Batman Villains: Every Movie Villain, Real Names and Who Played Them

The top Batman villains in the movies are the Joker, the Penguin, the Riddler, Two-Face, Catwoman, Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy, Scarecrow, Bane and Ra's al Ghul, with Talia al Ghul and Clayface rounding out the twelve main profiles below. Between them they cover every theatrical Batman film in the Batman movies in order guide, from the 1960s romp to the animated spinoffs and the Dark Knight trilogy.

Think of the rogues gallery like a baseball roster: a few names start every season, a few are called up for one big game, and a couple sit on the bench but still make the team photo. The Joker is the everyday starter, with five films to his name, while Mr. Freeze got a single start. Each profile gives the real name where the films supply one, the actors and the villain's fate, so every section after this one contains spoilers.

How many Batman villains are there on screen? There are 18 profiled here: the twelve main names, then six more in the section on other movie villains, including Lex Luthor and Doomsday from the films where Batman shares the screen with Superman.

The Joker appears in five theatrical Batman films, a total that only Catwoman matches. Cesar Romero plays him in Batman (1966), directed by Leslie H. Martinson, where he teams up with the Penguin, the Riddler and Catwoman as the United Underworld. Jack Nicholson plays him in Batman (1989), directed by Tim Burton. Mark Hamill voices him in Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993), directed by Bruce Timm and Eric Radomski. Heath Ledger plays him in The Dark Knight (2008), directed by Christopher Nolan, and Zach Galifianakis voices him in The Lego Batman Movie (2017), directed by Chris McKay.

Nicholson's version is the only one with a stated real name, Jack Napier. He is a lieutenant to the mob boss Carl Grissom, and a raid at Axis Chemicals that was meant to get him killed ends with him falling into a vat of chemicals and coming out disfigured. He kills Grissom, takes over the mob and poisons everyday hygiene products with Smylex, a toxin that makes victims die laughing. The film ends with him falling from a cathedral roof after Batman hooks his leg to a gargoyle that breaks away. Batman (1989) earned about $412 million worldwide on a $35 million budget, according to Box Office Mojo.

In The Dark Knight, Ledger's Joker plans a mob bank robbery so that his own crew is betrayed and he alone walks away with the money, then offers the crime bosses a deal to kill Batman for half the fortune their accountant Lau has hidden. He swaps the locations of Rachel Dawes and Harvey Dent, wires two ferries so that each group of passengers can blow up the other, and is captured without being killed when nobody presses the button. The film grossed more than $1 billion worldwide.

Hamill's Joker in Mask of the Phantasm is a former enforcer for the mobster Valestra, who hires him to kill Batman, and he kills Valestra instead. He disappears with Andrea Beaumont as the abandoned World of the Future fair explodes. Galifianakis voices a wounded rival, hurt when Batman brushes off his wish to be called his greatest enemy, who lets himself be caught and then returns with a crowd of monsters and movie villains. The full joker batman profile covers the character in more detail.

The Penguin appears in three live action Batman films, played by Burgess Meredith, Danny DeVito and Colin Farrell. Meredith plays him in Batman (1966) as one of the four United Underworld criminals, and the Penguin's submarine crew ends up fighting Batman and Robin.

DeVito's Penguin in Batman Returns (1992), directed by Tim Burton, is the version with the most backstory. He is abandoned as a baby, grows up in the sewers among penguins, and emerges in Gotham to blackmail the businessman Max Shreck. He then presents himself as a candidate for mayor. When the political disguise fails he plans to kill the firstborn sons of Gotham, and when that falls apart he launches a missile attack with an army of penguins. He dies from his injuries after Batman stops the attack. Batman Returns earned about $267 million worldwide on an $80 million budget, according to Box Office Mojo.

Farrell is credited as Oz / The Penguin in The Batman (2022), directed by Matt Reeves. This Penguin runs the Iceberg Lounge, the club where Batman's search for the Riddler leads him. He is captured but turns out not to be the police informant the Riddler is hunting. The films give no full real name for the Penguin beyond the credit Oz. The penguin batman page follows the character across eras.

