Since his movie debut in 1966, big-screen Bruce Wayne has been played by six Americans, two Brits and one Canadian. He’s also cycled through seven Alfreds (the latest of whom is played by Andy Serkis); he’s been pawed by four Catwomen (Lee Meriweather, Michelle Pfeiffer, Anne Hathaway and now Zoë Kravitz); taunted by five Jokers (Cesar Romero, Jack Nicholson, Mark Hamill, Heath Ledger and Jared Leto), and had far too many flashbacks to his parents’ deaths. Through it all, he has remained America’s favorite superpower-free superhero, an ordinary (if very, very wealthy) man turned extraordinary by sheer rage and determination. The 13 Batman movies listed here, in chronological order of their theatrical premiere dates, begin with the comedic Batman (1966) and end with the brutal, sophisticated The Batman (2022). Along the way, three distinct eras of Batman are represented, categorized by directors: the Tim Burton/Joel Schumacher years (1989-1997), the Christopher Nolan years (2005-2012), and the Zack Snyder years (2016-2021). In between, you’ll find stand-alone stories like Batman: Mask of the Phantasm and The LEGO Batman Movie. Note that this list only includes movies in which Batman plays a significant onscreen role, so it excludes spinoffs like Catwoman, Joker, Suicide Squad and the highly underrated Birds of Prey. We’ve also skipped over the Batman serials of the 1940s and the 2016 animated film The Killing Joke, which only had a one-day theatrical run. Movies are available to stream where noted or can otherwise be rented from any digital platform. Now let’s take a trip down to the Batcave for a streamable history of the Dark Knight at the movies.
Batman movies in order
1. Batman (1966)
The first-ever Batman film seems like it came from a different planet than later fare like The Dark Knight. In a sense, it did. Batman ’66 (a nickname used to distinguish the film from 1989’s Batman) was a feature-length installment of the Batman television series, premiering between the show’s first and second seasons. Based on the candy-colored D.C. superhero comics of the era, the film and series approach Batman’s adventures with visual panache and tongue-in-cheek humor. Adam West plays Batman with bone-dry delivery, the better to contrast with deliciously campy villains played by a rogue’s gallery of 1960s character actors. The film shares the show’s signature style choices, like punctuating fight scenes with word graphics (“Bang! Pow!), putting the prefix “bat-” in front of everything, and equipping sidekick Robin (Burt Ward) with endless “holy” exclamations (“Holy bikini, that was close!”). For generations of kids who watched the show in syndication, Batman is nostalgic fun. It’s also just plain fun, with plot devices like dehydrated pirates (not to mention that way-too-catchy theme song). Batman has been around long enough to contain multitudes, and his comedic side is well worth remembering.
2. Batman (1989)
After three decades, the Caped Crusader returned to the big screen with director Burton’s gothic superhero fantasy. The shift in tone from the 1960s Batman was dramatic, inspired in part by the pitch-black 1986 Batman comic The Dark Knight Returns. Critics and audiences praised it as the first “grown-up” superhero film. Burton shot the film like a stylish noir, with realistic violence and a pervasive sense of dread in Gotham’s Art Deco shadows. Even so, Batman retains the campy humor and bigger-than-life characters that were the hallmark of Batman ’66. The movie’s tone is a high-wire act, and it works largely because of Michael Keaton, an enormously controversial casting choice who plays Batman and Bruce as a distinctive split personality. Jack Nicholson delivers a slam-dunk performance as the Joker, sinister and ridiculous at the same time. Blaming Batman for the events that led to his disfigured face, Joker seeks revenge by poisoning all of Gotham. With the help of beautiful photojournalist Vicki Vale (Kim Basinger) and a vintage-inspired Batmobile, the Caped Crusader must save his city from Joker’s deadly plan. Batman was a massive hit, breaking box office records with $400 million in worldwide receipts. It would remain the highest-grossing D.C. comics movie until The Dark Knight’s premiere in 2008. Batman is streaming on Hulu.
