The most famous superhero ever, Batman’s journey in visual media has an 80-year history attached to it. From the campy adventures of Adam West to Ben Affleck’s vengeful vigilante, each Batman iteration has managed to reflect the cultural zeitgeist of that particular time. Let's take a trip down memory lane as we rank the 8 greatest Batman actors of all time in the list below.
8. George Clooney
Quite possibly the most maligned Batman in history, American heartthrob George Clooney played the Caped Crusader once in 1997’s Batman and Robin. Technically a continuation of the Michael Keaton Batman story, Clooney’s version is best known for childish jokes and hijinks that harken back more to Adam West than to the dark Keaton version. Over time, fans have been more forgiving, and Clooney’s Batman managed to make an appearance in 2023’s The Flash.
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7. Val Kilmer
Taking the mantle over from Keaton, Val Kilmer donned the batsuit for 1995’s Batman Forever. After Warner Bros could not figure out what to do with Tim Burton’s dark take on the Caped Crusader, Joel Schumacher decided to go a different route. A little more campy than Keaton's but nowhere near as nonsensical as Clooney's, Kilmer’s Batman outing was great in its own right. There are even whispers of a much darker director’s cut of Batman Forever with added Keaton scenes facing his demons, his fears, and the twisted psychology that made him don the suit every night.
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6. Adam West
The 8 Greatest Batman Actors
The first live-action Batman in history, Adam West, played the Caped Crusader in the 1960s ABC series of the same name and its 1966 theatrical feature film. While the plots in these media were fairly cartoonish, Batman transitioned from page to screen courtesy of West and his team. Adam West’s campy Batman might not be right for the world today, but West played the hell out of his role and is part of the reason we have so many Batman films to begin with.
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5. Kevin Conroy
Kevin Conroy is perhaps the most iconic Batman voice actor of all time. Lending his voice to the character in almost all animated series, animated movies, and video games, Conroy’s signature voice became as iconic for Batman as Mark Hamill’s take on the Joker. Together, the two went head to head in several media, establishing a rivalry that parallels Bale and Ledger from The Dark Knight. DC would later honor Conroy by introducing him in his first live-action appearance in the CW ‘Crisis on Infinite Earths’ adaptation.
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4. Michael Keaton
The 8 Greatest Batman Actors
It was Tim Burton and Michael Keaton who made Batman iconic for the first time. A flawless portrayal of the broken psyche of the Caped Crusader, Keaton brought gravitas and charisma to a man who dressed as a bat to fight criminals. The duo went darker for the sequel, so much so that there were complaints from civil society that the film was not suitable for children at all. While older generations still cling firmly to Keaton’s Batman as the best, the new kids have moved on to Bale, Affleck, and Pattinson. Michael Keaton would later return in 2023’s The Flash to play his version of the Caped Crusader one last time.
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3. Robert Pattinson
The newest Batman on this list, Robert Pattinson’s casting, was met with widespread suspicion and disdain when it was first announced. However, with Matt Reeves directing, Pattinson blew everyone away in 2022’s The Batman. With a pitch-perfect portrayal of a young but tormented Caped Crusader, Pattinson brought a new angle to Batman, one inexperienced but full of rage and fury. With Pattinson set to return in the 2027 sequel, it is assured that we, the audience, are going to get another fantastic performance the second time around.
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2. Ben Affleck
The 8 Greatest Batman Actors
Affleck remains the only Batman actor to play the Caped Crusader four times in live action (five, if you count the Justice League Redux). Inspired by Frank Miller’s nihilistic take on the character, Affleck brings his own unique sense of grit to an older Batman battered by wounds of the past. Disillusioned by the deaths of his friends and loved ones, Affleck’s Caped Crusader is a force to be reckoned with and manages to throw down gauntlets with everyone from Superman to Steppenwolf. Too bad, his journey was cut short by the shelving of the DCEU.
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1. Christian Bale
While audiences had given up on the character after the hijinks of campy Batman movies from the 90s, it fell upon Christopher Nolan to resurrect the character for the next generation. Enter Christian Bale, who, in the Dark Knight Trilogy, perfectly captured the journey of a man who goes from a wide-eyed optimist fighting crime to a broken shell of a man on the verge of making the ultimate sacrifice. Bale and Nolan’s trilogy received widespread critical acclaim and is still the benchmark for superhero cinema to this day, making Bale the greatest Batman actor of all time.
Let us know in the comments below who, do you think, is the greatest Batman actor of all time.
