ALL BATMAN MOVIES RANKED

Happy Batman day! Between the first episode release of "The Penguin" (2024), as well as the recent announcements of a new Batman comic run helmed by Scott Snyder, it's safe to say that Batman fans are about to receive a plethora of new content following the iconic caped crusader and the world around him. To celebrate Batman day, I decided to rewatch all previous Batman movies in order to solidify my definitive ranking and hop on the Dark Knight fever that has recently taken the internet by storm.

Note: This list will only covers Batman's live action films, not animated.

10 - BATMAN & ROBIN

Sorry, Batman & Robin fans, but all the money in the bat credit card couldn't convince me to give this movie another watch. Between some baffling story decisions and some of the most ironically hilarious dialogue I've ever heard, Batman & Robin never manages to achieve its full potential, and unfortunately pales in comparison to every other movie on the list.

Released in 1997 as a sequel to "Batman Forever" (1995), Batman & Robin follows the dynamic duo as they face off against new villains such as Mr. Freeze (Arnold Schwartzenegger), Poison Ivy (Uma Thurman) and Bane (Jeep Swenson). Upon its release, it was considered a box office failure, and has since been dubbed one of the worst movies ever made by fans and critics alike. While there are some good elements sprinkled here and there (such as the stellar set designs and visual palette that still rival those of modern blockbusters), the film still fundamentally misunderstands the material its adapting, turning each character into a hollow caricature that's neither entertaining or compelling in any way. Mr. Freeze is nothing beyond an ice-pun machine, Poison Ivy is a simply a tool to divide Batman (George Clooney) and Robin (Chris O'Donnell), Bane is a mindless musclehead that seems to be an embodiment of every "strong but dumb" character ever made, and even the new addition of Batgirl (Alicia Silverstone), who at the very least is a semi-interesting character, is constantly undermined and overshadowed by almost every other character in the film.

Although each actor does the best with what they're given, and Joel Schumacher clearly has a passion for Batman and his mythos, it's evident how detrimental the studio's interference was on the film. Any semblance of a good story is stripped in favor of toy marketing and any compelling characterization is lost in the pursuit of making the movie as kid-friendly as possible. While it's a shame that Schumacher's planned sequel, Batman: Unchained, will never see the light of day, I still don't see myself revisiting this film any time in the near future.

3/10

9 - BATMAN '66

Batman, released in 1966, feels like a strange movie to rank for many reasons. While the film is the first ever adaptation of Batman on the big screen, it can't help but remain as a product of its time that ages worse with every passing year.

Batman is the only other film besides Joel Schumacher's duology to focus on the dynamic duo, but it still feels like a Batman (Adam West) movie more than anything else. Robin (Burt Ward) frequently takes the role of the "goofy sidekick" throughout the movie's runtime, as was the global audience's perception of the character at the time. The villains aren't much better either, as even a four-person team up with Joker (Cesar Romero Jr.), Catwoman (Julie Newmar), Riddler (Frank Gorshin) and Penguin (Burgess Meredith) still leaves much to be desired from each of them besides jokes and silly visual gags. While there is some charm in the film's inherent campiness, it still feels hard to get immersed in the story when the biggest conflict is when the World's United Security Council are "dehydrated" and kidnapped in little vials of dust. It may be the plot of a silver age comic book come to life, but the differences in the mediums of comic books and films unfortunately render 1:1 adaptations a greater challenge than expected.

Although Batman '66 is still looked upon favorably by many as being the first on-screen version of the dark knight, it's still brought down by an overabundance of campiness that continuously distracted me from the positives.

5/10

8 - BATMAN VS SUPERMAN

While not technically a Batman solo movie, "Batman vs Superman" (2016) manages to make its way on the list due to being the introduction of the Dark Knight in Zack Snyder's now-cancelled DCEU.

