The Dark Knight by Christopher Nolan was an explosive blockbuster in 2008. People raised it so much not because of its spectacular visual achievement; it’s because of its story. The protagonist in the film is the Batman, Bruce Wayne, and the antagonist in the film is the joker. The film starts with a bank robbery. We see a group of robbers with mask. It gets audience into the story directly, and from the first scene, we get a quick idea of what kind of character the joker is.
The story is told basically in two parallel lines, one for Bruce Wayne, and the other one for the joker. This structure reminds me of some Michael Mann films, like Heat, and Public Enemies. Those films all have a long story line, and they also have several parallel story lines running at the same time. They all structured generally in the same way, which is:

 Protagonist/Antagonist story
 They have some conflicts
 They meet in a way without violence involved
 Protagonist/Antagonist story keeps going on
 Climax, big conflict.

I think this is a well-thought structure. For this structure, it requires a complicated protagonist and an also complicated antagonist, so that it can help establish the cause and effect. The story of The Dark Knight is actually quite simple if you look at it in a simple way. It’s just about how Batman takes the joker down and how he becomes the dark knight of the Gotham city. But if we have to add more details to it, then it will become way more complicated. However, we can break down the film, and divide them into parts. I’ll divide the story this way:

 how Batman deals with the mobs/ how Joker deals with the mobs
 Joker starts to offer Batman troubles
 Batman has to turn himself in
 Harvey Dent declares that he is the Batman
 Joker gets captures, Batman and Joker meet
 Harvey becomes depraved
 Joker escapes
 Joker kidnaps two ships