The Riddler appears in four theatrical films and is played by Frank Gorshin, Jim Carrey, Paul Dano and, as a voice, Conan O'Brien. Gorshin is the Riddler in Batman (1966), part of the United Underworld that tries to hold the Security Council to ransom with a machine that turns people into dust.

Carrey plays Edward Nygma in Batman Forever (1995), directed by Joel Schumacher. Nygma is an inventor at Wayne Enterprises whose brain wave device is turned down by Bruce Wayne. He becomes the Riddler, teams up with Two-Face, and uses the device to drain brain power from viewers and feed his own intelligence. It also tells him Batman's real identity. His machine overloads, he goes insane, and he ends up in Arkham Asylum, where he claims to know who Batman is.

Dano's Riddler in The Batman (2022) is Edward Nashton, a forensic accountant. He murders Gotham's mayor on Halloween night, leaves riddles at the scene, then kills the police commissioner and kidnaps the district attorney, Gil Colson, fitting him with a collar bomb. His planted car bombs breach the seawall and flood the city, and his online followers go after the mayor-elect, Bella Reál. He surrenders to be unmasked and is sent to Arkham State Hospital. O'Brien voices the Riddler in The Lego Batman Movie. See the riddler batman page for more.

Two-Face is the district attorney Harvey Dent after a disfiguring attack, and the films give him three distinct versions. Billy Dee Williams plays Harvey Dent in Batman (1989) and later voices Two-Face in The Lego Batman Movie, which closes a neat loop. Tommy Lee Jones plays Harvey Two-Face in Batman Forever, and Aaron Eckhart plays Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight.

Jones's Two-Face is a scarred criminal who wants Batman dead and attacks a circus, killing the Grayson family and leaving the young Dick Grayson an orphan. He falls to his death after a coin trick backfires. Eckhart's version is a tragedy rather than a villain from the start. Dent is burned on one side of his face when the Joker swaps the locations of Rachel Dawes and Dent, and Rachel dies. He then uses a coin toss to choose his victims and kills those he holds responsible. He takes Gordon's family hostage and dies in a fall during the struggle, and Batman takes the blame for his crimes so Gotham can keep believing in him. For the character overall, the two face batman page is the place to go.

Catwoman appears in four live action Batman films and has been played by four actors, though the role shifts from villain to something closer to an antiheroine over time. Lee Meriwether is The Catwoman (Kitka) in Batman (1966), replacing Julie Newmar in the role for the film. Bruce Wayne becomes close to a Russian reporter named Miss Kitka, and Batman then discovers that she is really Catwoman.

Michelle Pfeiffer plays Catwoman / Selina in Batman Returns, after Annette Bening left the role because of pregnancy, according to Fox News. Selina is Max Shreck's timid assistant, pushed to her apparent death after she learns too much, who returns as the vengeful Catwoman. She kills Shreck, refuses Bruce's plea to come home, and the last scene shows her alive, looking up at the Bat-Signal.

Anne Hathaway plays Selina in The Dark Knight Rises (2012), directed by Christopher Nolan, a cat burglar who steals Bruce's fingerprints and lures Batman into a trap, then helps defeat Bane. Zoë Kravitz plays Selina Kyle in The Batman (2022), a waitress whose roommate has gone missing, and also voices Catwoman in The Lego Batman Movie. Our catwoman page covers every version.

Mr. Freeze is Dr. Victor Fries, a scientist changed by a cryogenic accident, and his only theatrical appearance is Batman & Robin (1997), directed by Joel Schumacher, with Arnold Schwarzenegger in the role. He robs for diamonds because they power the cold suit he needs to stay alive, and his big scheme is to turn Gotham into ice.

What sets him apart from the rest of the gallery is the reason behind it all: he is trying to save his wife, Nora Fries, played by Vendela Kirsebom. Batman works that out and offers to help her. Freeze ends up under arrest in Arkham Asylum, and the offer of help for Nora's condition stands. Think of him as the one villain in the series you could imagine buying a coffee for. The film grossed about $238 million worldwide on a $125 million budget, according to Box Office Mojo. Elle Macpherson, Vivica A. Fox and Jeep Swenson (credited as Bane) fill out the smaller roles around him.

