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Perhaps more than any other superhero, Batman is usually as only as good as his enemies, particularly as far it it relates to the beloved character’s cinematic adaptations.
Need proof? For the seven cinematic Batmans we’ve had so far — Adam West, Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, George Clooney, Christian Bale, Ben Affleck, and Robert Pattinson — there have been three times as many villains featured in those films, depending on whether you count the three Catwomen and Christopher Walken’s Max Shreck in Batman Returns (who won’t be featured below since he’s not a “Batman villain,” but rather, a villain that featured in a Batman movie).
Given how important Batman’s rogues gallery is to his success, a clear hierarchy of the best cinematic Batman villains from worst to best can be traced. A couple of notes before we begin the rankings, though.
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The list will not be including any of the villains from the 1966 Batman film with Adam West as its overtly camp style essentially makes the property a unique entity unto itself. Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker will also not appear considering he never crosses paths with Batman.
The three Catwoman actresses — Michelle Pfeiffer, Anne Hathaway, and Zoe Kravitz — have also been left out as the cinematic portrayal of the character has not only leaned into the romantic interest element of Catwoman but also has outright had her act heroic over the course of all three films. Will Smith’s Deadshot, the Carmine Falcone character played by Tom Wilkinson in Batman Begins and John Turturro in The Batman, and Salvatore Maroni in The Dark Knight have also been omitted. We’re looking at the CLASSIC Batman villains here.
The Top 15 Live-Action Batman Villains, Ranked
15. Joker, Jared Leto – Suicide Squad
Let’s put aside the fact that Jared Leto is an allegedly terrible person and just assess his performance alone from an objective point of view. Even when doing so, there is no denying that Jared Leto’s take on the Clown Prince of Crime is the worst Batman villain ever put to screen.
Leto’s Joker was so bad, in fact, that you didn’t even need to see Suicide Squad to understand what a trainwreck his performance was, but rather, just the first-look image at the character, as the presence of a “DAMAGED” tattoo on his forehead represents an almost biblical misunderstanding of the character.
Then, on top of that, Leto’s performance in and of itself was not only uncompelling but just generally weird. And not, like, cool Joker weird — but off-putting, “Why am I watching this?” weird.
14. Poison Ivy, Uma Thurman/Mr. Freeze, Arnold Schwarzenegger/Bane, Robert Swenson in Batman & Robin
The less said about Batman & Robin, the better. Moving on.
13. Riddler, Jim Carrey and Two-Face, Tommy Lee Jones in Batman Forever
While Riddler and Two-Face in Batman Forever are being grouped together similar to Bane, Poison Ivy and Mr. Freeze in Batman & Robin, it’s for much different reasons. While Batman Forever is nowhere near as disastrous as Batman & Robin, it’s also far from the elite tier of Batman movies. And while Jim Carrey and Tommy Lee Jones are two of the more enjoyable parts of the film, the ultimate quality, and therefore their ranking on this list, remains capped by the sum of the parts.
The reason for grouping them together, though, has less to do with what unfolded on-screen, but rather, what was happening off of it, as Tommy Lee Jones famously *couldn’t stand* Jim Carrey, with the Oscar winner famously telling Carrey when they met that he “cannot sanction his buffoonery.”
12. Talia Al Ghul, Marion Cotillard in The Dark Knight Rises
A generally confusing character undermined by a miscast Marion Cotillard that’s all amplified by the infamously awful scene of her character dying — so bad that Cortillard herself has taken issue with director Christopher Nolan ultimately using that take in the final cut.
11. Joker, Barry Keoghan in The Batman
The jury is still out on this one considering he had just the one scene in The Batman. From what we saw, the performance seemed to be fine — fans seemed to be more concerned with the aesthetic choice the film made with the character’s face, as they made this version of the Joker horribly mangled and, quite frankly, tough to look at.
Given his appearance in The Batman, it’s likely we see Barry Keoghan’s Joker in The Batman: Part II, which will allegedly begin production next spring. The size of his role, however, is still up in the air.
10. Two-Face, Aaron Eckhart in The Dark Knight
Heath Ledger’s singular performance as Joker — more on that later, obviously — is so legendary that it routinely overshadows the fact that Aaron Eckhart also put forth an Oscar nomination-worthy performance with his turn as Harvey Dent/Two-Face in The Dark Knight.
The thing with Eckhart’s character, however, is that he’s only Two-Face for about a third of the movie, maybe even a little less — meaning much of his performance comes as Harvey Dent. And as Harvey Dent, Eckhart is excellent. As Two-Face? In my opinion, not as great. But the totality of the performance makes Eckhart’s Two-Face a live-action Batman villain that has proven to stand the test of time.
9. Scarecrow, Cillian Murphy in Batman Begins
Cillian Murphy’s Scarecrow in Batman Begins is like a one-or-or two-time MLB All-Star that usually bats around .250, knocks in about 75 RBIs and mashes about 20 home runs: you might not be able to win a championship with him as your star player but you certainly could if you had a team full of them.
8. Penguin, Danny DeVito in Batman Returns
Danny DeVito’s Penguin in Batman Returns — simply a better movie than its 1989 predecessor — is nightmarish in his grotesqueness, making the character instantly and everlastingly memorable.
