This Is The Correct Order In Which To Watch Every Batman Movie

Batman is one of the most widely-recognized fictional characters in the history of storytelling. Without live-action adaptations of the Caped Crusader's adventures — which began all the way back in 1943 — today's blockbuster film industry would look totally different. All that longevity comes with a few baked-in quirks. Batman had his own movie franchise decades ahead of a mainstream culture that took films based on comic books seriously. Thanks to this relatively early start, the Dark Knight has undergone multiple reboots, experienced drastic tonal shifts, and been played by a large slate of leading men.

If your familiarity with Batman-oriented media is limited, but the hype surrounding 2022's "The Batman" has piqued your curiosity about Bruce Wayne's previous onscreen endeavors, where are you supposed to begin? Is there a correct approach to catching up on Bat-films? Well, if we leave out live-action serials, television projects, animated films, and spinoffs starring villains — which, admittedly, amounts to quite a lot — then we can indeed produce the correct order in which to watch every Batman movie. Whether you're an eager newbie or a diehard fan looking to revisit your hero's cinematic exploits, this arrangement is the way to go.

If you start with 1989's "Batman," then your best bet for sustained continuity is the path laid out by the '90s Batman movie timeline.  

That makes your second stop Tim Burton's follow-up, the incidental 1992 Christmas movie "Batman Returns." This sequel marks Michael Keaton's second outing as the Caped Crusader and also boasts Michelle Pfeiffer and Danny DeVito delivering quintessential performances as Catwoman and the Penguin, respectively.

With its dark fairy tale aesthetic and emphasis on damaged outcasts, "Batman Returns" probably has more in common with other Tim Burton projects like 1990's "Edward Scissorhands" than the bulk of superhero movies. It's certainly too macabre for small children — but a PG-13 rating was all Warner Bros. needed to tell moms and dads that "Batman Returns" isn't exactly "The Little Mermaid," right? Well ... not so much. To promote "Batman Returns," Warner Bros. deployed misleadingly kid-friendly marketing — most glaringly, toys in McDonald's Happy Meals — that invited a seething backlash from parents (via Entertainment Weekly) who were miffed their wee ones ended up with Danny DeVito-oriented nightmares for a month.  

As long as you learn from their mistakes and keep the kiddies away from this flick, you'll have a great time. You will, however, notice a major departure in tone once you move on. Burton and Keaton both left Batman behind following "Batman Returns," and the decision-makers at Warner Bros., rattled by accusations of family unfriendliness, decided Gotham City needed to get a lot less gothic. 

While the movies are more expensive and, in theory, designed for a broader audience, the most influential version of Batman from the '90s is undoubtedly "Batman: The Animated Series." This 1992 cartoon takes its tonal cue from the Burton films while presenting a thoughtful, emotionally mature, kid-friendly iteration of Gotham City. Why did Warner Bros. think they had to make Batman a grinning goofball to appeal to children when their own TV show, based on the same intellectual property, made a strong case to the contrary? Who knows. But we live with the result: 1997's "Batman and Robin."

"Batman and Robin" combines the intellectual development of "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers" with the camp of the 1960s Batman TV show — though it subtracts the latter's delightful tongue-in-cheekiness. Basically, the plot entails Batman (George Clooney) and Robin almost breaking up because Robin (Chris O'Donnell) is visibly pushing 30 and makes no sense as a "Boy Wonder." Arnold Schwarzenegger, occupying the villain spot as Mr. Freeze alongside Uma Thurman's Poison Ivy, behaves like an emotionally-detached murderbot with specialized high-tech weaponry. What keeps Freeze from being a rehash of the T-800 that made his actor's career is a plethora of terrible ice jokes. It is groan-worthy. It is tiresome. But if you get some friends together who are down to laugh at a low point in Batman's history, it's still pretty fun to watch.

In hindsight, 2005's "Batman Begins" could have been called "The Modern Era of DC Comics Characters in Film Begins." Galvanized by a need to course-correct for the empty-headed neon flamboyance of "Batman and Robin," Warner Bros. tapped Christopher Nolan — then known for directing psychological thrillers like 2000's "Memento" and 2002's "Insomnia" — to pull Batman back towards his gritty, street-level roots. 

"Batman Begins" marks the start of a new timeline: Events that unfold in the Burton and Schumacher movies never occurred in this iteration of Gotham City. Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) transforms from self-destructive rich kid to ninja trainee to terrifying urban protector with nary a Bat-credit card in sight. The performatively immortal Raʼs al Ghul (Liam Neeson) doles out his master plan more like a megalomaniacal Bond villain than any literal or figurative clown. The closest thing to camp comes in the form of Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy), a living haunted house prop with a vicious streak. 

Murphy's Scarecrow steals his share of scenes in "Batman Begins." The mad scientist's kayfabe-breaking question, "Would you like to see my mask?" could've been the Gotham villain catchphrase of its generation, had it not been for the arrival of an even more deranged update of a Batman Big Bad in the follow-up film.

In order to examine 2012's "The Dark Knight Rises" for what it truly is, we have to push a mountain of critical discourse aside. Some folks will tell you that "The Dark Knight Rises," Nolan's final entry in the franchise, is better than "The Dark Knight." Others say that "The Dark Knight Rises" gets a little too tangled up in itself at certain points, but ultimately wraps this version of Bruce Wayne's saga up with all the mythic grandeur the assignment requires. Some think "The Dark Knight Rises" falls flat on its face. It earned solid reviews and made decent money, which means public opinion can only be so bad, no matter what the loudest people on the internet think. The fact is, anything following "The Dark Knight" was always going to feel like a tiny bit of a let-down.

If you accept that, however, you'll realize this film has a lot to offer. Bale is as strong a Batman as ever, going out on a definite high note. As for the villains, Anne Hathaway adds a world-weary sense of snark to Selina Kyle's classic moral ambiguity that works like gangbusters. And then there's Bane — by some insane fluke of fate, not the superhero role "Venom" star Tom Hardy is currently best known for. Yes, his voice is a little weird, but his genuine presence as the masked baddie is irresistible.

If your purpose in this endeavor is to watch every Batman movie, then the 2017 edit of "Justice League" overseen by director Joss Whedon, and 2021's "Zack Snyder's Justice League," the re-edit released on HBO Max, both do the trick. These two films tell essentially the same story, and are equally relevant to Batman's overall place in the pop cultural universe. But if time isn't a factor — the "Snyder cut" is literally twice as long as Whedon's two-hour "Justice League" — we think even the most adamant Snyder critics would probably admit his take is more worth watching. 

Whedon's film has its moments, but amounts to a bland exercise in pushing a handful of intellectual properties through the market-demanded motions. Meanwhile, the Snyder cut is a maximalist cataclysm of R-rated action-fantasy lunacy. "Justice League" is a corporate product; it is not art. The Snyder cut is also a corporate product ... but maybe it is art?

Also, Snyder adds a scene in which the Joker (Jared Leto) heavily implies he murdered Robin at some point during the Snyder-verse DC timeline. That extra dash of depressing info gives the movie a connection to Batman comics — specifically, 1988's "Death in the Family." Whedon's "Justice League" lacks this, and is thus a lesser choice for a Batman-centric movie marathon. There's more Batman stuff in the Snyder cut, just as there is more of literally everything else.