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Batman has the greatest rogue’s gallery of any superhero, and that is reflected within the films that have starred him. The role of playing a Batman villain is not just one that is handed off to a one-note actor, as there are many Academy Award winning, acclaimed performers who have taken on these roles. That a Batman villain is a prestige part might seem surprising, but the source material is filled with so much potential that there’s no surprise that it’s attracted such interest.
Many of the animated shows and direct-to-DVD Batman projects have offered interesting takes on some of the more obscure villains, but the films released in theaters have a unique power, especially when considering how successful the franchise has been. Many of these performances expand beyond Batman as a franchise, as the rank among the greatest villains in any movie.
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Cillian Murphy as the Scarecrow in ‘Batman Begins’ (2005)
Cillian Murphy has become one of the most loyal collaborators of Christopher Nolan, and their relationship kicked off with Batman Begins in 2005. Murphy got to take on the role of Dr. Jonathan Crane, the corrupt medical expert who helps transport the most dangerous criminals in Gotham City to Arkham Asylum.
Crane is ultimately a pawn who is under the control of the League of Shadows, but he does offer a serious challenge to Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) when he uses his alter ego, “Scarecrow,” to terrorize with his toxic gas. Although Scarecrow’s plan is foiled by the end of Batman Begins, Murphy appeared again to reprise his role in both The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, where he got to take a slightly more comedic approach to a villain who had already been embarrassingly beaten by Batman.
9
Liam Neeson as Ra’s Al Ghul in ‘Batman Begins’ (2005)
Liam Neeson was an interesting choice to play Ra’s Al Ghul in Batman Begins because audiences were used to seeing him play more positive mentor characters in Kingdom of Heaven and Star Wars: Episode I- The Phantom Menace. Batman Begins offered a clever twist because it is revealed that Ra’s does not share the desire to be bloodless that Bruce does, leading them into a conflict that comes back to haunt Gotham City.
Neeson has a compelling performance because he shows how Ra’s is motivated by loss and grief to become an avenger, even though he takes his rage too far and uses the League of Shadows as a way to justify his cruel behavior and desire for power. He also got to appear for a brief cameo in The Dark Knight Rises, which makes up for the fact that he never got to play a force ghost in any of the Star Wars films.
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Danny DeVito as The Penguin in ‘Batman Returns’ (1992)
Danny DeVito was an interesting choice to play Oswald Cobblepot because at the time he was seen as being a more comedic actor, and Batman Returns was an even darker film than the first Batman from Tim Burton. The brilliance of Batman Returns is that “The Penguin” is an unloved loner and anarchist whose magnetic behavior is taken advantage of by Max Schreck (Christoher Walken), who helps stage a political coup by presenting the insane criminal as a potential mayor of Gotham City.
DeVito had to be genuinely repulsive and was able to give a deeply felt performance, despite being underneath a significant amount of makeup. DeVito not only helped to bring to life the character from the comics, but was certainly the right choice for the totally bizarre, excessively weird tone that Burton used for his take on the franchise.
7
Colin Farrell as The Penguin in ‘The Batman’ (2022)
Colin Farrell is downright unrecognizable in The Batman as Oz Cobb, a modernized take on The Penguin who runs an underground club frequented by Gotham City criminals like Carmine Falcone (John Turturro). Farrell works in the role because he is not a big shot gangster, but rather a low-level mobster who ends up feuding with Batman (Robert Pattinson) during the fight to unravel a conspiracy involving a serial killer.
Farrell gives a very entertaining performance in The Batman that is both scary and funny, but he was able to go into even more depth fleshing out Oz’s backstory and his twisted desire for power in The Penguin, a brilliant miniseries that ranks among the greatest comic book adaptations ever produced for the small screen. Farrell turns Oz into a character who is somewhat understandable, but not necessarily sympathetic because of his ruthlessness.
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Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman in ‘Batman Returns’ (1992)
Michelle Pfeiffer helped turn Batman Returns into more than just a typical comic book sequel because the film became a complex study in identity and suppression. Her version of Selina Kyle is a mousy assistant who is brutalized by Schreck, only to become the ultimate femme fatale that gets under the skin of Batman (Michael Keaton) as she switches sides throughout the film.
