Scarecrow Batman: Dr. Jonathan Crane in the Films

Scarecrow is Dr. Jonathan Crane, a Gotham City psychiatrist who weaponizes fear, and the films credit him under three slightly different names. In Batman Begins (2005), directed by Christopher Nolan, Cillian Murphy is credited as Dr. Jonathan Crane and billed sixth. In The Dark Knight (2008), also directed by Nolan, Murphy is credited simply as Scarecrow and billed tenth. In The Lego Batman Movie (2017), directed by Chris McKay, the credit is Scarecrow (voice), and the voice is Jason Mantzoukas, billed seventh.

Is Cillian Murphy the Scarecrow in Batman? Yes, in both live action films of the Nolan era. If you want the wider rogues gallery, the Batman villains page sets them side by side.

What is Scarecrow's backstory in the films? Batman Begins introduces him as a corrupt psychiatrist who is also the Scarecrow, and it skips his childhood entirely. His story is told through what he does: he uses a fear inducing drug on Carmine Falcone and on Batman, and he becomes the delivery system for a much larger plan.

Crane's story in the films is a short, sharp one: he is the supplier of terror in Batman Begins (2005), and the film shows what that costs Batman. Once Batman gives Rachel Dawes the evidence that ruins the mob boss Carmine Falcone, Crane doses Falcone with his fear drug, and then Batman himself. Bruce Wayne is nearly lost to the hallucinations before Alfred and Lucius Fox bring him back with an antidote.

What does a Scarecrow do to Batman, then? He attacks the one thing Bruce has spent the whole film learning to master. Bruce has been afraid of bats since falling into a well as a boy, so a drug that feeds on fear lands on an old wound. That is the film's cleverest idea about the character, in my opinion.

Crane is also a link in a bigger chain. Ra's al Ghul, who first came to Bruce as Ducard, wants to use the toxin as a gas and pump it through the city's water, so that Gotham tears itself apart in panic. The League of Shadows frees the inmates from the city's asylum system into the Narrows to make the chaos real. It is worth remembering that Arkham Asylum later becomes the series' standard destination for captured villains: the Riddler is locked up there at the end of Batman Forever (1995), directed by Joel Schumacher, and Mr. Freeze follows in Batman & Robin (1997).

The plot ends on a rail line. Batman fights Ra's aboard the monorail carrying the emitter, and Gordon cuts the track with the Tumbler so the train cannot reach its target.

After that the arc thins out. In The Dark Knight (2008) Scarecrow is a credited name billed tenth, with the story given over to the Joker and Harvey Dent. In The Lego Batman Movie (2017) he is one of the voiced rogues in a crowded cast. Batman Begins is the only film that builds a plot around him.

Scarecrow's relationships in the films are mostly transactional, shaped by the people who feel his toxin and the people who cure it. In Batman Begins, Crane doses the mob boss Carmine Falcone with his fear inducing drug, and Ra's al Ghul and the League of Shadows plan to spread Crane's toxin as a gas over Gotham.

On the other side, his key opponents are the people around Bruce Wayne. Batman is a direct target of the fear drug, Alfred and Lucius Fox are the ones who save him with the antidote, and Commissioner Gordon stops the monorail that carries the gas. Rachel Dawes is the figure Batman hands the evidence that brings down Falcone, and Crane then doses both Falcone and Batman.

On the villain side, his best known neighbors are Ra's al Ghul, whose plan depends on his toxin, and the Joker, who dominates The Dark Knight while Scarecrow is credited in the background. In The Lego Batman Movie the Joker assembles a crowd of Gotham rogues, and Scarecrow is credited among the voices. If you want the heroes first, start at Bruce Wayne.

Scarecrow's fate is left open: none of the three films shows him dying or being arrested. In Batman Begins the League's plan collapses when Gordon wrecks the track and the train crashes, Batman escapes and Ra's is killed, but the story never follows Crane to a conclusion. Gotham is saved, and Gordon, now a lieutenant, mentions a new criminal who leaves a Joker card.

After that, Scarecrow returns as a credited name in The Dark Knight, and then as a voice in The Lego Batman Movie, where the stakes are comic rather than deadly. In short, his status is unresolved rather than final. To see how his three appearances sit among the other releases, the Batman movies in order guide lays them out.

In my opinion, Scarecrow's best moments all come from Batman Begins, and the best of them is the dosing of Batman. It is the point where the film's theme of fear turns into a physical threat, and it is rescued by a practical, almost domestic act: Alfred and Fox working out an antidote. That is a nice contrast with the grand League of Shadows plot around it.

My second pick is the plan to spread the toxin through Gotham's water supply, because it makes a small, creepy drug into a citywide danger. The release of the Arkham inmates into the Narrows adds a chaotic street level layer, and the monorail fight with Ra's gives the idea a big set piece to land on. Gordon wrecking the track with the Tumbler is the practical payoff.

Is Scarecrow more evil than the Joker? It could be argued that the question misses how each is used. In The Dark Knight the Joker rigs two ferries so each group of passengers can blow up the other, and he tricks Batman into losing Rachel. In my opinion that makes the Joker the crueler character on screen, while Scarecrow is the more clinical one, a supplier of fear rather than its author.

My third pick is the least serious: the Lego Batman Movie voice credit, where Jason Mantzoukas gives Scarecrow a place among Gotham's rogues. It is a small nod, but it shows the character is part of the series' furniture. If you are new to him, watch Batman Begins first, then move on to The Dark Knight.