Poison Ivy is the botanist Dr. Pamela Isley, played by Uma Thurman in Batman & Robin and voiced by Riki Lindhome in The Lego Batman Movie. In Batman & Robin she is changed by toxins in a lab attack and becomes the seductive Poison Ivy. She gets close to Mr. Freeze and the two agree to work together against the heroes.

Her plan is for her plants to take over whatever remains after Freeze freezes Gotham. Along the way, Robin falls under Ivy's spell, which widens the rift between him and Batman. She is overpowered by the heroes and locked up, while Batgirl, Alfred's niece Barbara, joins the team. The credited cast also includes John Glover as Dr. Jason Woodrue.

Scarecrow is Dr. Jonathan Crane, a corrupt psychiatrist played by Cillian Murphy in Batman Begins (2005), directed by Christopher Nolan. Murphy is credited again as Scarecrow in The Dark Knight, and Jason Mantzoukas voices the character in The Lego Batman Movie.

In Batman Begins, Crane uses a fear inducing drug on the crime boss Carmine Falcone and on Batman himself. Alfred and Lucius Fox save Bruce with an antidote. Crane's toxin then becomes the core of Ra's al Ghul's plan: a stolen microwave emitter would vaporize Gotham's water supply, spreading the toxin as a gas and setting off mass panic. In that sense Scarecrow is the weapon, and Ra's al Ghul is the hand holding it. The scarecrow batman page has the details.

Bane is played by Tom Hardy in The Dark Knight Rises, and he is the villain who breaks Batman physically. Jeep Swenson is credited as Bane in Batman & Robin, and Doug Benson voices him in The Lego Batman Movie.

Hardy's Bane is a masked mercenary and a former member of the League of Shadows. He opens the film by kidnapping a nuclear physicist in a midair raid, works with the businessman John Daggett to take over Wayne Enterprises, and uses stolen fingerprints to wipe out Bruce's fortune. He breaks Batman and drops him into a remote underground prison, then cuts Gotham off from the world, traps most of the police underground, and turns a Wayne fusion reactor into a bomb. Bane is killed with Selina Kyle's help, but the film then reveals he was working for someone else. The Dark Knight Rises grossed more than $1 billion worldwide. For more, see the bane batman page.

Ra's al Ghul is the leader of the League of Shadows, and Batman Begins gives him two faces. Ken Watanabe is credited as Ra's al Ghul, while Liam Neeson plays Ducard, the man who recruits Bruce Wayne in a Bhutan prison and trains him, then reveals himself as the real Ra's al Ghul.

The reveal comes at Bruce's birthday party. By then Bruce has refused to execute a criminal, learned that the League wants to destroy Gotham, and burned their temple down, saving Ducard while Ra's dies in the collapse. Ducard's plan is to vaporize Gotham's water supply and let Scarecrow's toxin spread, and the League burns Wayne Manor and releases the Arkham inmates into the Narrows. Batman fights him on a monorail carrying the emitter, and Gordon destroys the track with the Tumbler. Ra's is killed in the crash. Our ras al ghul page covers the character more broadly.

Talia al Ghul is Ra's al Ghul's daughter, and she is hiding in plain sight in The Dark Knight Rises (2012), directed by Christopher Nolan, as Miranda Tate, played by Marion Cotillard. The late reveal is that Bane has been taking orders from her all along.

Her aim is to finish her father's work, and she arranges things so the Wayne fusion reactor stays a bomb that no one can disarm. Batman answers by flying the device out over the water, where it goes off well away from the city. Talia is one of only a handful of women among the film villains, with Catwoman, Poison Ivy and Andrea Beaumont, the Phantasm. Her reveal also changes how Bane reads on a second viewing: he becomes her enforcer, not the architect.

