Batman Timeline: Every Film in Order and How They Connect

The Batman timeline in order is the release order of the theatrical films, because the series is a run of separate universes and not a single calendar. The films run as follows, with the actor in the cowl for each.

1. Batman (1966), Adam West
2. Batman (1989), Michael Keaton
3. Batman Returns (1992), Michael Keaton
4. Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993), Kevin Conroy (voice)
5. Batman Forever (1995), Val Kilmer
6. Batman & Robin (1997), George Clooney
7. Batman Begins (2005), Christian Bale
8. The Dark Knight (2008), Christian Bale
9. The Dark Knight Rises (2012), Christian Bale
10. The Lego Batman Movie (2017), Will Arnett (voice)
11. The Batman (2022), Robert Pattinson

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), Justice League (2017), Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021) and The Flash (2023) are appearances, where Batman joins other DC heroes, and they slot into the Batman movies in order list by release date. Each era gets its own section in turn, and the Batman movies hub covers the whole run.

The first era is a single film, Batman (1966), directed by Leslie H. Martinson, and it stands entirely on its own. Adam West plays Batman and Bruce Wayne, Burt Ward is Robin, and the villains are the Joker (Cesar Romero), the Penguin (Burgess Meredith), the Riddler (Frank Gorshin) and Catwoman (Lee Meriwether), who team up as the United Underworld.

The film opens with Batman and Robin answering what looks like a distress call from a yacht at sea, which turns out to be a trick. The plot centers on a machine that turns people into dust and can bring them back, which the villains plan to use on the delegates of the United Nations Security Council.

Its US premiere took place on July 30, 1966 at the Paramount Theater in Austin, according to KUT. The cast, tone and Gotham all belong to this film alone, so nothing here connects to the later live action films. If you are asking how long ago Batman started on the big screen, this is the answer: it is the first theatrical Batman feature in this franchise, about 60 years before today.

The second era is four connected films, from Batman (1989) directed by Tim Burton to Batman & Robin (1997) directed by Joel Schumacher, and the four share a world and a supporting cast. Michael Gough plays Alfred and Pat Hingle plays Commissioner Gordon in all four.

Michael Keaton is Batman in Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992), both directed by Burton. In the first, Jack Napier (Jack Nicholson) becomes the Joker after a fight at Axis Chemicals. In the second, the Penguin (Danny DeVito), Max Shreck (Christopher Walken) and Selina Kyle, who becomes Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer), take over, and the film closes on Catwoman looking up at the Bat-Signal.

Schumacher then took over. Batman Forever (1995) recasts Batman with Val Kilmer and adds Chris O'Donnell as Dick Grayson, who loses his family to Two-Face (Tommy Lee Jones) and becomes Robin, while Jim Carrey plays the Riddler. Batman & Robin (1997) recasts again with George Clooney, brings in Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze and Uma Thurman as Poison Ivy, and introduces Alicia Silverstone as Batgirl. Chris O'Donnell stays on as Robin.

So, the era is one world with three Batmen, and it reads best as a single stretch of story, even though the tone changes sharply between Burton and Schumacher. The story runs from Batman 1989 through Batman Returns, Batman Forever and Batman and Robin.

Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993) is the animated entry on the Batman timeline, and it belongs to its own animated world rather than the live action films. It was directed by Bruce Timm and Eric Radomski, runs 77 minutes, and was released in US theaters on December 25, 1993. According to TheWrap, it was the first animated Batman film to get a theatrical release.

Kevin Conroy voices Batman, Mark Hamill voices the Joker, and Dana Delany voices Andrea Beaumont. Shirley Walker composed the score. The story moves between the present, where a cloaked killer called the Phantasm is picking off Gotham's mobsters, and flashbacks to a younger Bruce Wayne who is training to fight crime and falls in love.

Those flashbacks show Bruce before he is Batman, but they do not slot into the live action eras. By release date it falls between Batman Returns and Batman Forever. The full story of the film is at Batman Mask of the Phantasm.

Christopher Nolan's trilogy is one continuous story told in three films, so the Batman timeline for Christopher Nolan is simple: Batman Begins (2005), The Dark Knight (2008) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012), in that order, all starring Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne.

Batman Begins is the origin. A young Bruce falls into a well full of bats, loses his parents outside an opera house, and later trains with the League of Shadows under Ducard, who is revealed to be Ra's al Ghul. The film ends with Lieutenant Gordon showing Batman a Joker playing card.

