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Matt Reeves film series The Batman: March 4, 2022 Robert Pattinson: Matt Reeves: Matt Reeves and Peter Craig: Dylan Clark and Matt Reeves The Batman – Part II: October 2, 2026 Matt Reeves and Mattson Tomlin: DC Universe film The Brave and the Bold: TBA TBA Andy Muschietti: TBA TBA James Gunn, Peter Safran and Barbara Muschietti
- Comics published by DC Comics
1. Batman Begins. 2005 2h 20m PG-13. 8.2 (1.6M) Rate. 70 Metascore. After witnessing his parents' death, Bruce learns the art of fighting to confront injustice. When he returns to Gotham as Batman, he must stop a secret society that intends to destroy the city. Director Christopher Nolan Stars Christian Bale Michael Caine Ken Watanabe. 2.
- Batman: The Movie (1966) The iconic 1966 adaptation of Batman by Adam West was the first ever colorized Batman movie and remains a timeless classic to date.
- Batman (1989) After Adam West, Michael Keaton was cast as Batman, and people, after getting the news, were highly skeptical. Since Keaton was known for his comic roles, people thought that Batman was going to be a goofball again but once the movie was released, Keaton’s Batman threw a Batarang at all the skepticism floating around.
- Batman Returns (1992) Batman Returns is the second installment of Michael Keaton’s Batman movies and features Catwoman played by Michelle Pfeiffer. This movie has the scariest and ghore-filled presentation of the penguin, played by Danny DeVito, ever seen in a live-action Batman movie.
- Batman Forever (1995) In 1995, Val Kilmer was cast as Batman for Batman Forever and I won’t be wrong to say that it turned out to be a hot mess. Val Kilmer, in himself, was not bad in the role of Batman but the way this movie was made took Batman back to the Adam West era.
Two-Face, an animated film based on the 1960s Batman television series; starring Adam West as Batman, Burt Ward as Robin, and Julie Newmar as Catwoman. 2018: Batman: Gotham by Gaslight , an animated film based on the graphic novel , with Bruce Greenwood voicing Batman.
- 1939-present
- Overview
- Batman movies in release date order
- Batman movies in chronological order
- Best Batman movies: ranking the film
- Direct to video/TV animated Batman movies
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How-to
By Richard Edwards
published 4 March 2022
A chronological guide to eight decades of Caped Crusader movies
(Image credit: Warner Bros.)
Who is the Batman? The Caped Crusader has been reinvented so many times over the years that nobody really knows for sure.
•Batman (1943)
•Batman and Robin (1949)
•Batman: The Movie (1966)
•Batman (1989)
•Batman Returns (1992)
•Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993)
When it comes to cinematic reboots, no other superhero can compete with Batman – with Robert Pattinson’s 2022 debut in the cowl kicking off the Caped Crusader’s fourth big-screen continuity, even cinematic mainstays Superman and Spider-Man are languishing way behind.
Given Bats’ enduring popularity, it’s remarkable that Hollywood didn’t give him a major movie franchise before 1989, when director Tim Burton pitted Michael Keaton’s Bruce Wayne against Jack Nicholson’s scenery-chewing Joker. It became the second highest-grossing film of that year, so a sequel was inevitable – but nobody expected what Burton, given remarkable levels of creative freedom, would deliver.
The darker, weirder Batman Returns is one of the most wilfully, wonderfully bizarre superhero movies ever made. Unfortunately, that meant that it made considerably less at the box office than its predecessor, and prompted Warner Bros to go much more mainstream when it went back to Gotham.
Batman Forever saw Joel Schumacher taking over behind the camera, with Val Kilmer donning the cape. Despite being a commercial success, this silly, neon-drenched threequel was rather less popular with critics – though worse was to come…
Two years later, Batman & Robin all-but-killed the franchise with a movie that regularly features in “worst ever” lists, and made sure that George Clooney (the then-ER star tasked with taking over from Kilmer in the Batsuit) had an inauspicious start to his career as an A-lister.
An eight-year absence from the big screen followed, despite various abandoned efforts at a Bat-reboot – Darren Aronofsky worked with Frank Miller on an adaptation of the Year One comic, while Das Boot/Air Force One director Wolfgang Petersen was linked to a Batman v Superman project.
Seeing as Batman’s cinema appearances have been spread over nearly 80 years, it’s no surprise there’s been a massive range of style and tone. But few franchises in history – even James Bond – have had such a large variation in quality.
Ranking the Batman theatrical releases by IMDb user ratings, it’s no surprise to see Christopher Nolan’s majestic The Dark Knight at the top of the tree, closely followed by the critically adored Joker – it may not technically be a Batman movie, but it’s definitely a film spawned from Bruce Wayne’s crime-ridden world. It’s interesting to note that both of those films feature an Oscar-winning performance from an actor playing the Joker – Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight and Joaquin Phoenix in Joker, respectively.
It was also inevitable that the risible Batman & Robin should be the film propping up the table – it saw significantly more action at anti-Oscars the Razzies than it did at the Academy Awards.
•The Dark Knight – 9.0
•The Batman – 8.8
•Joker – 8.6
As befits a billionaire playboy with money to burn, Batman was never going to be satisfied with only conquering the big screen. Subsequently, the Caped Crusader has appeared in numerous animated direct-to-video/TV movies over the course of his eventful lifetime.
His earlier feature-length animated outings were spin-offs from popular TV cartoon series – as sequels to Mask of the Phantasm, Batman and Mr Freeze: SubZero and Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman were effectively spin-offs from the acclaimed Batman: The Original Series/The New Batman Adventures. Meanwhile, Return of the Joker was based in the universe of the future-set Batman Beyond, and the genre mashing The Batman vs Dracula was part of the ’00s The Batman TV show.
However, it's over the last decade that Batman has become particularly active on the animated movie front, as Warner Bros has rolled out its successful line of DC Universe Animated Original Movies. Indeed, some have been such a big deal that they’ve been given one-night-only cinematic releases to tie in with their debut on home entertainment formats.
While many of these films have been based on original stories or set in DC’s Animated Movie Universe, the line has been most notable for bringing classic standalone stories from the Batman comic books (such as Batman: Year One, The Dark Knight Returns and The Killing Joke) to the screen.
The Caped Crusaders’s feature-length offering is rounded off with a pair of animated stories set in the universe of the ’60s TV series (these include the late Adam West’s last outing in the role, and his Batman’s first encounter with Two-Face); the Japanese-made Batman Ninja; and unlikely team-ups with Scooby-Doo and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Batman: The Animated Series/The New Batman Adventures
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Sep 19, 2023 · Updated Sep 19, 2023. Want to binge-watch every Batman movie and show ever made? We've compiled a chronological list and other recommended viewing orders. Pocket-lint/Warner Bros. Quick Links....
Nov 20, 2023 · March 4, 2022. Director. Matt Reeves. Cast. Robert Pattinson , Colin Farrell , Paul Dano , Andy Serkis , Peter Sarsgaard , Zoe Kravitz. Runtime. 176 minutes. Batman Movies in Chronological...