Batman Returns explored how each of the costumed characters used their alternative identities to mask loneliness, and Pfeiffer is particularly effective because of the deep trauma that Selina goes through before becoming an unpredictable villain. Her dynamic with Keaton is particularly strong, as Batman Returns nails the complex relationship between characters who are both attracted and repulsed by one another better than any other piece of Batman-related media. While Anne Hathaway and Zoe Kravitz showed more empathetic versions of Catwoman, Pfeiffer was still a villain.
5
Jack Nicholson as the Joker in ‘Batman’ (1989)
Jack Nicholson was essentially the big name that helped the Batman franchise become a major event, as he was a much bigger star than Keaton when Burton’s film debuted in 1989. Nicholson got the biggest salary ever for a film role at that point in time, and was given a fair amount of creative control by Burton to do whatever he wanted with the character; Batman doesn’t do much to explore how Bruce became Batman, but it does spend a lot of time showing how the Joker was born.
Nicholson brings a completely unpredictable energy to the role as a truly psychopathic character who has a deeper tie to Bruce because he was responsible for killing his parents, a twist on the Batman mythology that removed the character of Joe Chill. There’s no other film in which Nicholson dances to Prince music.
4
Tom Hardy as Bane in ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ (2012)
Tom Hardy had tremendous expectations in front of him because of how much excitement there was to see what the ending of Nolan’s trilogy would look like, and because Bane had been treated as a complete joke when he was in Batman & Robin. Bane is an effective villain because he has sworn himself to the inherently destructive ideals of the League of Shadows, and never rebelled against its teaching because he didn’t develop the consciousness that Bruce did.
Bane utilizes the skills of theatricality that were inherent to the League of Shadows as he becomes a radical thinker who encourages Gotham City to turn in on himself, and he also makes for the first villain in Nolan’s trilogy that serves as a legitimate physical threat because of how brutally he is able to take down Batman when they share their first brawl with one another.
3
Paul Dano as The Riddler in ‘The Batman’ (2022)
Paul Dano proved to be an unusual choice to play a new version of The Riddler in The Batman, as his performance couldn’t have been more different than the eccentric take that Jim Carrey had on the part when he appeared in Batman Forever. Dano’s Riddler represented the insular, conspiracy-obsessed Internet loner persona that has become more terrifying in the last decade, and he’s an effective antagonist because he genuinely believes that Batman is his ally.
Dano gives a terrifying performance because of the Riddler’s inability to show empathy, and for creating a plan that threatens to thrust the entire city into chaos. The Batman is heavily inspired by serial killer films, most notably David Fincher’s Se7en and Zodiac, and Dano certainly brings forth those psychopathic qualities to be the best of the big screen supervillains of the 2020s so far.
2
Mark Hamill as the Joker in ‘Batman: Mask of the Phantasm’ (1994)
Mark Hamill helped to redefine the Joker on Batman: The Animated Series, providing a fresh spin on the character that went on to inspire most of the subsequent iterations. Batman: Mask of the Phantasm served as a continuation of the animated series that faced Kevin Conroy’s version of Bruce Wayne off with one of his most sinister antagonists yet, but the Joker served as the background mastermind who helped to orchestrate the chaos.
Hamill’s iteration of the Joker is perhaps the truest to the comics, which makes sense given that he is a superhero aficionado. While there was a consistency to Hamill’s work throughout all of the projects that he was involved with, getting to see him on the big screen for the first time was a treat, especially given how well Batman: Mask of the Phantasm has aged.
1
Heath Ledger as the Joker in ‘The Dark Knight’ (2008)
Heath Ledger delivered one of the greatest villainous performances in cinematic history in The Dark Knight, and it is tragic that it was also the final film that he completed working on before his tragic passing several months before it premiered. Ledger portrayed the Joker as a true anarchist who wanted to see Gotham City’s citizens reveal themselves to be vile and ugly, and he did so by creating a situation in which the public was willing Batman to reveal himself in order to prevent the killings.
Ledger created an undefinable sense of chaos because the Joker’s backstory is purposefully ambiguous, and he often contradicts himself when trying to justify his actions. Rarely has a performance encapsulated a moment in popular culture quite as well as Ledger’s Joker, as it remains the most iconic role of a brilliant actor who sadly only had a brief moment to showcase his brilliance.
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Liam Gaughan
Almontather Rassoul
