‘Batman’ Live-Action Movie Villains, Ranked
variety.comJ. Kim Murphy The cultural landscape has reached a state where a new comic book adaptation is unleashed on the public practically every other week, yet the genre can still struggle to offer truly memorable villains for its marquee heroes to battle.That’s almost never been a problem for “Batman” though; the franchise has arguably been defined more by its rogues gallery than by Batman himself, with most of the antagonist roles offering the opportunity for actors to capture oversized egos and laissez-faire shtick.With this Friday’s release of Matt Reeves’ “The Batman,” the pantheon of villains that the Caped Crusader has fought on the big screen will see three new arrivals: Colin Farrell’s Penguin, Zoë Kravitz’s Catwoman and Paul Dano’s Riddler.
Before these additions are unveiled to the public, Variety is taking a look back at the franchise’s history of supervillains, pitting memorable performances against each other.However, considering that the superhero genre has expanded to cinematic universes, spin-offs and complicated content architectures, it’s necessary to set a few parameters for such a ranking.
This list only considers villains from live-action movies that have titles alluding to or naming Batman — thus disqualifying not one, not two, but three Jokers in Jared Leto, Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Hamill, along with plenty of other performances.
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