Batman has become as much a staple in Hollywood as he is in the comic book world, with numerous classic films — and a few not-so-classic films — gracing the silver screen over the years. Ever since Tim Burton’s legendary Batman from 1989 hit theaters, a new movie starring The Dark Knight has become more than just a film release — they’ve become true pop culture events.
While so many Batman movies have done well to honor the Caped Crusader, there are still several films that can’t come close to living up to their source material. Plenty of Batman movies share similarities to the source material that inspired them, but even the best fall just short of the greatness found on the comic page.
10
Knightfall Volume 1 Is Still the Better Bane Story
Despite his voice getting the meme treatment in every possible corner of the internet, Tom Hardy’s Bane was an incredibly well-executed take on the character in The Dark Knight Rises. Perfectly adapting the character to fit Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, Hardy’s version of Bane was far more practical and grounded than his comic book counterpart — but that was exactly what was necessary for this particular film. It was certainly executed better than the dumbed-down version of Bane fans had to witness in 1997’s Batman & Robin.
Still, nothing beats the original Bane from Knightfall. In the story, Bane may have been an extremely powerful, muscular lucha-coded super villain, but he was also extremely cerebral — outwitting Batman by forcing him through an exhausting gauntlet. Bane was able to hatch a plan that resulted in the release of several notable villains of Batman from Arkham Asylum — and by the time Batman was able to clean up that mess, he was both physically and emotionally exhausted. This left the door wide open for the now-iconic scene of Bane breaking Batman’s back over his knee, bringing the villain one step closer to controlling Gotham City with its primary protector out of the way.
9
Batman’s Home City Has Never Been More Interesting Than In Gates of Gotham
2022’s The Batman saw another grounded — but notably grittier version — of Batman uncover secrets about the city he vowed to protect, and most of them were not the ones he wanted to hear. Through details regarding his own family, Batman saw just how corrupt Gotham was. It wasn’t just crime-ridden, but crime was literally baked into its foundation.
No comic story gets this concept across better than Gates of Gotham. In it, Dick Grayson’s version of Batman uncovered several mysteries revolving around the founding families of Gotham. Zachary Gate — known throughout the story as the steampunk-inspired Architect — is a descendant of the 19th-century builders who helped construct Gotham’s main bridges. The Architect attacks these bridges and other Gotham landmarks in order to get revenge on the founding families, and through the chaos, fans learn more about Gotham through Batman’s investigations than they ever had prior.
8
Pain and Prejudice Presents the Penguin Far Better Than Burton’s Batman Returns
The Penguin, as he was portrayed in Tim Burton’s Batman Returns, may be remembered fondly by those who grew up with the entertainingly unhinged performance by Danny DeVito, but it was a far cry from the character’s comic book counterpart. A sewer-dwelling, monstrous man who drooled dark liquid, made innuendos to any woman he spoke to, and who ate raw fish was nothing like The Penguin fans had come to know from the source material.
That’s not to say the version of Penguin that readers got in Pain and Prejudice was exactly accurate to how the character had been portrayed prior, but it was a masterfully written exploration of the character’s motivations. It redefined the character at the time of its release, and helped make him more layered than the rich aristocrat he had been in earlier comics. Several of Pain and Prejudice‘s story beats were later adapted for the HBO Max show The Penguin, which was a far better adaptation of the character than what viewers got in Batman Returns.
7
Dark Knight III: The Master Race Is the Batman/Superman Movie Fans Deserve
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice certainly has its fans, but for many longtime fans of both characters, it failed to live up to what was expected from the first live-action outing featuring them both on the big screen together. While much of what Zack Snyder did with the film was pulled from Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, he sidestepped a lot of what made their rivalry in the source material natural and instead shoehorned a forced motivation for their apprehension toward each other.
Still, even The Dark Knight Returns doesn’t nail Batman and Superman’s relationship like the third entry in Miller’s series, Dark Knight III: The Master Race. Batman is forced to seek out Superman — who had frozen himself as a form of punishment following the chaos that erupted in the critically-panned The Dark Knight Strikes Again — to take out a Kryptonian cult who had recently escaped from the Bottle City of Kandor. From there comes an extremely satisfying team-up that sees both Batman and Superman do their part to not only defend Earth, but also grow as characters on a personal level. If DC fans ever get to see these two mix it up on the big screen again, a clash with a maniacal Kryptonian cult would be a great catalyst for it.
6
Endgame Offers A Unique Side Of the Joker No Film Has Captured Yet
Whether it’s Jack Nicholson’s classic approach to the Joker character or Heath Ledger’s fundamentally unhinged approach, there have been many different, well-received versions committed to the big screen. Each version, however, was fairly grounded in that there was no doubting exactly what the Joker was — a disturbed individual who happened to get on Batman’s bad side before long. Even Ledger’s Joker, with his undefined origin, was still just a man at the end of the day.
And, to be fair, Joker from Scott Snyder’s Endgame was also just a man — but his comic book history made the manipulations he attempted in this particular story seem very possible. In Endgame, Joker tried and nearly succeeded in convincing Batman that he was an ancient entity known as the Pale Man — a mythical evil that had haunted Gotham for centuries. Using doctored photographs and falsified documents, Joker made both Batman and Jim Gordon believe he was an immortal killing force, but at the end of the day, it turned out that he was only able to heal himself with a magical liquid known as Dionesium. While this was ultimately revealed to be a ruse, the concept of Joker being a more supernatural entity as opposed to a man with a dark past was fascinating and would make for a great film plot eventually.
