Bruce Wayne, better known by his vigilante superhero alias Batman, is a fictional character who is featured as the main protagonist in Warner Bros.' initial Batman film series (1989–1997), and later as a supporting character in the DC Extended Universe (DCEU) film The Flash (2023). Based on the DC Comics character of the same name, he was portrayed by Michael Keaton in Tim Burton's Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992), before being recast with Val Kilmer and George Clooney in Joel Schumacher's Batman Forever (1995) and Batman & Robin (1997) respectively. Both Keaton and Clooney reprised their roles in The Flash, which retroactively incorporates versions of them into two alternate timelines of the DCEU's continuity. Keaton's portrayal of the character was critically acclaimed and influenced subsequent interpretations.
Fictional character biography Tim Burton films
Early life As a child, Wayne went to see the musical film Footlight Frenzy with his parents, Thomas and Martha, at the Monarch Theatre. As the Waynes walked down an alley, Thomas and Martha were shot and killed by a mugger. The mugger prepared to kill Bruce, as well, asking the boy, "Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?"; the mugger's accomplice entreats him to run from the police, however, so he spares Bruce's life. After this, he was raised by Alfred Pennyworth (Michael Gough), the family butler.
Becoming Batman After decades of training, Wayne, who inherited his parents' wealth after their deaths, had his company Wayne Enterprises purchase equipment and built an advanced combat suit and the Batcave, a secret sophisticated lair under Wayne Manor, and began fighting crime in Gotham City as Batman (Keaton), who quickly becomes an urban legend that strikes fear in the hearts of Gotham's criminal element, especially after the death of gangster Johnny Gobbs, whose body was found drained of blood following an altercation with the vigilante. Publicly, Wayne poses as an eccentric playboy, throwing lavish fundraisers for the city and collecting rare art from around the world.
Wayne hosts a fundraiser at Wayne Manor to help fund Gotham City's 200th Anniversary Parade, where he meets photographer Vicki Vale (Kim Basinger). Wayne and Vicki soon fall in love. Wayne finds in reviewing the Manor's surveillance cameras that Commissioner James Gordon (Pat Hingle), who left the party unexpectedly, has been summoned to Axis Chemicals to stop a break-in by Jack Napier (Jack Nicholson), crime lord Carl Grissom's (Jack Palance) right-hand man. As Batman, he fights Napier and his men, and during the fight, Napier falls into a vat of chemicals, transforming him into the insane, disfigured criminal mastermind the Joker.
Joker and 20th anniversary of his parents' murder On the 20th anniversary of his parents' murder, Wayne leaves lunch with Vicki, and witnesses the Joker killing one of Grissom's associates. As Batman, he discovers that the Joker has poisoned various consumer products with his Smylex toxin. Wayne is informed by Alfred that he has a date with Vale at the Flugelheim Museum. Wayne states he has no plans to meet Vale that day, and realizes that the meeting was set up by the Joker. After a battle with the Joker's men, Batman and Vicki return to the Batcave, where he reveals his investigation of Joker's lethal chemicals to Vale, giving her an antidote to publish. Wayne nearly reveals to Vale that he is Batman, but they are interrupted by the Joker, who asks Wayne, "Have you ever danced with the devil by the pale moonlight?" before shooting the stunned billionaire, who survives because he is wearing body armor. When the Joker publicly challenges Batman to fight him during the anniversary gala, Wayne recognizes him as the mugger who killed his parents. On that same night, Alfred allows Vicki to enter the Batcave, thus revealing his employer's secret identity.
At the anniversary parade, Batman intercepts the Joker's parade float, with which the Joker plans to kill thousands of people with his toxin, in his customized, bat-shaped aircraft. After Batman foils his plan, the Joker shoots down the plane, and Batman pursues him and Vale into the cathedral, eventually finding them at the top level. Batman confronts the Joker over killing his parents, and gets into brutal hand-to-hand combat with the villain. As the Joker tries to escape on a helicopter, Batman uses his grappling gun to tie one of the cathedral's gargoyles to the Joker's leg; when the gargoyle breaks free from its foundations, the Joker falls to his death. In the aftermath, Batman gives the Gotham City Police Department (GCPD) his own personalized signal as a way of contacting him for help.
Christmas celebration During Gotham's Christmas celebrations, Batman discovers the Red Triangle Gang has interrupted the annual tree lighting ceremony. Despite managing to fight them off, he is too late to stop them from taking Gotham businessman Max Shreck (Christopher Walken) hostage. The next day, a member of the gang kidnaps Mayor Jenkins's infant son, but the child is saved by the Penguin (Danny DeVito), a deformed mystery man who has lived in the sewers ever since his parents threw him into Gotham's reservoir. Though Penguin is immediately accepted by the public and allowed inside the Hall of Records to find his birth parents, Batman remains suspicious and discovers the Penguin may have once been a performer in the Red Triangle Circus and connected to a series of missing children cases. He deduces that the Penguin is the gang's leader and is planning something else, already knowing who his parents are.
Penguin becomes popular with the citizens of Gotham, and they discover his name is Oswald Cobblepot, with his parents having died years earlier. Meanwhile, Wayne meets with Shreck, who had been blackmailed into helping Oswald return to the surface, to contest his plans to build a new power plant. He meets Shreck's secretary Selina Kyle (Michelle Pfeiffer), unaware that she is the masked vigilante Catwoman, who is planning to kill Shreck as revenge for trying to kill her when she discovered that his power plant would actually drain Gotham of its energy and leave the city at the mercy of the Shreck family.
