Summary
- Batman's fights are intense and gritty, showcasing his exceptional fighting skills.
- Different movies emphasize different aspects of Batman's fighting style, from martial arts training to using gadgets.
- The fight scenes are filled with ion, emotion, and raw power, making them believable and thrilling to watch.
The DC pantheon and this is more than evident from the Caped Crusader’s intense fight scenes. From punching his way through street goons to getting his back broken by a muscular foe, Batman has gone through a lot in his cinematic journeys. Some fight sequences - notably in Batman and Robin - have been used for levity, but overall, directors like Tim Burton, Christopher Nolan, Zack Snyder, and Matt Reeves have ensured that The Dark Knight makes up for his lack of superpowers with exceptional fighting skills.
Movies like Batman Begins and Batman: Mask of the Phantasm particularly focused on Bruce Wayne’s strict martial arts regimen to enhance his hand-to-hand combat abilities. Ben Affleck, on the other hand, transformed the DCEU timeline Batman into a tank thanks to intense power workouts. True to the comics, Batman is incomplete without his gadgets and gizmos and, every once in a while, a batarang or a kryptonite weapon can come in handy. While superpowered peers like Superman and Wonder Woman reflect smooth finesses in their fights, Batman’s punches and kicks evoke a more raw and rage-fueled spirit that only makes his cinematic fights all the more believable.
Every Batman Movie Ranked Worst To Best
Batman has taken many forms on the silver screen across decades of cinematic history. Here's how each movie stacks up against the others.
10 Batman Vs Catwoman - Batman Returns
Stealth And An Ominous Romance Shine In This Keaton-Pfieffer Duel
Batman Returns was more mature than its predecessor, more so with Catwoman and Batman’s fight being oddly sexually charged. Armed with a whip and dressed in shiny latex, Michelle Pfieffer’s Catwoman wreaks havoc in a closed mall before she crosses paths with Michael Keaton’s Batman on a snow-covered rooftop. What makes this fight a ionate affair is how both characters are conflicted in their attacks against each other. There is aggression in the moves, but the final blows are still controlled, almost as if they don’t want to cause any serious harm. Exchanging ominously suggestive glances, both Selina and Bruce even share a brief hug in the middle of their duel.
9 Bruce Wayne Vs Ra’s Al Ghul - Batman Begins
Batman Can Pack A Punch Without The Cape & Cowl
Some of the best fight scenes in The Dark Knight trilogy find the titular hero not even donning his iconic cape and cowl. Batman Begins bears testimony to this with a reckless prison fight introducing Bruce Wayne. A flashback later, his training sessions with Ra’s Al Ghul are staged on a picturesque frozen lake. As he spars with a sword against his then-teacher, Bruce is compelled to the emotional trauma caused by his parent’s death and turn this sadness into rage. Even though Ra’s Al Ghul mostly has the upper hand, the ice training sequence is a brilliant example of Christopher Nolan’s attempts at humanizing Batman’s fighting spirit.
The training scene from Batman Begins was shot at Vatnajökull, an ice cap in Iceland.
8 The Final Showdown - Batman: Mask Of The Phantasm
A Tragic Romantic Interest And An Arch-Nemesis Battle It Out
The first Batman animated movie to release in theaters, Batman: Mask of the Phantasm continues Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill’s fantastic streak, voicing Batman and the Joker respectively. But the 1993 thriller didn’t settle for the usual Batman vs Joker showdown as the third act revealed the masked Phantasm’s identity as Bruce Wayne’s love interest, Andrea Beaumont. Driven by personal vengeance to take down the Joker, she prepares for a deadly battle in the villain’s deadly carnival. Even before Phantasm encounters the Joker, Batman fights off Joker’s deadly flying drones that slash his costume and cape in the process. The adrenaline-fueled chain of events culminates in a fiery explosion.
7 “I’m Vengeance” - The Batman
Robert Pattinson's Grim-Cool Introduction
Batman is a creature of the night and there’s nothing better than him fighting in a dim-lit subway as the night rain rages on. Matt Reeves’ The Batman teases his audience as Robert Pattinson’s Batman doesn’t just land from the sky. Instead, a mob of skull paint-wearing hooligans are alarmed by his heavy footsteps. As he marches steadily out of the darkness, Batman beats one of the goons to a pulp before he charges at the rest of the group. The multi-angle framing complements the grim downpour, while Michael Giachhino’s haunting score makes the entire fight all the more thrilling. And of course, how can one forget the iconic one-liner “I’m vengeance”?