BvS starts off right after the events of Snyder's Superman film, "Man of Steel" (2013), and puts us in the shoes of Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) in the middle of Zod's (Michael Shannon) invasion of Metropolis. Witnessing the countless lives taken and the destruction of the city around him, Bruce Wayne rightfully takes suspicion of Superman's involvement on planet Earth, vowing to take him down for good. With a little push from Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg), Batman and Superman face off and battle to the near-death, eventually putting their differences aside after a far worse enemy threatens both their lives. While Snyder's keen eye for cinematography leaves the movie looking raw and beautiful in pretty much every shot, and its concept certainly strays away from the rather formulaic story structure in past Batman films, its biggest problem lies in its fundamental mischaracterisation of the caped crusader. Ignoring the fact that Batman kills (several times) throughout the film's runtime, his motivation for stopping Superman falls flat when you realize that he's just as bad as how he perceives the man of steel. When he isn't killing directly, he's going as far as to "brand" certain criminals so they end up killed in jail anyways. We're consistently told that this is Batman "at his lowest", but that has little to no impact when this is the audience's very first introduction to this version of the character. It wouldn't be that big of a problem if this story beat didn't rely so heavily on past Batman comics such as "Death in the Family" and "The Dark Knight Returns", both of which are already far better than the film itself.

Batman vs Superman tries to be an optimistic story about the innate good of mankind, but at the same time feels so embarrassed about that message that it tries to drown it out with characters and story beats that are too depressing and edgy for its own good.

6/10

7 - BATMAN RETURNS

"Batman Returns" (1992), while far from being a truly bad movie, fails to achieve its full potential and hardly manages to provide a worthy sequel to its predecessor, which still remains as the far better film in Tim Burton's Batman duology.

Batman Returns is a sequel to "Batman" (1989), and revolves around Michael Keaton's Batman taking on new threats such as Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer) and the Penguin (Danny DeVito). Beginning with the positives, there's still a lot of fun to be had in Burton's "fairytale-esque" rendition of Gotham, as the film's winter aesthetic provides a continuously gorgeous landscape in almost every exterior shot. Pfeiffer and DeVito both provide entertaining performances for their respective characters, even if their shared scenes almost allude a strangely sexual relationship between the two. However, the other aspects of the film unfortunately fall flat, mostly due to an inability to balance a darker, more mature tone with WB's typical "marketability for the kids" expectations. One scene will show Penguin eating someone's nose off, and another has Selina being magically revived by a group of cats. This leads to a rather strange and confusing final product that clearly doesn't know exactly what it wants to be, leaving the film to suffer because of it.

By all means, Batman Returns should have been a better film than it was. It has an interesting protagonist, compelling villains, gorgeous set design and a visionary director at the helm. However, much like Batman & Robin, its biggest hinderance is at the hands of studio interference. In the words of Burton himself: "they wanted to go with something more child / family-friendly. In other words, they didn't want me to do another one."

6.5/10

6 - BATMAN FOREVER

"Batman Forever" (1995), without other words, is pure, dumb fun. It's a movie that doesn't take itself too seriously, and in turn makes for a better viewing experience when the audience doesn't do so either.

Intentionally made as a third film to follow Burton's Batman duology, the attachment of director Joel Schumacher eventually steered the film away from a gothic noir aesthetic to one that's as neon and stylized as it can get. The story shows Batman (Val Kilmer) going against Two-Face (Tommy Lee Jones) and Riddler (Jim Carrey) as they threaten to reveal his secret identity and brainwash the city of Gotham. In the meantime, Two-Face also kills Dick Grayson's parents, leading the young acrobat on a path of revenge until being adopted by Batman. Val Kilmer and Chris O'Donnell both provide entertaining performances and a believeable dynamic (far better than that of Clooney and O'Donnell in the sequel), but the real performance praise has to go to Jim Carrey's portrayal of the Riddler. Carrey is as close to a comic-accurate Riddler on the big screen as it can get, and his over-the-top style of acting pairs perfectly with the character's mental insanity in-universe. His scenes with Tommy Lee Jones' Two-Face are hilarious to watch, as their "pseudo-married-couple" dynamic is made even better after finding out that Jones reportedly despises Carrey off-screen.

Although the story itself ends up being quite a mess throughout the film, its entertaining performances paired with Schumacher's eye for striking production design and lighting make for a far more enjoyable viewing than the other films on the list so far.

6.5/10

5 - THE DARK KNIGHT RISES

"The Dark Knight Rises" (2012) is the third and final instalment in Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy, a series of films which have seen numerous amounts of praise over the years for revolutionizing the character on the big screen. However, whilst the trilogy's first two films receive most of the adoration, TDKR always seems to be rather left out for a few valid reasons.