5
The Black Mirror Still Depicts Batman’s Detective Work Better Than Any Film To Date
In another Dick Grayson-led Batman story, writer Scott Snyder once again puts the Caped Crusader’s detective skills to work in a way that is rarely seen in the modern era. The story sees both Batman and Commissioner Gordon tackle two dangerous mysteries. Batman must hunt The Dealer, a new villain who runs underground auctions featuring weapons and items from Batman’s rogue gallery, and Jim Gordon and his daughter, Barbara, need to contend with the return of James Gordon Jr., the psychopathic son of Commissioner Gordon and brother of Barbara.
James Gordon Jr. is easily the most harrowing aspect of The Black Mirror. Not at all a super villain and just a grounded, horrifying human being, James Jr puts his family through hell by kidnapping his own mother and attempting to frame his father for horrific crimes. In the end, Batman must help the Gordon family against their own flesh and blood, and when he does, the true nature of Gotham City becomes more evident than ever before.
4
Dark Victory Offers A Far Better Robin Origin Than Batman Forever
Two-Face and Robin are intrinsically tied to each other, and that’s in large part due to Dark Victory — Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s follow-up to the iconic The Long Halloween. In the story, Two-Face is the reason for Dick Grayson’s family dying, and this leads to Dick taking on the mantle of Robin to fight alongside Batman. However, Batman must make sure not to lose his new young sidekick to the darkness consuming him in the wake of his family’s death.
Batman Forever attempted to tackle this origin story, also featuring Dick’s family being killed by Two-Face — but several elements from that movie simply made it impossible for the same emotional impact from Dark Victory to be felt. Dick Grayson was played by Chris O’Donnell, who was already a 24-year-old man when Batman Forever was filming, which removed all the charm of Batman taking in another orphaned child under his wing to save him from a hard life. On top of that, Tommy Lee Jones’ performance as Two-Face seemed far more like a forced attempt at reimagining Jack Nicholson’s Joker from 1989’s Batman to the point that it approached parody status. It didn’t handle what should have been an emotionally resonant story with any integrity, and instead made for a comical retelling of the source material.
3
Zero Year’s Take On the Riddler Outshines Any Live-Action Take On the Character
The Riddler has now appeared in three live-action Batman films: 1966’s Batman, 1995’s Batman Forever, and 2022’s The Batman. While each version technically shared similarities to the comic book character, none of them fully really hit the bullseye when it came to adapting the character to film. Either the character was played for laughs, as was the case in Batman and Batman Forever, or he was played overly seriously, an argument that could be made for The Batman — no film got the character just right.
Scott Snyder appears once again on this list, as he was able to nail this character’s nature perfectly in the New 52’s Batman origin story, Zero Year. The Riddler puts Batman through the wringer in the story and even throws Gotham City into an overgrown wasteland. Riddler is presented as both a deathly serious threat while also having an air of whimsy to him, but never to such extremes as any of the film adaptations take the character. It should be noted that this version of The Joker flooded Gotham City, something Paul Dano’s version did in The Batman — so at least one film took a page directly out of the character’s playbook.
2
Batman ’89: Shadows Is A Far Better Sequel To Tim Burton’s Films
Batman Forever and Batman & Robin both have a place in the long line of Batman films over the years, despite being critically panned at the time of their release. They can’t be considered great movies, but they’re both fun for a rewatch every few years if you’re a fan of the Caped Crusader. Even Batman Returns was a notable departure in overall tone when compared to 1989’s Batman, but was still a fine follow-up to the classic. But there was a better follow-up to both Tim Burton films that never saw the light of day on the big screen.
This is why it was such a welcome surprise when DC announced that the story presented in Burton’s two Batman films would be continuing in the Batman ’89 comic book series. In the story titled Shadows, writer Sam Hamm flawlessly continues the story he had originally written for Tim Burton to direct, even introducing a brand-new version of Robin to the universe and following through on the Harvey “Two-Face” Dent tease in the original film. Some could argue this story is even better than the two Burton-directed films, as it feels far more like a true-to-form Batman story without the aesthetic Tim Burton brings to his films.
1
No Man’s Land Is An Epic, Unreplicable Batman Comic
Following a massive earthquake, Gotham City is left in ruins, which leads to the US government isolating its ruins and cutting its ties to the rest of the world. What follows is No Man’s Land, a year of lawlessness in a gang-run wasteland — and for a while, even Batman was missing. This leaves Jim Gordon, a few cops, and Batman’s closest Bat-Family members to aid Gotham against villains like Joker, Scarecrow, and The Penguin, battling it out for control of the broken city. Eventually, Batman returns and reverts to his initial philosophy of fear being the best weapon against his enemies. After taking on Lex Luthor, who planned to steal the property rights to Gotham, the government finally reopens the city. A mere paragraph can’t do this story justice, as it was a lengthy epic that featured many twists and turns and became a defining arc for the Batman comics in the late 1990s.
A few Batman films played around with the concept of a broken Gotham similar to No Man’s Land — there was Bane’s hostile takeover in 2012’s The Dark Knight Rises and the Riddler’s flooding of the streets in 2022’s The Batman, but neither event matches the scale of No Man’s Land. It’s understandable, as transforming Gotham City into a nearly apocalyptic wasteland changes the status quo in a way that’s much easier to pivot from in comics than film, but should the concept of a war-torn Gotham ever find its way into another Batman film, No Man’s Land would be a very interesting approach to realizing the epic scale such an event would call for.
- First Film
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Batman: The Movie
- Cast
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Adam West, Kevin Conroy, Christian Bale, Robert Pattinson, Ben Affleck, Michael Keaton, Keanu Reeves, Josh Hutcherson, Will Friedle, Anson Mount, Will Arnett
- Created by
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Bill Finger, Bob Kane
- Upcoming Films
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The Batman – Part II
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