The Dark Knight picks that thread up directly. The Joker (Heath Ledger) sets Batman, Gordon and District Attorney Harvey Dent against each other, and Dent becomes Two Face. The Dark Knight Rises jumps ahead eight years after Dent's death, with Bane (Tom Hardy) as the threat and Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway) as the cat burglar.

Michael Caine (Alfred), Gary Oldman (Gordon) and Morgan Freeman (Lucius Fox) appear in all three films, and Cillian Murphy returns as the Scarecrow in The Dark Knight after Batman Begins. Each chapter can be revisited at Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises.

The DC appearances are four films where Batman shares the screen with other heroes rather than leading his own story: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), Justice League (2017), Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021) and The Flash (2023). Ben Affleck plays Bruce Wayne in the first three, and Zack Snyder directed all three.

Batman v Superman begins eighteen months after the Metropolis battle, with a Bruce who has been Batman in Gotham for about twenty years. The film ends with his plan to recruit a team after Superman dies. Justice League follows, with Steppenwolf returning for three Mother Boxes. Zack Snyder's Justice League is a 242 minute version of the same story that arrived on streaming on March 18, 2021.

The Flash is a different case. Barry Allen travels back in time and ends up in an alternate 2013, where Michael Keaton appears as an older Bruce Wayne. It is the only film here that brings an earlier Batman actor back.

All four fall into the Batman movies in order run by release date, with Batman as part of an ensemble rather than the sole lead.

The Lego Batman Movie (2017) is a standalone animated comedy spinoff directed by Chris McKay, and it is not part of any live action continuity. Will Arnett voices Batman, Michael Cera voices Robin, Rosario Dawson voices Barbara Gordon, Ralph Fiennes voices Alfred and Zach Galifianakis voices the Joker.

The film starts with Batman stopping the Joker once more, then moves to a gala for Commissioner Gordon's retirement, where Bruce Wayne accidentally adopts Dick Grayson. The voice cast also includes cameos from the likes of Voldemort and King Kong.

By release date it is the tenth film, after The Dark Knight Rises. It works as a break from the continuity above rather than a chapter in the timeline, and the full cast is at The Lego Batman Movie.

The current era is Matt Reeves' version of Gotham, which starts with The Batman (2022) and continues through the HBO series The Penguin to The Batman Part II. Robert Pattinson plays Bruce Wayne, who has spent two years as Batman when the film opens on Halloween night, and the film also stars Zoë Kravitz as Selina Kyle, Paul Dano as the Riddler and Colin Farrell as the Penguin.

The Penguin (HBO, 2024) is an eight episode spinoff that premiered on September 19, 2024 and ended on November 10, 2024. It begins about one week after the events of The Batman (2022), and follows Oz Cobb as he tries to take over Gotham's underworld after crime boss Carmine Falcone dies. Batman does not appear in it.

The next chapter is the Batman Part 2. Its US release date is February 18, 2028, according to TheWrap, though that date may shift. Warner Bros. and DC Studios paused production on October 5, 2026 for what they called a temporary reason while director Matt Reeves deals with a family matter, so the film is in production but paused. No UK or Australian date has been announced. TheWrap also reports that the series sets up Oz's arc for the sequel, and that Farrell is reported to return, though that return has not been confirmed.

In my opinion, the cleanest way to read the Batman timeline is as six separate worlds with one extra shelf for DC crossovers, and not as a single line from 1966 to 2022. Each new lead actor resets Gotham, so asking which film comes next in story terms only works inside a continuity.

How do you watch Batman chronologically, then? Inside the Burton and Schumacher run, go in release order: Batman (1989), Batman Returns, Batman Forever, Batman & Robin. For the Dark Knight trilogy, the order is Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises. Those two runs are the only ones where one film directly leads into the next.

It could be argued that the Snyder films are the exception, since they were built to feed into each other, but they also feed into Superman and Wonder Woman stories, which is why I treat them as DC appearances and not Batman-led films. The story moment that sums up the gap between eras is simple. Batman Begins shows how Bruce starts, Batman v Superman gives us a Bruce who has been at it for about twenty years, and The Batman (2022) gives us one who is two years in. Those cannot all be the same man.

So, if you are new to this, I would start with Batman Begins for a clean origin, then The Batman (2022) for the newest version. If you want the full history, follow the Batman movies in order list. For the actors behind each cowl, see Batman actors in order, and for the rogues gallery, see the Batman villains page.