Set 8 whole years after "The Dark Knight" (2008), Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) is hiding in seclusion after his failure to save Rachel (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart). Gotham has relatively seen little to no criminal activity in these years, but between the sudden appearance of the cat-burglar Catwoman (Anne Hathaway), and the looming presence of a League of Shadows mercenary known as Bane (Tom Hardy), it's clear that dark times are headed for the city. Batman is eventually drawn out of hiding, but not before getting badly beaten and bruised by Bane, who also threatens to bomb Gotham to the ground unless they follow his every command. With the city being turned into a no-man's land, and Bruce finding himself at the bottom of a pit-like prison, he finds the strength within himself to fight one last battle as Batman, "sacrificing" himself to save the city in the end. There's a lot to give praise for with TDKR, primarily Hardy's performance as the film's main villain (that is, until the end). He transforms himself so deeply that it almost seems unreal to imagine that it's actually him behind the mask, an aspect which aids to Bane's intimidating presence throughout the film. However, while Hardy delivers a fresh and unique take towards one of Batman's most underrated villains, all of his presence and buildup is lost in the film's final 20 minutes, where it's revealed that Talia Al-Ghul (Marion Cotillard) is the true mastermind behind the operation, and Bane is just her servant. This baffling choice erases the trilogy's second-best villain with one that's simply underwhelming, underdeveloped and unfit to helm the movie's third act.

Even though Bale manages to successfully deliver a more emotional version of Batman in this film, his performance is somewhat squandered by some strange story choices that seem to want to devalue his role as the dark knight (such as the 8-year timeskip). The screenplay is the biggest blunder in what is overall a rather entertaining film, as its filled with the brim with questionable decisions and contrivances that force you out of the immersion completely.

7/10

4 - BATMAN BEGINS

The jump from The Dark Knight Rises and "Batman Begins" (2005) in terms of quality is almost immeasurable, as the latter not only feels like a much better film in general, but also a more compelling take on the character of Batman.

As the first film in Nolan's Batman trilogy, Batman Begins takes us through Bruce Wayne's origins and how he became the Dark Knight. After watching his parents getting shot down in an alley at a young age, a now grown-up Bruce Wayne contemplates shooting their killer Joe Chill (Richard Brake) during his court hearing. He's only stopped by his best friend Rachel, and after being mocked of his weakness by crime lord Carmine Falcone (Tom Wilkinson), Bruce vows to change the city for good, and to never take a human life while doing so. His crusade takes him around the world, until he meets a member of a mysterious organization known as the League of Shadows, who agrees to train him. After a disagreement about taking a life with the organization's leader, Ra's Al-Ghul, Bruce barely manages to escape the temple alive, finally deciding to head back to Gotham and start taking to the streets as Batman. There, he makes an enemy of both Falcone and the Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy), and reunites with the League of Shadows in ways he never could've imagined.

Batman Begins has a lot to offer, from its stellar cinematography that perfectly captures Gotham's filth and corruption firsthand, and to the performances of everyone involved in the film. The audience can just as easily sympathize with Bale's depiction of Bruce, as they can despise all the antagonists he comes across in the film. While it's somewhat held back by a few pacing issues here and there, and an ending that's sparked a lot of debate in the fandom, Begins still remains a fantastic introduction to Nolan's version of Batman.

8/10

3 - BATMAN '89

It's safe to say that Tim Burton's "Batman" (1989) was the film that truly paved the way for the character's success in the big screen. Not only did it revolutionize the future of Batman forever, it still holds up over the years as a fantastic watch for all fans to enjoy.

Much like Begins, Batman follows Bruce Wayne's origin and explores how he became Batman, however it's much less of an "origin story" than it is an early-year Batman adventure. In this film, Batman faces off against the Joker (Jack Nicholson) when he finds out that he was directly involved in his parents' murders. There's not much to say about the movie that hasn't already been said by raving critics and fans alike, such as the gorgeous Batman suit and the spectacularly gothic rendition of Gotham city. Both Keaton and Nicholson give it their all as Batman and the Joker, immersing the audience in their rivalry right until the end of the film. Although there are a few instances of mischaracterization in terms of Batman's no-kill rule, it doesn't fall into the BvS trap where it drags down the film as a whole.

