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Standalone Adaptations · Elseworlds

Catwoman

Movie20041h 44m

A designer gains feline powers in an adaptation connected to no other DC film.

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Availability changes by country and by week, so this searches JustWatch rather than guessing.

Can you skip Catwoman?

Yes, on a first watch. It is self-contained, and nothing in the main DC story depends on it. Come back to it later if you want more. In chronological order, reaching it takes about 8h 42m of essential viewing across 4 titles. Show only the DC essentials.

Skippable, and it is barely an adaptation. The protagonist is not Selina Kyle, there is no Gotham and no Batman, and the plot concerns a cosmetics company marketing a face cream that disfigures anybody who stops using it. The connection to the character is a name and a costume.

The costume is the thing most people remember: a cut leather bodice, torn trousers and a mask, which bears no resemblance to any version in print and was widely mocked on release. The powers are delivered by a resurrecting Egyptian cat, explained in a scene with a woman who keeps dozens of them.

Halle Berry had won an Academy Award two years earlier and attended the Razzies in person to accept the award for this, holding her Oscar, which is a better piece of showmanship than anything in the film. She is not the problem. The direction is restless to the point of incoherence, with the basketball scene and the catwalk chase cut so fast they read as abstraction.

It is connected to nothing and referenced by nothing. Watch it only if you are curious about how bad a major studio superhero film could be before the genre consolidated.

DC guides

Where it sits in the DC order

Release order
#11 of 52
Chronological order
#11 of 52
Released
23 July 2004
In-universe era
Standalone Adaptations

What to watch next

In chronological order

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