Keaton scored a dual triumph in 1988 with roles in "Clean and Sober" and "Beetlejuice", which jointly earned him a best actor award from the National Society of Film Critics. "Clean and Sober" showcased Keaton's serious dramatic talent, in a finely observed story about a cocaine addict coming to terms with his addiction; "Beetlejuice" featured Keaton as a roach-eating ghoul with a rotating head in a wildly inventive comic horror story that scored at the box office. The latter film also marked the beginning of a professional relationship with director Tim Burton which has encompassed the blockbuster hits "Batman" (1989) and "Batman Returns" (1992), both more notable for their production design and colorful supporting performances than for Keaton's mysterious, often dour title character--indeed, due to the productions penchant for focusing on the over-the-top villains, the actor opted out of future "Batman" films, though he is widely considered to be the best of the actors to play the Dark Knight on the big screen. Despite his comedic image going in, Keaton effectively brought an intensity and realistic quality to the superhero that helped the Batman character evolve in the eye of popular culture from the buffoonish comedian of the camp 1960s TV series into a brooding, dangerous creature of the night.

Keaton proved a formidable villain in the uneven "Pacific Heights" (1990) as a mysteriously vindictive tenant who terrorizes his unsuspecting landlords, and demonstrated his flair with Shakespearean verse in Kenneth Branagh's crowd-pleasing film of "Much Ado About Nothing" (1993). In "My Life" (1993) Keaton turned in a touching portrait of a dying man who makes videotapes of his life so that his unborn child can one day know its father. He then put his knack for comic timing to good use as an aggressive if slightly unscrupulous metro editor in "The Paper" (1994), his third outing with director Howard. But even his impressive comedic gifts didn't help when he appeared up with Geena Davis in the timidly scripted "Speechless" (also 1994) as political speech writers who meet and fall in love only to discover that they work for rival candidates.

After a year-long hiatus, Keaton returned to the big screen in mildly amusing "Multiplicity" (1996), in which he played a beleaguered businessman who clones himself to cope with his busy life. He was then tapped by red-hot writer-dircter Quentin Tarantino to play the dedicated FBI agent Ray Nicolette in Tarantino's adaptation of the Elmore Leonard novel "Jackie Brown" (1997), and Keaton was "loaned out" to play the same character, this time serving as Jennifer Lopez's unsatisfying boyfriend, in another Leonard-derived project, Steven Soderberg's stylish "Out of Sight" (1998). Keaton's performance as a cunning but psychotic serial killer tapped as a bone marrow donor for the dying son of a cop (Andy Garcia) was the primary highlight of the thriller "Desperate Measures" (1998), but the actor made a major misstep when he played a negligent rock star father who bonds with his son only after he dies and returns as a snowman in the ridiculous and maudlin "Jack Frost" (1998).

Keaton slipped off the radar slightly, resurfacing in a well-acted supporting role as the American owner of a second tier Scottish football team who pressures the manager (Robert Duvall) to move the team from its long term home and take on a star player in the UK film "A Shot at Glory" (2000), and he appeared in the little-seen French-made thriller "Quicksand" (2001) playing a workaholic bank investigator who gets in over his head while dealing with a washed-up film star (Michael Caine).

The actor then turned in one of the best performances of his career in the HBO telepic "Live From Baghdad" (2002), playing real-life CNN producer Robert Wiener, who find himself navigating dangerous territory as he tries to televise coverage of the 1991 Gulf War in Iraq. Keaton earned his first Golden Globe nomination for his compelling turn. Then it was on to lighter-weight fare, playing the U.S. President with a particularly headstrong daughter (Katie Holmes) in the lightweight "First Daughter" (2004) and as a man contacted by his dead wife from the beyond via TV and radio static in the lackluster but profitable supernatural thriller "White Noise" (2004). Then in 2005, as yet another actor--this time Christian Bale--slipped behind the wheel of the Batmobile for the franchise revival "Batman Begins," Keaton was steering another famous big-screen car, Herbie the Love Bug, playing Lindsay Lohan's race car-driving father in Disney's "Herbie: Fully Loaded."