Catwoman and Penguin's plot With Shreck's backing, the Penguin officially announces his plans to run for Mayor of Gotham City. Soon afterward, Wayne and Kyle discover that Cobblepot attempted to frame Batman by kidnapping the Ice Princess (Cristi Conaway), who was to relight the tree, and leaving behind a batarang. While Batman investigates the kidnapping, the Red Triangle Gang sabotages the Batmobile to allow the Penguin remote control access. Batman finds the Ice Princess standing on the edge of a rooftop, but the Penguin arrives and startles the girl by opening one of his trick umbrellas and releasing a swarm of bats, which knocks her off the roof to her death. She lands on the button to light the tree, causing a mass swarm of bats to attack the onlookers. Batman is forced to flee, now the chief suspect in the murder.
Batman returns to the Batmobile, but the car, having been hacked by the Penguin, takes him on a destructive joyride, though Batman is able to disable the signal and escape. With Alfred's help, Batman hacks into the Gotham Plaza's speakers during one of the Penguin's speeches and plays a recording of the villain bragging about having manipulated the entire city, causing a backlash from the crowd. At Shreck's masked ball, Kyle tells Wayne her plans to kill Shreck, and the two deduce each other's secret identities. At that moment, the Penguin crashes through the floor of the room, announcing his plans to kill all of the first-born sons of Gotham and take Shreck hostage. Batman arrives and interrogates Penguin's right-hand man, learning of the Penguin's hideout underneath the Arctic World exhibit at the abandoned Gotham Zoo.
Batman discovers that the Penguin plans to massacre Gotham by sending his penguins to fire missiles at the city. With Pennyworth's help, Batman reprograms the penguins to fire upon the Penguin's hideout. Batman and Penguin fight until the Penguin falls into the toxic waters in the sewer; the mortally injured Penguin make a futile attempt to kill Batman before succumbing to his wounds. Batman attempts to stop Catwoman from killing Shreck and reveals his secret identity. Catwoman kills Shreck by kissing him with a Taser in her mouth before she mysteriously disappears. After the GCPD seizes the Penguin's destroyed lair, Wayne finds Kyle's black cat, Miss Kitty, in an alleyway, as a very much alive Catwoman watches him from a rooftop while the Bat Signal shines in the sky.
Joel Schumacher films
Early life While the previous films are used as a backstory, Batman's origin is expanded with more details. After his parents' wake, Bruce finds his father's diary. During a storm, he ran away with the diary and falls into a cave filled with bats on the family grounds.
Two-Face and the Riddler alliance Batman (Kilmer) is called to stop the gangster Two-Face (Tommy Lee Jones) from robbing the Second Bank of Gotham, with help from Gordon and psychologist Chase Meridian (Nicole Kidman), who becomes instantly attracted to him. Two-Face was once Gotham's District Attorney, Harvey Dent, before a criminal scarred half of his face with acid, for which he blames Batman. The Dark Knight stops Two-Face from robbing the bank, but Two-Face escapes.
The next day, Bruce Wayne visits Wayne Enterprises and becomes acquainted with Edward Nygma (Jim Carrey), an employee who is obsessed with him. Nygma has developed the Box, a machine capable of transmitting television signals directly into the human brain. He asks Wayne to fund his invention, but Wayne turns him down, believing the science behind the Box "raises too many questions." Seeking revenge, Nygma reinvents himself as "the Riddler" and allies himself with Two-Face in a plot to destroy both Batman and Bruce Wayne, whom Nygma has discovered are one and the same.
Adopting Dick Grayson and becoming the Dynamic Duo During a charity circus performance, Wayne witnesses Two-Face attack and murder a family of acrobats dubbed the Flying Graysons, leaving their youngest son, Dick (Chris O'Donnell), an orphan. Feeling a kinship with Dick, Wayne takes him in as his ward. Dick soon discovers Wayne's secret identity and asks Wayne to take him on as his crimefighting partner so he can kill Two-Face and avenge his family. Wayne, who still feels responsible for his parents' deaths, refuses, not wanting to be responsible for another lost life. Meanwhile, Wayne soon starts a romantic relationship with Meridian, who tries to help him move on from the trauma of his parents' deaths. Wayne decides to abandon his war on crime and lead a normal life with her. Before he can tell her, however, Riddler and Two-Face attack Wayne Manor, take Meridian hostage and destroy the Batcave. Batman tracks the villainous duo to their hideout, with help from Dick, whom he has finally accepted as his crimefighting partner, Robin.
Two-Face and the Riddler take Meridian and Robin hostage, setting a trap that would force Batman to choose between saving one life or the other. Instead, Batman destroys the Box, driving the Riddler insane, and saves Meridan and Robin. Two-Face corners them at gunpoint, and while flipping his coin to decide their fates, Batman throws a handful of coins at him, causing him to fall to his death, avenging Dick's family. Wayne accepts that he is both Batman and Bruce Wayne, and that he fights crime because he chooses to, not because he has to.
Mister Freeze and Poison Ivy