Batman '89 still holds up better than I would've guessed, even after so many years. It's captivating, emotional but also genuinely funny at times, leading to a well-rounded movie that unintentionally celebrates the character's history on the big screen.

8.5/10

2 - THE DARK KNIGHT

The Dark Knight, Nolan's second movie in his Batman trilogy, is nothing short of a crime/thriller masterpiece. It's issues feel almost insignificant to even mention, as its strengths each combine to form not only one of the best Batman movies, but also one of the best comic book movies ever made.

Batman has been in Gotham for a little less than a year, and he's on the road to facing his biggest threat yet. A series of bank heists lead by a mysterious criminal known as the Joker (Heath Ledger) cause Batman to engage in a desperate game of cat and mouse as he hunts down his elusive foe before he cripples the city and brings it to its knees. Before mentioning any of the film's positives, its impossible to praise The Dark Knight without mentioning the late Heath Ledger's performance as Joker, which is considered by many to be the single greatest portrayal of any character in a comic book movie. The way Ledger disappears into the role and truly encapsulates the Joker's insanity is still something to be marveled at almost 17 years later, and every rewatch is worth it just to see him play the character to perfection. Ledger elevates what is already an incredibly compelling story about political corruption, the self-destructive burden of loss and the strength of human nature into an even greater product, immersing the audience in every scene. Aside from Ledger, Aaron Eckhart also gives a criminally underrated performance as Harvey Dent, and later Two-Face. With the Joker effortlessly stealing the spotlight, Eckhart's performance is typically overlooked when engaging in discourse about the film, even though his tragic fall from grace is an incredibly powerful thread woven in an already doomed narrative.

Aside from Nolan's continuous struggles to shoot Batman's fight scenes, TDK is otherwise a masterpiece in every other category, leaving no confusion as to how it held the title of "The definitive Batman film" for so long. The cinematography is sharp and tense, the pacing is perfect, the story is captivating and the performances are in another league entirely.

10/10

1 - THE BATMAN

"The Batman" (2022) is the perfect Batman movie, plain and simple. No other interpretation has been truly able to capture everything about the character so perfectly, from his haunting inner conflicts to the decrepit world around him, truly making The Batman a one-of-a-kind film.

It's Halloween night, and the mayor of Gotham city has just been murdered by a serial killer dubbing himself as The Riddler (Paul Dano). With the city in turmoil, and a line of gangsters ready to swoop in to take what's left of the mayor's power, Gotham's caped crusader (Robert Pattinson) follows Riddler's clues as he attempts to uncover what the mad psychopath has planned for the city. From the very first time Batman speaks, its unequivocally clear that THIS is the version of the character that audiences have wanted since the 60's. Everything about Batman, from the way he moves, the way he narrates his own inner monologues and the way he seamlessly blends into the shadows is ripped straight out of a comic book, finally giving us a movie where Batman isn't overshadowed by his supporting cast. However, it still goes without saying that Paul Dano gives an absolutely electrifying performance as The Riddler, even if he isn't quite accurate to the version from the comics and past films. This Riddler is reminiscent of real-life criminals, such as the Zodiac Killer, making him such an unsettling presence from the moment he appears onscreen and even in the moments where he isn't. Both Batman and Riddler feel like perfect reflections of the world around them, which is another aspect that The Batman excels in; being the best-looking superhero movie ever made. Every frame of the film is dirty, claustrophobic, dark and rainy, in turn creating the best-looking Gotham City we've seen so far. The Batman's unique visual style and palette is essential to making Gotham appear too far-gone to save, making Batman's crusade seem even more difficult just by observing his surroundings.

The Batman has too many positives to list in such a short review. I haven't even begun to mention Colin Farrell's twisted and hilarious performance as The Penguin, the incredibly detailed set design that alludes to old, gothic architecture, and Batman's relationship with Catwoman (Zoe Kravitz), easily the best rendition of their dynamic in any of the films on this list. If there's any film to rewatch on Batman day, it's this one, as it only gets better with every new, expansive detail spotted.

10/10