Robin Batman: Dick Grayson and the Actors Who Played Him

Robin is Dick Grayson, a young acrobat turned crime fighter who works beside Batman, and he appears in four theatrical films under that name. The credits use three forms: "Robin (Dick Grayson)" for Burt Ward in the batman 1966 movie, "Robin / Dick Grayson" for Chris O'Donnell in batman forever and batman and robin, and "Robin / Dick Grayson (voice)" for Michael Cera in the lego batman movie. So, if you are asking for his real name, it is Dick Grayson, and Robin is the hero identity he takes on beside Bruce Wayne.

Robin is second billed in Batman (1966), Batman & Robin and The Lego Batman Movie, and fifth billed in Batman Forever, where the villains take up much of the cast list. Three different actors have played him across the four films, one of them in voice only.

In the comics, Robin was created by Bob Kane, Bill Finger and Jerry Robinson, and the name has since passed to other characters, namely Jason Todd, Tim Drake, Stephanie Brown and Damian Wayne. None of them is credited in these four films, which stay with Dick Grayson.

For the full run of films see batman movies in order, and for the other leads see batman characters.

Robin's arc is a set of separate stories rather than one continuous life, because each actor plays him in a different version of Gotham. In Batman (1966), directed by Leslie H. Martinson, he is already the Dynamic Duo's junior half. He races out with Batman to rescue a stranded yacht that turns out to be a fake signal, then helps foil the torpedoes and the bomb set by the United Underworld of the Joker, the Penguin, the Riddler and Catwoman. He and Batman also end up fighting the Penguin's submarine crew, and the film follows the pair through the kidnapping of the Security Council delegates.

Batman Forever (1995), directed by Joel Schumacher, is the origin story. Two-Face attacks a circus and kills the Grayson family, which leaves young Dick Grayson orphaned. Bruce Wayne takes him in, Dick wants revenge, and he soon becomes Robin. Later the villains raid Wayne Manor, wreck the Batcave and kidnap Chase Meridian, and Batman and Robin follow them to the Riddler's island hideout, where Batman rescues Robin and Two-Face falls to his death.

Batman & Robin (1997), also directed by Schumacher, turns the partnership into the problem. Robin falls under Poison Ivy's spell, the rift between him and Batman grows, and Alfred's niece Barbara discovers the Batcave and becomes Batgirl. The partners repair things while they stop Mr. Freeze's plan to freeze Gotham.

The Lego Batman Movie (2017), directed by Chris McKay, plays the adoption for comedy. At the gala for the retiring Commissioner Gordon, Bruce Wayne impulsively adopts Dick, an upbeat orphan who soon becomes Robin. Batman ignores new Commissioner Barbara Gordon's push to work as a partner, pushes his friends away after the Joker escapes the Phantom Zone, and later admits he is afraid of having a family.

Batman and Robin are crime fighting partners first, and across Robin's four films (Batman (1966), Batman Forever, Batman & Robin and The Lego Batman Movie) Bruce Wayne also takes Dick Grayson in as family, first by taking in an orphan and later by adopting him. In Batman (1966) they are the Dynamic Duo, working side by side through the torpedoes, the bomb and the hunt for the United Underworld. In Batman Forever, Bruce takes in the orphaned Dick, so the partnership begins with grief on both sides. Batman & Robin keeps that partnership and tests it. In The Lego Batman Movie the link is literal: Bruce adopts Dick by accident at the gala, and the ending has Batman tell Robin his secret identity and accept Alfred, Robin and Barbara as his family.

Is Batman's son Robin? Not in the Batman films, where Dick Grayson is an orphan whom Bruce Wayne takes in or adopts. Damian Wayne, a later Robin in the comics, does not appear in them.

Robin's other bonds shape his scenes. Two-Face kills the Graysons in Batman Forever, which makes two face batman his personal enemy. Poison Ivy bends him against Batman in Batman & Robin. Alfred, played in those two films by Michael Gough and voiced by Ralph Fiennes in the Lego film, is the household anchor, and alfred batman covers that relationship. Barbara, who becomes Batgirl in both Batman & Robin and The Lego Batman Movie, turns the pair into a trio. For the hero himself, see bruce wayne.

Robin survives every film he appears in, so his fate is a matter of where each story leaves him rather than whether he lives. Batman (1966) ends with Batman and Robin slipping away through the window after the delegates are restored, and it sets up no sequel. Batman Forever ends with Bruce choosing to keep fighting crime with Dick as his partner Robin. Batman & Robin ends with the two repaired as a team, now joined by Batgirl, after Freeze is jailed in Arkham Asylum. The Lego Batman Movie ends with Batman telling Robin who he really is and treating him as family.

The Dark Knight Rises (2012) adds a twist. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays the young officer John Blake, credited only as Blake, and the film reveals that his legal first name is Robin. At the end Blake leaves the police and is directed to the Batcave, which sets up a new hero carrying on the mission. That is a nod rather than a Dick Grayson appearance, so it does not count among his four films.

In my opinion, the best Robin moments are the ones where the film lets the partnership carry the emotion rather than the gadgets. It could be argued that Batman Forever has the strongest single sequence, because the circus attack gives Dick a real wound and gives Bruce a reason to recognize it. Chris O'Donnell plays the revenge angle straight, and it gives Robin a reason to exist that Batman (1966) never needed.

Batman (1966) earns a place for tone. Burt Ward's Robin goes through the torpedo and bomb traps as the junior half of an unflappable pair, and the closing joke, the delegates swapping languages and manners, keeps the duo looking competent and kind. It sits in a different register from the later films, and that is part of its charm.

Batman & Robin is the weakest of the four for Robin, in my view, because the spell Poison Ivy casts turns him into a plot device. That being said, the repaired partnership at the end, with Batgirl now alongside them, is the one beat that works.

The Lego Batman Movie wins on clarity. The gala adoption is the funniest way any of these films starts the partnership, and Batman telling Robin his secret identity near the end is the most satisfying payoff of any Robin story. If you only watch one, I would pick that one, with Batman Forever as the serious companion.