7. Harley Quinn, Margot Robbie in Suicide Squad/Birds of Prey/The Suicide Squad
Here’s how oddly constructed and executed the DCEU was: Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn — who starred in three of the franchise’s films compared to Batman’s two — had just one scene with Batman, and that was in one of the only redeemable sequences in the 2016 dumpster fire that was Suicide Squad.
So that’s: Harley Quinn – 3 movies; Batman – 2 movies; and together – 1 scene.
Nonetheless, Harley Quinn remains, technically, a Batman villain, and Margot Robbie’s portrayal of the character is widely considered to be the most successful thing that the DCEU ever pulled off. Fans certainly wouldn’t complain if she somehow made her way over to James Gunn’s DCU — put it that way.
6. Penguin, Colin Farrell in The Batman
Colin Farrell’s portrayal of Penguin was so good that he A) was literally unrecognizable in the role and B) the first character from The Batman to return to the screen, as he featured in the critically acclaimed HBO Max series The Penguin last year.
Given how much of a fan favorite he is, he’ll surely appear in The Batman: Part II and could potentially get a second season of his own series.
5. Ra’s Al Ghul, Liam Neeson in Batman Begins
Going with Ra’s Al Ghul over Scarecrow ultimately came down to which character was the more treacherous test for Christian Bale’s young Batman, and when analyzing it through that prism, it’s hard to pick against Bruce Wayne’s jaded mentor, Ra’s Al Ghul.
Ra’s Al Ghul is such a compelling Batman villain because he’s — similar to Joker — a mirror of the Batman. His goal is the same — to root out corruption and evil. But his methods are far more extreme, setting up an eternally compelling contrast between him and the Dark Knight, which results in the chef’s kiss of a storytelling choice wherein Batman, learning from Ra’s’ teachings, doesn’t kill him… but also chooses not to save him.
It helps, of course, that Liam Neeson brings an inherent aura and prestige to virtually every role his plays.
4. Riddler, Paul Dano in The Batman
Recency bias? Perhaps. But it’s difficult to imagine the world of The Batman without Paul Dano’s The Riddler in it.
The world that director Matt Reeves crafted for The Batman was so finely tuned that many of Batman’s most famous villains feel naturally incongruent with the environment — albeit to a less extent than Christopher Nolan’s films, which leaned into realism versus Reeves’ noir — thus making Riddler the perfect fit for it.
Turning Riddler into a Seven-esque serial killer was an obvious stroke of genius, but there’s far more to the character beyond that, as he’s also effectively used to deploy dark humor, like when he begins his live stream saying “Hey, guys” or doesn’t realize that Batman is Bruce Wayne WHILE talking to Batman about Bruce Wayne.
The Batman‘s deployment of the Riddler also allowed the film to showcase a side of the Caped Crusader that many fans have clamored to see more of on the big screen for years, and that’s showcasing his capacity as the “World’s Greatest Detective”, with Riddler’s Dano providing the perfect mouse game to his cat Bat.
3. Bane, Tom Hardy in The Dark Knight Rises
Here’s the thing about Tom Hardy’s performance as Bane: regardless of how you feel about it, it’s truly iconic. The voice. The mask. The quotes. THE BACK MUSCLES. Breaking the Batman. Bane has become a part of the fabric of pop culture, with his famed musing of “You think darkness is your ally? But you merely adopted the dark; I was born in it, molded by it,” becoming a part of our lexicon. That sort of conscientious immersion only happens when a character is memorable, which is exactly what Bane is.
It also helps that Christopher Nolan *finally* figured out how to shoot a fight scene by the time The Dark Knight Rises rolled around, leading to some of the most thrilling set pieces in the trilogy, all of which are elevated by Hardy’s presence and physicality.
2. Joker, Jack Nicholson in Batman
Every character on this list, Batman movies, and the comic book movie genre, in general, likely don’t exist in their current forms without Jack Nicholson’s totemic turn as Joker in Tim Burton’s history-of-Hollywood-altering Batman.
Beyond just the standard and expected qualify of a Nicholson performance colliding with a legendary character in Joker in a uniquely crafted Tim Burton world, Nicholson’s performance as Joker actually changed the way Hollywood did things, as the gambit of having a beloved movie star play the villain actually wasn’t all that common prior to 1989‘s Batman.
1. Joker, Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight
Truly — what is left to be said about Heath Ledger’s cinema-altering turn as Gotham City’s Clown Prince of Crime?
It redefined what a comic book movie could be and propelled The Dark Knight to becoming the first CBM to gross over a billion dollars.
It earned Ledger a posthumous actor — the first for an actor in a comic book movie — and was the key feature of a film, The Dark Knight, that was solely responsible for the Academy expanding its Best Picture field from five to ten given TDK‘s snub.
Whenever thinking or writing about Ledger, my mind always wanders to just how young he was, and how young he’s *still be* if he were alive today. Ledger was 28 when he died, meaning he put forth that performance as Joker when he was just 27 years old, which is remarkable in and of itself. What were you doing at 27?
If alive today, he would be just 46 years old — Leonardo DiCaprio didn’t win his first Oscar until he was 40 — which is about the same age as Chris Pratt, Jason Mamoa, Oscar Isaac, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Channing Tatum.
He likely would have reprised his role as Joker in another Batman movie, taken over the role of Mad Max instead of Tom Hardy, collaborated with Christopher Nolan a few more times, and probably earned about a couple more Oscar nominations, if not wins, along the way.
Losing Ledger was a massive loss, but what he left behind in his performance as Joker is an artifact of pop culture that will last forever.