3. Batman Returns (1992)
For his second go-around with the Caped Crusader, Burton doubled up on villains and doubled down on horror. Oswald Cobblepot, a.k.a Penguin (Danny DeVito), historically a dapper mobster in a three-piece suit, becomes a deformed psychopath with flippers for hands, raised in the sewers by penguins after his parents attempted to commit infanticide. Selina Kyle (Michelle Pfeiffer) has a sort of zombie resurrection into Catwoman when a bunch of strays nibble on her corpse. It’s dark stuff, delivered with panache by Keaton (whose Batman always teeters at the edge of madness) and his scenery-chewing co-stars. Burton’s signature nightmare-whimsy shows up in set pieces like Penguin’s Red Triangle Gang, an evil circus troupe squatting in an abandoned zoo. Pfeiffer’s transformation from mousy (relatively speaking) secretary to slinky villain is a blast to watch, and her stitched-together catsuit an instant classic. In scenes with an almost rom-com quality, Bruce and Selina pursue a romance, sensing common ground but wary of revealing too much. Batman Returns was the No. 1 film at the U.S. box office in 1992 and has retained a lasting fandom. Yet there was also some backlash, mainly because the film was not appropriate for young children. (A planned line of Happy Meal toys had to be pulled.) Warner Bros. was reportedly dismayed that their 1989 marketing juggernaut didn’t sell as well the second time around, and decided to move forward without Burton for their next Batman venture. Batman Returns is streaming on Hulu.
4. Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993)
When D.C.’s animated feature hit theaters, most fans of the live-action Batman weren’t even aware of its existence. In subsequent years, the film has been elevated to a classic, and many Bat-fan ranks it among the all-time best Batman films. What makes Mask of the Phantasm so special? A spin-off of Batman: The Animated Series (1992-1995), the film uses its lean 80 minutes to dive deep into Bruce Wayne’s psychology and relationships. It’s structured as a mystery, with shades of 1940s-style detective films. When a new mystery vigilante comes to Gotham, Batman is framed for their murders. It’s up to Bruce Wayne (Kevin Conroy) to discover the Phantasm’s true identity, while also pursuing a romance with a woman from his past (Dana Delany). Naturally, the Joker (voiced unforgettably by Mark Hamill) gets involved too. Mask of the Phantasm is a brisk drama with beautifully hand-drawn action sequences and a perceptiveness about its main character that wouldn’t be matched until Nolan’s trilogy. This one should be on any completist’s watchlist. Batman: Mask of the Phantasm is streaming on HBO Max.
5. Batman Forever (1995)
After Batman Returns, Warner Bros. decided to lighten up their Batman franchise with a new director (Schumacher), a new Batman (Val Kilmer), a neon-tinged color palate and some exceptionally cartoonish villains. The only returning cast member is Michael Gough as droll butler Alfred, who had a small role in both Burton films and would go on to appear in both Schumacher films. In Batman Forever, Batman must combat two villains who have teamed up to produce a brainwashing device, District Attorney-turned-criminal Two Face (a prosthetic-sporting Tommy Lee Jones) and scientist-turned-madman Riddler (Jim Carrey). Attractive psychologist Chase Meridian (Nicole Kidman) is recruited by Bruce to help analyze the Riddler’s pop-up letters, though she rebuffs his advances, as she only has eyes for Batman. Sidekick Robin (Chris O’Donnell) joins the action for the first time since Batman ’66, teaming up with the Caped Crusader to avenge Two Face for killing his acrobat family. Two Face also employs two lingerie-clad assistants, Sugar (Drew Barrymore) and Spice (Debbie Mazar), both notable actresses with just a few lines each. Batman Forever takes a lazy stab at giving Bruce some depth, through analysis sessions with Chase and flashbacks to his childhood memories. Nevertheless, the film belongs to Carrey, whose hammy performance stomps out any nuance. (Jones’ less aggressive characterization just can’t compete.) For better or worse, this Riddler was the essence of this new Bat-era. Despite poor reviews, Batman Forever was an unexpectedly huge hit, making more than $300 million worldwide. Batman Forever is streaming on Hulu.
