The best Batman villain performances

Hey, he won an Oscar. Ledger’s turn as Joker in The Dark Knight helped make that an all-time superhero movie and helped make that sort of movie explode on the landscape. Sadly, Ledger’s Oscar was delivered posthumously for this role, but we’ll never forget his work as Joker.

Batman Returns is as much a Penguin and Catwoman movie as a Batman movie. Danny DeVito definitely makes some choices as Penguin, but Pfeiffer was the one who grabbed attention as Catwoman. She’s more supernatural than Catwoman usually is, but that’s Tim Burton for you.

Jim Carrey was at the peak of his powers in the mid-'90s, so the casting of Carrey as the frenetic Riddler in 1995's Batman Forever was an inspired choice. The film itself was a bit of a mess, but Carrey's turn as Edward Nygma/Riddler remains one of his most memorable performances to date.

Ledger and Joaquin Phoenix have won Oscars for playing Joker, but Nicholson is the favorite Joker of many. We get it. He’s menacing and funny. Nicholson helped validate the idea of the superhero movie by signing on to play Joker opposite Michael Keaton. He got paid a ton of money, but it was worth it.

Yeah, the voice was a little odd, and the mask certainly complicated factors, but once we got used to it, we were all in on Bane. Tom Hardy is a dedicated actor, as anybody who has seen Venom can tell you, and he definitely was when playing Bane. Plus, it was a new villain for the Batman films.

Now, Harley Quinn and Batman don’t really interact in the live-action Batman films, but Harley is decidedly a villain from the Batman universe. She is, after all, occasionally Joker’s moll, depending on the version of the character we’re getting. Robbie has lifted Harley into being a favorite of many, and she will forever be synonymous with the character.

It’s time to dip into the classic Batman show from the ‘60s! There was a litany of fun performances on that show. Let’s start with the best Riddler ever, Gorshin. While he was primarily only around in the first season, Gorshin made quite the impact with his delightful laugh and ridiculous outfit.

Adam West acted alongside three different actresses as Catwoman. Lee Meriwether was only in the film, while Eartha Kitt stepped into the role in the third season (and really leaned into the “cat” part of “Catwoman”). The best of the bunch, though, was Newmar. She even returned to voice the role in two animated films that featured the voices of West and Burt Ward.

Scarecrow was an unexpected choice for Christopher Nolan’s first Batman villain. Jonathan Crane and his spooky mask definitely made his mark, though. Murphy actually shows up in all three films and manages to be funny and scary, depending on what is asked of him.

Romero’s turn as Joker is as memorable a part of the ‘60s Batman show as anything. He painted over his mustache. It ruled. Batman ‘66 is a comedy, and Romero leans into that heavily. Plus, his laugh is great.

On-screen, he’s best known as Luke Skywalker. Hamill has also had quite a voiceover career. His best-known work is as, yes, Joker. Hey, Joker is the quintessential Batman baddie. Of course, he’s on this list several times.

Of all the hammy, campy performances on Batman ’66, Buono takes the cake. He plays King Tut, a professor of Egyptology who believes he is King Tut every time he’s bonked on the head. Yes, it’s goofy as all get out. It also is always fun.

When it comes to Penguin performances, we prefer Meredith to DeVito. DeVito is playing a feral villain who is barely human. Meredith is basically just a criminal who makes penguin noises. He’s the embodiment of what we envision when it comes to Penguin. The umbrella, the cigarette holder, all of it.

Egghead is ridiculous. His head is egg-shaped. He speaks in egg puns. Oh, and he’s a super genius. Price was perfect for an over-the-top role like this. That was his whole thing in his career. You could never do Egghead in a serious version of Batman, but the ‘60s TV show is definitely not that.

A villain whose name is a play on the ‘50s Western Shane is a dated reference, we know. And yet, Shame was fun on Batman ’66. This was a show that had an unusual number of Oscar winners on it, and Robertson is one of those.

We wanted to represent Gotham, a TV show about a pre-Batman Gotham City featuring younger versions of many of the members of his rogue’s gallery. It was an uneven show, but some performances stood out. Taylor’s Penguin was showcased from the beginning, and he seemed to figure out what to do with that character. He managed to stand out.

Let’s go to the world of Lego. In The Lego Batman Movie, we got quick hits of several Batman villains. The main baddie, though, is Joker. Galifianakis gives a lighter take on the character. This is a family-friendly movie, after all. Still, it was a lot of fun.

Harley Quinn has her own animated show; fittingly, it’s vulgar and violent. You may think of Cuoco as the woman from The Big Bang Theory, but you can see — or at least hear — a different side of her in Harley Quinn. It’s a legitimately good voice-acting performance that shouldn’t be overlooked.

It was hard to find a Poison Ivy for this list. Uma Thurman is brutal in Batman & Robin, the worst Batman movie. On Gotham, Ivy is a little girl who then gets some chemicals or something on her that ages her up super fast so that they can have her be, you know, Poison Ivy. Yeah, that show was weird. The best Ivy we’ve seen? The one voiced by Bell on Harley Quinn.

One last shout-out to the Harley Quinn cartoon. Adomian is basically doing a parody of Hardy’s Bane. Hardy really changed the perspective on Bane for an entire generation. That being said, Adomian’s impression is quite good and funny. He gets laughs from his voiceover work alone.

To reboot the character of Batman once again, this time with Robert Pattinson in the role, director Matt Reeves decided to, get this, make things dark and gritty. OK, so we're used to a dark, gritty Batman these days, but Reeves did lean into the "world's greatest detective" aspect of the Dark Knight, which is atypical. Dano, in turn, played a version of the Riddler more inspired by the Zodiac Killer than Batman's rogue's gallery.