As the countdown starts for the release of the highly anticipated Dark Knight Rises, early reviews suggest that director Christopher Nolan may have bucked the trend and created a perfect trilogy.

The final chapter in Nolan's Batman series, which is released in the UK on 20 July, sees Christian Bale don the cowl for the last time as he takes on Tom Hardy's threatening, muscle-bound terrorist Bane.

The cast is buoyed by the inclusion of Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle, better known as Catwoman, while Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Gary Oldman all return.

The film looks set to be a financial smash, no matter the critical reception. In fact the BFI Imax in central London has sold out on almost all Batman screenings until September.

Despite the good early press, Nolan must be aware that the third film often represents the stumbling block for a film series. Sam Raimi's Spiderman series was the most recent to fall at the third hurdle, while the original Batman series hit the buffers at 1995's Batman Forever.

Nolan drew critical acclaim for his dark reboot of the comic book series with 2005's Batman Begins, before building on that popularity with the epic, record-breaking success of The Dark Knight in 2008. Early signs suggest he has avoided the usual pitfalls of too many enemies and the lazy 'bigger is better' escalation.

Nolan has made it clear that, whatever the reaction, this will be his last Batman film, but it remains to be seen if he's pulled off the perfect trilogy.

IBTimes UK presents a list of some of the other great film trios:

Christopher Nolan's final Batman film may join list of cinema's best trilogies

As many film and television writers have discovered to their cost, time travel is a tricky concept around which to base your story. Yet somehow director Robert Zemeckis and writer Bob Gale managed to create a practically perfect trilogy. Each of the three films seems like an individual part of a single, interwoven story.

Back to the Future fans often disagree about their favourite, although the first film remains the most accomplished. For sheer storytelling verve, coupled with great characters and the creation of iconic imagery including the DeLorean and hoverboards, Back to The Future is timeless.

Although we are due a new entry in the Bourne canon, it will be hard-pressed to live up to the existing trilogy, which stars Matt Damon as everyone's favourite amnesiac.

The Bourne trilogy completely shook up the action cinema world - its fingerprints can be seen on countless film and television efforts, and it appears to have provided inspiration for the new, grittier James Bond. Excellent pacing, kinetic action and intelligent plotting conspire to make the Bourne films unmissable.

OK - We admit it - there is a fourth Die Hard film, but there was a significant enough gap in years to consider the first three a separate trilogy. And what a trilogy it was.

The original Die Hard gave audiences John McClane, the antidote to the eighties' reliance on flawless bullet-magnet heroes. This was a man who could, and did, get hurt, establishing the 'right man in the wrong place' template which has been used by so many action films since.

The second film was little more than a retread with a change in location, but remained watchable, while the addition of Samuel L Jackson and Jeremy Irons made the third film a violent treat.

The original Star Wars trilogy, before George Lucas ditched heart and character in favour of glossy CGI visuals, remains one of the most spectacularly successful in cinema history. For millions of people, the journey through the three films is akin to a rite of passage.

The Empire Strikes Back set up the now-typical pattern of a sequel being darker than the first film, while the final chapter wrapped everything up with the most tumultuous battles of the entire series. Admittedly some people didn't like the Ewoks, but they are little more than a fluffy diversion to the first truly great space opera.

Groovy. With that single spoken word, the character of Ash, played by Bruce Campbell, became a cinematic legend.

Director Sam Raimi now commands huge budgets, but his biggest fans still remember him most fondly for the hysterical, gore-soaked Evil Dead series, which was made for the sort of sum that wouldn't pay for one of the Avengers' toenails. The effort of cast and crew is visible in every frame, and its rough edges add to the charm. The sequel is more of a remake, but is the best of the series; the third film is insane and yet maintains the black humour and endlessly entertaining atmosphere of the first films.

Again, one has to admit that there was a recent fourth addition to the series, but Indiana Jones fans will choose to ignore its existence and feast on the cinematic perfection that is the original trilogy.

Raiders of the Lost Ark had it all. An iconic hero, fantastic stunts and sets, humour and exploding Nazi heads. Temple of Doom may have its detractors, but the presence of the mine cart scene and the visually stunning rope bridge secures its place in cinema history. Then, in the third film, the casting team made an inspired choice by drafting in Sean Connery as Harrison Ford's father. The pairing was a match made in heaven and the film crackled with their chemistry.

When it was first announced that three of JRRTolkien's Lord of The Rings books would be made into films simultaneously, many predicted one of the biggest flops in cinema history. How wrong they were.

The Lord of the Rings trilogy was a labour of love for director Peter Jackson, who managed to maintain the pace required for a cinema crowd while simultaneously displaying a reverence for the source text, pleasing both devotees and newcomers alike. Although it was the third film that cleaned up at the Oscars, it seemed like the awards were presented for the series as a whole.

Pixar's Toy Story series pleased parents around the world by providing films that they wanted to see just as much as their children. Aside from the luxurious visuals and entertaining action, what really marked the Toy Story series out was the subtle depth of their themes.

The first film explores life, the second middle age, and the third death. The studio's ability to tackle such rich themes in a film that also contains a nervous talking dinosaur is central to its mercurial genius. Everyone was a child once, and therefore Toy Story found a way to touch everyone.

There are very few 'best ever' lists that don't include at least one of the Godfather films, but respect is also due for the trilogy as a whole. Francis Ford Coppola's depiction of the mafia world, through the steadily darkening eyes of Al Pacino's Michael Corleone, is an operatic masterpiece.

True devotees will argue whether the first or second film is the better, as each contains an equal number of iconic scenes. The third film was a flop but, criticism of its pace and the casting of Sofia Coppola aside, it is a necessary chapter to close off Michael's story, as the audience sees the true cost of his life upon his soul.