6. Batman & Robin (1997)
George Clooney took over the title role for Schumacher’s second Batman film, and he’s best remembered as the one whose Batsuit had nipples. That’s not a knock on Clooney, who does his best to embody Batman alongside a returning O’Donnell as Robin. From the start, Batman & Robin is sitcom-dense with jokes, a choice that creates a weird discord with a subplot about terminal illness. That plot involves Mr. Freeze (Arnold Schwarzenegger), a scientist-turned-diamond thief in a laser-equipped cryogenic suit, who is secretly funding a cure for his dying wife. Meanwhile, a mild-mannered botanist at Wayne Enterprises named Pamela Isley (Uma Thurman) is infused with plant toxins, turning her into venom-lipped eco-terrorist Poison Ivy. As Batman and Robin pursue these baddies, they are joined by Alfred’s teenage niece Barbara (Alicia Silverstone), who becomes Batgirl. Batman & Robin is a deeply weird movie that has only gotten weirder with age. The effects are hokey, the jokes moreso. (One representative visual gag: Batman puts a multimillion-dollar charge on his branded bat-credit card). Schwarzenegger is genuinely awful, while Thurman’s Mae West-evoking performance is so bad that it rounds the corner again to good. Fans of The Dark Knight Rises should note that this film offers the first appearance of Bane, who is portrayed as a Franken-soldier engineered by mad scientist Dr. Jason Woodrue (John Glover, delivering the best performance in the film for a few precious minutes). The film’s wild components never gel into a coherent movie, but in isolated moments, it’s bizarrely entertaining—which is probably why clips like Poison Ivy’s gorilla-suit striptease and Mr. Freeze’s pun-dropping museum robbery have millions of YouTube views. Batman & Robin is streaming on Hulu.
7. Batman Begins (2005)
For the first film in his Batman trilogy, writer-director Nolan made a choice that profoundly influenced Hollywood: He decided to explore the origins of Bruce Wayne’s alter-ego in as realistic a manner as possible. At the time, the idea of a gritty superhero prequel was novel, and audiences eagerly embraced the revelations that Wayne (played by Christian Bale) spent years studying martial arts in Asia, that he used Wayne Enterprises’ neglected Applied Science Division to source his elaborate gadgets, and that he chose to dress as a bat because of lingering childhood bat-phobia. In trying to create the first truly serious Batman film, Nolan cast a roster of award-winning actors, including Michael Caine as butler Alfred, Morgan Freeman as tech-guru Lucius Fox, Ken Watanabe, Liam Neeson, and an elite collection of U.K. performers doing American accents, including Bale, Gary Oldman as Commissioner Gordon, Cillian Murphy, and Tom Wilkinson. It’s a killer ensemble, hinged on Bale’s emotionally tortured performance as a man who has all the wealth in the world but can never attain happiness (thanks to the death of his parents, for which he feels deeply and irrationally responsible). In Batman Begins, we see Wayne’s evolution from young child into a vigilante superhero. His world is almost exclusively composed of men: they’re either surrogate father figures like Alfred and Lucius, or shadowy criminals bent on destroying Gotham. The two women we do meet are Bruce’s dead mother (a footnote beside his philanthropist-doctor dad) and childhood friend-turned-love-interest Rachel Dawes (Katie Holmes), a compassionate District Attorney who is opposed to Batman operating outside the legal system. Bruce puts a great deal of thought into his decision to become a masked crime-fighter. He wants to elevate himself above the ordinary vigilante, which is why he turns his back on the men who train him, the skilled but merciless League of Shadows. At the same time, he struggles to maintain a clear moral code in the face of corrupt cops, well-funded villains (like Murphy’s hallucinogen-spewing Scarecrow), and the betrayal of a respected mentor. Batman Begins manages to feel truly epic, with memorable fight scenes, plus action sequences that explore all corners of a lived-in Gotham. At the end of the journey, Bruce doesn’t get a happy ending—but he has made peace with being Batman, and for now, that’s enough. Batman Begins is streaming on Hulu.