Clayface turns up in the Batman films only in the voice cast of The Lego Batman Movie, where Kate Micucci plays him. The film is the closest the series comes to a full rogues gallery, with Joker, Harley Quinn, Scarecrow, the Riddler, Bane, Two-Face, Catwoman, Clayface and Poison Ivy all in the credited voice cast.

The Joker also returns from the Phantom Zone with a crowd of monsters and movie villains, and the credited cast includes Voldemort and King Kong. Harley Quinn is voiced by Jenny Slate and helps the Joker escape. The film, directed by Chris McKay, earned about $312 million worldwide on an $80 million budget, according to The Numbers.

Six more screen villains sit outside the main rogues gallery: Andrea Beaumont, Max Shreck, Carmine Falcone, Lex Luthor, Doomsday and Steppenwolf. Andrea Beaumont, voiced by Dana Delany, is the Phantasm in Mask of the Phantasm, a killer of mobsters who is out to avenge her father. Max Shreck, played by Christopher Walken in Batman Returns, is the businessman who uses the Penguin and tries to kill his own assistant.

Carmine Falcone is the Gotham crime boss, played by Tom Wilkinson in Batman Begins and John Turturro in The Batman (2022). In the later film he is revealed as Selina Kyle's father, and he kills her roommate Annika before the Riddler shoots him.

The appearances bring a different kind of threat. Jesse Eisenberg's Lex Luthor, in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), directed by Zack Snyder, gains access to General Zod's body and Kryptonian ship, kidnaps Martha Kent and Lois Lane, and releases Doomsday, a monster created using Zod's body and Luthor's own blood. Superman kills Doomsday with a kryptonite spear but dies from his wounds. In Justice League (2017), also directed by Zack Snyder, the alien warlord Steppenwolf, voiced by Ciarán Hinds, comes back to collect three Mother Boxes, and a post credit scene shows Luthor escaping Arkham Asylum and recruiting Slade Wilson, also known as Deathstroke.

My ranking of the top 10 Batman villains puts the Joker of The Dark Knight first and Poison Ivy of Batman & Robin last, and it is opinion, built on how much each villain drives the film they are in. It judges what the script gave each villain to do, not whether the performance is good.

1. The Joker (Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight). In my opinion, no other film villain tests Batman and the city at once. The ferry plot is built so that the passengers, not Batman, decide who they are, and the film is bigger for it.
2. Two-Face (Aaron Eckhart, The Dark Knight). Dent is the only villain whose fall hurts, because the film spends most of its running time making him the city's best hope. It could be argued that Dent is the real hero of the film until Rachel dies.
3. Ra's al Ghul (Liam Neeson and Ken Watanabe, Batman Begins). The mentor reveal at Bruce's birthday party works because Ducard has already taught Bruce everything he uses against him.
4. The Riddler (Paul Dano, The Batman). Dano's Edward Nashton turns the film into a detective story, and the collar bomb scene with Gil Colson is the most unsettling set piece in the series.
5. The Penguin (Danny DeVito, Batman Returns). Grotesque and pitiable in the same scene, with the sewer upbringing and the mayoral campaign giving Tim Burton room to be strange.
6. Bane (Tom Hardy, The Dark Knight Rises). The prison scene that breaks Batman is a great physical set piece. The Talia reveal weakens him a little, in my view, by turning him into a lieutenant.
7. Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer, Batman Returns). Pfeiffer's Selina Kyle is the best written character on the list, yet she is more foil than threat, which keeps her out of the top five.
8. Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy, Batman Begins). The fear toxin drives the whole water supply plot, yet Crane is the weapon and Ra's al Ghul is the hand holding it.
9. Mr. Freeze (Arnold Schwarzenegger, Batman & Robin). The motive of saving Nora Fries is a good one. The film around it gives him little room to land it.
10. Poison Ivy (Uma Thurman, Batman & Robin). She is last because the script gives her a plan that is mostly a side effect of Freeze's. That is about the writing, not Thurman.

Who is the baddest villain in Batman? My answer is the Joker of The Dark Knight. Who is the worst? Poison Ivy of Batman & Robin, for the reasons above. To see how the films themselves stack up, read Batman movies ranked.