The Batman was co-written by Peter Craig who earned an Oscar nomination for Top Gun: Maverick in the same year.
6 God Vs. Man - Batman Vs Superman: Dawn Of Justice
A Fitting Tribute To Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns
Zack Snyder’s ambitious crossover event pitted the Dark Knight against the Man of Steel on multiple ocassions but it’s their final duel against each other that is the most dramatic. Batman’s bulkier anti-Superman suit contains traces of Krypton to weaken Superman even if he continues to deliver some fatal blows at Gotham’s hero. Blood is shed even by Superman as Batman pins him down with a kryptonite-laden spear. What follows next has been meme fodder, thanks to the “Save Martha” dialogue. But all jokes aside, the line adds to the battle’s emotional intensity, reminding viewers of the personal losses that both heroes have faced so far on their superhero journeys.
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Ben Affleck's Batman timeline throughout the DCEU has been complicated, but the Dark Knight's present and future are now clearer than ever.
5 Club Mayhem - The Batman
No One Stops Batman Entering A Nightclub
“Get out of here, you freak”, says one of the Iceberg Lounge bouncers to Batman before being punched in the neck and the face. Batman is at the nightclub’s doorsteps on a mission, and so he enters with an intimidating authority as flashing red lights reflect against his suit. Jumping over metal pipe staircases, the Caped Crusader displays nimble agility and some swift footwork. As Robert Pattinson’s take on the character is grounded in reality, Batman does take a few punches too before getting back on his feet. The bright lights and the club’s massive interiors make for an unforgettable fight comparable to fights in the Batman Arkham games.
4 Night-Vision Deception - The Dark Knight
Trust Issues Come Up In This Anxiety-Inducing Fight
The Dark Knight is filled with frightening moments involving not only the Joker but also his equally unpredictable goons. Bound by his moral duties, Batman arrives at a vacant construction site to rescue some SWAT operatives who are held hostage by Joker’s masked goons. But when he realizes the Clown Prince of Crime has actually swapped the hostages with hostels, he quickly leaps across floors to track down and fight the SWAT uniform-wearing criminals instead. The claustrophobic fight that occasionally switches to the sonar vision of Batman’s nocturnal goggles is perfectly staged by Nolan. Somewhere in the middle, Hans Zimmer’s rousing music crescendos, filling hope in the hearts of viewers.
3 War Against The Riddlers - The Batman
The Bat’s Heroism Truly Shines In Reeves' Thrilling Finale
A lot happens at once to set up a thrilling third-act fight in The Batman. Even though The Riddler is apprehended, Batman must take down many of his fanatic minions all the while saving Gotham City from being flooded as a seawall explodes. To make matters worse, these Riddlers also plan on killing the Mayor-Elect. Aided by Catwoman, Batman tries his very best to protect both the assassination target and the people of Gotham despite facing multiple injuries. The Herculean obstacles that a weakened Batman overcomes while punching his attackers and hanging from a bridge reveal that underneath the mask, Bruce Wayne is still only a man.
2 Bane Breaks The Bat - The Dark Knight Rises
Christopher Nolan’s Spin On Knightfall's Epic Defeat
Ra’s Al Ghul was skilled in combat and the Joker possessed an intellectual level of cunning, but in of physical strength, Christian Bale’s Batman faced his toughest challenge against the masked tyrant Bane. With Tom Hardy’s gargantuan frame shadowing Batman, a real sense of fear brims within not just the hero but the audiences as well. Comic book fans would have guessed that this intense duel would end with Bane breaking Batman’s back by lifting him as was illustrated in the monumental Knightfall arc. And yet this intense hand-to-hand duel is shocking because it almost made people feel like this was indeed the end for Bale’s Batman.
Tom Hardy gained 30 pounds to play Bane in The Dark Knight Rises.
1 Warehouse Fight - Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice
Batman’s Hand-To-Hand Combat Doesn't Get Better Than This
Dwelling in an underground cave and training in a gym with industrial architecture, DCEU’s Batman is no stranger to closed spaces. This is perhaps why he fights so effortlessly in a warehouse inhabited by Lex Luthor’s goons. Zack Snyder directs one of the best action scenes of his career as Ben Affleck’s beefed-up Batman takes down multiple gunmen and grenadiers with his Batarangs, a grappling gun, and of course, his bare fists. Not just his attacking skills, the intense adrenaline-fueled fight also shows how Batman is equally good at defense as he dodges multiple gunshots. The sound design is incredibly effective in building tension as innumerable bones get crunched.