8. The Dark Knight (2008)
The biggest and most acclaimed Batman film of all time, Nolan’s second bat-movie is a tour de force that forever raised the bar for comic-movie villains. Batman Begins ended with a tease that the Joker was coming, which had fans dying to know: how would Nolan’s ultra-realistic approach to Batman function with one of the franchise’s iconic, over-the-top nemeses? The Dark Knight did not disappoint. Heath Ledger’s Joker is an absolutely fascinating creation. His mission is to sow anarchy, which he believes will expose the monster lurking in every ordinary person. As with previous Jokers, he approaches his crimes with showmanship, as if the underworld were his own personal circus. He’s also genuinely funny. The difference in this Joker is a vulnerability, a sense that beneath the killer is a frightened outsider who only wants to be understood. This makes Ledger’s Joker oddly relatable, even as he’s committing such horrendous crimes as blowing up a hospital. He’s certainly more relatable than Bruce Wayne, who in The Dark Knight is having a full-on identity crisis. (Though it should be noted that the biggest identity crisis technically belongs to Rachel Dawes, who has turned from Katie Holmes into Maggie Gyllenhaal with no explanation). Bruce is living his billionaire-playboy fantasy, but it’s not really his fantasy; he just wants to settle down with Rachel, which means he needs to stop being Batman. He has hopes of retiring, now that tough new District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) is whipping Gotham into shape. Unfortunately, Harvey is dating Rachel, which inspires Bruce to passive-aggressive moves like taking an entire ballet company on his yacht to disrupt their ballet date. Then the Joker shows up, and Bruce feels an almost pathological need to become Batman and destroy him. The Dark Knight is the first Batman film to raise the possibility that Bruce Wayne and the Joker are more alike than different (an idea that had been floating around in the comics since 1988’s graphic novel The Killing Joke). “You complete me,” Joker tells Batman earnestly, calling him “a freak like me.” The ferocious dance between the two of them is endlessly watchable, and makes it easy to ignore the many plot holes in Nolan’s script. (How does Joker pull off literally anything in this movie? There’s no logic to it—it’s all smoke and mirrors. Just enjoy.) Ledger won a posthumous Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for The Dark Knight, the first-ever win in an acting category for a superhero film. The film received seven additional Oscar nominations, raising the comic book movie to a new level of legitimacy in the eyes of Hollywood, and opening the door for Black Panther’s Best Picture nomination in 2019. The Dark Knight is streaming on Hulu.
9. The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Nolan’s Batman trilogy ends not with a bang, but with Tom Hardy’s indecipherable muttering. At the start of The Dark Knight Rises, Bruce Wayne has stopped being Batman, but he has also given up on being Bruce, letting the Wayne business and charitable ventures fall to ruins. His absence has left a vacuum that is filled by the masked villain Bane (Hardy), a mysterious figure who is inspired by the League of Shadows (remember them from Batman Begins?) to destroy Gotham. Wayne reluctantly puts the cowl back on, and also begins an affair with a Wayne Enterprises executive (Marion Cotillard) who is working on a renewable energy project. This film is the bleakest of Nolan’s movies. Alfred abandons Bruce with a tearful monologue (performed with heartbreaking gusto by Caine). Bane desecrates Gotham and sets up kangaroo courts to execute any who oppose him. The film is full of characters who seem undercooked, existing only for big-twist reveals at the end, like Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s idealistic police officer. Even Bane himself remains a cipher, his mask never coming off, his dialogue often unintelligible. However, there is one truly great thing about The Dark Knight Rises, and that is Hathaway as Catwoman. From the moment she drops her maid disguise and reveals her true nature to Bruce, Hathaway’s cunning cat burglar steals the film. It’s too bad that she’s shoehorned into the plot; in retrospect, she clearly belonged right at the center. The Dark Knight Rises is streaming on HBO Max.
10. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)
Snyder’s first Batman film, a sequel to his revisionist Superman drama Man of Steel, is grim enough to make The Dark Knight look like Batman ’66. An American tragedy, comic book-style, the film contains visuals reminiscent of the September 11th attacks, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and Abu Ghraib. Batman (who ostensibly had a no-kill policy in the Nolan films) now does a lot of killing. His prime target is Superman, whose airborne battle with extraterrestrial invader Zod (see Man of Steel) had a catastrophic effect on Gotham City. Bruce Wayne (now played by a glowering Ben Affleck) decides that Superman’s godlike powers cannot go unchecked, and begins building Kryptonite-infused weapons to destroy him. Meanwhile, Clark Kent (Henry Cavill) has been investigating Batman, whose use of vigilante justice he finds unethical. The unmoveable bat-object and the irresistible super-force move towards a battle to the death, little realizing that Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg, playing a deranged version of his Social Network character) is pulling the strings. Jeremy Irons shows up as a stoic Alfred, and Gal Gadot adds a splash of color when she makes her D.C. Extended Universe debut as Wonder Woman. Batman v. Superman did big box office and remains the third highest-grossing Batman film of all time (unless you count the Batman-adjacent Joker, which lapped it in 2019). Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is streaming on HBO Max.
