassed to be in his schlock, she wanted no lines.
- His biggest Author Appeal might be Johnny Depp.
- He has a deep appreciation for kitsch. Remember that he grew up in Burbank in the 1960s, which resembled the exact kind of pastel cookie-cutter neighborhood seen in Edward Scissorhands and where the only way to know about the changing of the seasons was to look at the holiday decorations at the local convenience store.
- As character design goes, he frequently includes Messy Hair (much like his own), Undeathly Pallor, Creepy Shadowed Undereyes, and unusual menswear (including exaggerated hats).
- Creepy Children Singing: Very common in his films, especially the ones scored by Danny Elfman.
- Darker and Edgier: Pee-wee's Big Adventure was actually quite colorful and kid friendly, at least compared to Burton's later work. This makes sense, as most studios wouldn’t allow a first-time director to go all-out in terms of their own vision. Beetlejuice began to introduce darker and more adult elements, and Burton's output only increased in edginess from that point until we got the almost nihilistic Batman Returns in 1992. Following that he returned to his comedic roots with Ed Wood and Mars Attacks!.
- Dark Is Not Evil: It can be benign, world weary, friendly, helpful — even lovable. That said, when dark is evil, or at least angry, watch out.
- Deliberately Monochrome: Ed Wood and Frankenweenie are in outright black and white, Halloween Town in The Nightmare Before Christmas only has touches of color, Sweeney Todd is shot in mostly desaturated colors, and the living world in Corpse Bride is much grayer than the world of the dead.
- Dutch Angle: Crops up in a majority of his films, ranging from blatantly obvious to the blink and you'll miss it variety. For particular examples, please examine Batman (1989) and The Nightmare Before Christmas.
- Flashback: These figure in Batman, Edward Scissorhands, Sleepy Hollow, Big Fish (as an alternate explanation of some of the father's stories), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Sweeney Todd, Alice in Wonderland (2010), and Dark Shadows (whew!).
- German Expressionism: His aesthetic style is completely derived from this film movement.
- Goth Spirals: One of his signature motifs, which he subverts when it even pops up in his less spooky films. Look closely at the page picture; he even has one in his hair.
- The Grotesque: Edward Scissorhands is an excellent modern example. The Penguin in Batman Returns is a cruel subversion — he masquerades as this to gain sympathy and make a grab for power.
- Heterosexual Life-Partner: His house is apparently divided down the middle, one half for his (now former) wife (Helena Bonham Carter) and his two children, and the other for BFF Johnny Depp.
- Loners Are Freaks: It seems like he dedicated almost all of his movies to invert the trope.
- Looks Like Cesare: Not only does Burton himself look like this, so do Edward Scissorhands and Sweeney Todd.
- Looks Like Orlok: The Penguin.
- Misunderstood Loner with a Heart of Gold: With Edward Scissorhands as the trope codifier.
- Nightmare Face: Burton usually manages to sneak at least one into his movies somewhere. For example, Large Marge in Pee-wee's Big Adventure, the newscaster who takes Smilex in Batman (1989), the witch in the forest in Sleepy Hollow, Jack scaring Lock, Shock, and Barrel in The Nightmare Before Christmas, Beetlejuice, (many examples), the twins in Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children and so on and so forth. Even in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory the young Wonka sports a rather nightmarish set of braces.
- Our Monsters Are Different: Many of Burton's protagonists consist of characters who are viewed as terrifying to other characters, but they're actually the heroes of the piece, even if what they do is not in tune with everyone else.
- Person as Verb: "Burtonesque" is often used to describe something with a gothic, quirky style.
- Perky Goth: While he may not be the Trope Namer, he is a stand out. He loves building his films around something in the gothic and the macabre, but Burton himself is a very peace-loving Nice Guy.
- Production Posse: A lot of his filmography from the 90s (Edward Scissorhands) to the early 2010s (Dark Shadows) featured Johnny Depp as a leading man. Often also starring Helena Bonham Carter
- Recycled Trailer Music: The scores for Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, Edward Scissorhands, and The Nightmare Before Christmas turn up as the music to trailers for other films quite often.
- Retraux: Many of his films are made to look as if they're set during the forties, fifties, or sixties (the years of Burton's childhood and his parents' adolescence), with contemporary elements seeded throughout.
- Scenery Porn: It's not for nothing that Batman, Sleepy Hollow, Sweeney Todd and Alice in Wonderland won Art Direction Oscars.
- Show, Don't Tell: A master at this. It's been said if you leave the dialogue out, his films work splendidly as silent films. The fans of his Batman films say this gives them an advantage over the Nolan films, which have been criticized over their excessive exposition.
- Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: A somewhat tongue-in-cheek one to Kevin Smith, who spent several years publicly picking on Burton for indirectly getting him kicked off of the failed Superman reboot, Superman Lives (often autographing copies of the script which fans would bring to him with "PS, fuck Tim Burton"). When Smith half-jokingly accused Burton of ripping off one of his comic books for Planet of the Apes, Burton, when asked for comments, gave the uncharacteristically nasty response of "Anyone who knows me knows I would never read anything written by Kevin Smith." Smith put this quote on the back of his autobiography. They eventually put it behind them, according to Smith.
- Signature Style: Johnny Depp and/or Helena Bonham Carter, and Looks Like Cesare. Even Alice's characters all looked like they needed more sleep.
- Christopher Lee also appeared in many of his Turn of the Millennium-era films before Lee's death.
- Goth Spirals
- His especially distinct drawing style. His puppet and drawing designs are instantly recognizable: characters with big white onion or almond shaped heads and big eyes, monsters with long and thin jaws◊...
- The color red stands out in his films.
- The man loves stripes, especially black and white ones.
- Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism: While Batman Returns and Sweeney Todd can be more on the cynical end, most of his films are on the idealistic end of the scale despite his dark and weird movies and characters.
- Technician Versus Performer: The performer. His films are more known for their style than their stories; they are there, but they tend to be simpler tales, and the more complex ones, like Alice, tend to be weaker.
- Troubled Backstory Flashback: Bruce Wayne in Batman (1989), the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland (2010), Ichabod Crane in Sleepy Hollow, Edward in Edward Scissorhands, Emily (via song) in Corpse Bride, Willy Wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (who kind of lampshades it) Sweeney Todd, and Maggie (Victoria) in Dark Shadows.