11. The LEGO Batman Movie (2017)
Just when fans were wondering “Will Batman ever be fun again?”—LEGO to the rescue! In this ingenious animated comedy, an over-it-all Bruce Wayne (voiced with a perfect Bale-esque growl by Will Arnett) inadvertently adopts the orphan Dick Grayson (Michael Cera), whom he trains as his sidekick Robin. Though his preference is to fight crime alone, Batman teams up with Barbara Gordon a.k.a. Batgirl (Rosario Dawson) and Alfred (Ralph Fiennes) to defeat Joker (Zach Galifianakis), Harley Quinn (Jenny Slate), and a company of escaped Arkham Asylum villains that includes such deep cuts as Polka-Dot Man and Calculator. Not only is The LEGO Batman Movie hilarious (if occasionally hard on the eyes, with its frenetically-paced animation), it manages to reach a deeper truth about Bruce Wayne than most of the other Batman films. Bruce, we learn, wants a family above all else, but is terrified that he’ll cause the death of anyone close to him. Watching that little plastic Batman learn to love again is truly worth the price of admission. The LEGO Batman Movie is streaming on HBO Max.
12. Justice League (2017) / Zack Snyder’s Justice League (2021)
If you’re a true Batman completist, you can watch the 2017 theatrical release of Justice League, a movie that was infamously reshot and re-edited to the point of incoherence. A better idea would be to set aside four hours and watch the 2021 version, which seamlessly combines original and new footage to create a compelling, slow-burn superhero epic. Zack Snyder’s Justice League places Batman in a different role than any previous live-action film. Rather than acting alone, he’s a member of an ensemble and the leader of a somewhat ragtag team. Bruce Wayne (Affleck) rises to the occasion, and in doing so, reconnects with his humanity. He also gets some exceptionally good one-liners. (“What are your superpowers again?” asks Flash, played by Ezra Miller. “I’m rich,” Bruce replies.) Still filled with remorse from his role in the death of Superman, Batman decides to step up and help save the world from the invasion by ancient villain Darkseid (Ray Porter) and his lieutenant Steppenwolf (Ciaran Hinds). He and Wonder Woman (Gadot) set out to build a superhero army, recruiting Cyborg (Ray Fisher), Aquaman (Jason Momoa), Flash, and perhaps even a resurrected Superman (Cavill). The film is dark but not monotonous; Flash is funny, Cyborg’s broken-family story is quite moving, and the action hops nimbly from Gotham to Smallville, from Atlantis to Themyscira. The epilogue puts Affleck’s Batman face-to-face with Leto’s Joker for the first and only time, for a somewhat perplexing confrontation about alternate-timeline deaths. It’s a cliffhanger for a Batman movie that will never be made. Justice League and Zack Snyder’s Justice League are streaming on HBO Max.
13. The Batman (2022)
Batman was first introduced to the world in a 1939 issue of Detective Comics, so it’s fitting that the latest bat-saga takes the Caped Crusader back to his crime-solving roots. This reboot joins Bruce Wayne (Robert Pattinson) two years into his Batman gig, when he first encounters Riddler (Paul Dano), an Extremely Online serial killer who has been leaving a trail of grisly clues around Gotham. During the investigation, he must confront corruption in the police department (with the help of Commissioner Gordon, played by Jeffrey Wright) and some disturbing revelations about his own connection to Arkham Asylum (among whose inmates is a potentially significant character played by Barry Keoghan). Rounding out Matt Reeves’ emotive noir are Colin Farrell as Oswald Cobblepot (a.k.a. Penguin), Andy Serkis as Alfred, and Zoë Kravitz as a fierce, cunning Catwoman. The Bathman is streaming on HBO Max. Next, Plan Your Justice League Screening Saga With Our Guide to Watching All the DC Movies in Order
