The Most Memorable Batman Quotes From Every Live-Action Batman Movie

The funny thing about Batman is most of the time, he's not funny. 

In the broader superhero culture where Spider-Man, Iron Man, and the Flash constantly quip and crack wise, the Dark Knight generally keeps his face straight and stoic. Luckily, Batman's rogues' gallery and roster of sidekicks both contain multiple self-styled comedians. Batman can keep right on being his brooding, dour, serious self, and Gotham City will hardly suffer from a shortage of one-liners.

What this means for Batman movies is most of the time, the villains get all the coolest, most memorable lines of dialogue. Heath Ledger's Joker — not Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne — is clearly the standout talker in 2008's monumental triumph, "The Dark Knight." The same can be said for Jack Nicholson's Joker in 1989's "Batman," as well as Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman and Danny DeVito's Penguin in 1992's "Batman Returns."  Even Cillian Murphy's Scarecrow — hardly a global threat compared to other Bat-baddies — delivers the scorching potential catchphrase, "Would you like to see my mask?" That's much cooler than anything Bruce Wayne gets to say in 2005's "Batman Begins." 

If we concede that his villains, by and large, tend to devote more attention to their wordplay, does that mean Batman never gets any memorable dialogue in his own movies? It does not. We spent some time contemplating the matter and determined that when it comes to the live-action movies, these are Batman's best lines. Warning — there are spoilers below.

Joker has a number of punchy lines that stand out in the trailers for 1989's "Batman" — "Wait'll they get a load of me." "Where does he get those wonderful toys?" As for the eponymous masked hero, when a panicking mugger begging for his life cries, "Who are you?" Batman replies, simply and directly, "I'm Batman." 

And with that, he's made his point. He doesn't need to say more.

Adam West's version of Batman does a lot of thinking out loud — solving mysteries and unraveling conundrums in real time. Michael Keaton's Batman is a lot less chatty, and this is entirely by design. Keaton himself doesn't think Batman should say much. Instead, he opts to let the iconography and Tim Burton's signature atmosphere set the tone while Batman brushes his foes aside with the sheer force of his presence. 

Keaton's Batman isn't a fast talker, and perhaps due to the cumbersome nature of his Batsuit, he isn't an acrobatic fighter either. All he needs is an epic Danny Elfman soundtrack, Burton's macabre vision of Gotham City, and a determined look on the part of his face that starts under his nose because that's the only part of his head we can see under the cowl. 

He says he's Batman, and we know he ain't foolin'.

The pair of "Batman" films directed by Joel Schumacher in the '90s have an entirely deserved reputation as silly and garish. Let's say they're plenty of fun to watch for a certain type of Batman fan, even if they're not creative successes by any measure. 

Batman — played by Val Kilmer in 1995's "Batman Forever" — develops a sense of humor he lacks in the Tim Burton films, and he shows off his new appreciation for zingers and self-deprecation while flirting with Dr. Chase Meridian, played by Nicole Kidman. Dr. Chase shines the Bat-Signal to summon Batman under the shaky pretext of offering information to help his ongoing battle with Tommy Lee Jones's Two-Face. Then she confesses that she basically used the Bat-Signal to make a booty call.

"It's the car, right? Chicks love the car," Batman responds, tossing off some of the flippant, low-key misogyny that permeates "Forever," and its sequel, 1997's "Batman & Robin." 

Perhaps the opening segment of "Batman Forever" — in which Batman says, "I'll get drive-through," specifically so the scene can be reused in a McDonald's Commercial – is a more ominous omen of the Schumacher films' most shameless impulses. Nevertheless, Batman's assessment of the Batmobile's aphrodisiacal capabilities is more memorable. All kinds of things are wrong with "Batman Forever," but to their credit, Kilmer and Kidman muster enough chemistry to avoid getting completely overshadowed by Jim Carrey's overwhelmingly bonkers Riddler performance.    

As far as Batman's cinematic love interests go, Rachel Dawes gets knocked down the rankings by an effective but distracting recasting and her tragic demise in "The Dark Knight." She can't compete with Pfeiffer's Catwoman — then again, who among us can?

Nevertheless, Rachel Dawes — portrayed by Katie Holmes in 2005's "Batman Begins" — plays a major role in shaping Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne on his journey to becoming Gotham's watchman. She reminds the angry but pampered 20-something Bruce that the systemic factors behind his parents' murder don't change easily. When Bruce reappears in Gotham after a long absence, Rachel runs into him while he pretends to be a boozy, womanizing dullard and gives him some verbal side-eye.  

"It's not who you are underneath; it's what you do that defines you," she tells feckless rapscallion Bruce Wayne. 

Later, during an encounter with Batman, Rachel asks who he is, and he replies, "It's not who I am underneath but what I do that defines me," which Rachel correctly understands to mean Batman is her childhood pal and sometimes crush, Bruce Wayne. The line serves the plot, and it resonates on a thematic level. "Batman Begins" is ultimately about Bruce overcoming intrinsic flaws and becoming the best version of himself. For Batman to begin, young Bruce Wayne, the self-involved rich jerk, must end.  

Batman movies aren't known for tear-jerking sentimental moments, but while we might have complicated feelings about 2012's "The Dark Knight Rises," we can't deny getting a little choked up at the end. 

As history repeats itself, Batman has to get rid of a bomb that's about to atomize Gotham City. He hooks the explosive device up to the Batplane and prepares to fly it far enough out to spare everyone except himself. Gary Oldman's Commissioner Gordon asks, "Shouldn't the people know the hero who saved them?" Batman says, "A hero can be anyone. Even a man doing something as simple and reassuring as putting a coat around a young boy's shoulders to let him know the world hadn't ended." Then we flash back to a moment from many years earlier, where a young Gordon comforts the recently orphaned Bruce Wayne in just such a manner, as depicted in "Batman Begins." 

The "Dark Knight Trilogy" gets a lot of press for being well, dark, but at its core, it's a story with a moral about the value of being kind and looking out for your fellow travelers in this world. The Nolan/Bale iteration of Batman — some argue, the best of the lot — is essentially Elmo for grownups, and we mean that as the highest praise. 

The behind-the-scenes tragedies, shenanigans, and malfunctions throughout the "Justice League" production have been thoroughly covered elsewhere. Speaking strictly in terms of the two versions of the movie — 2017's theatrical cut directed by Joss Whedon and 2021's straight-to HBO Max iteration overseen by original director Zack Snyder — Whedon's is a lot shorter and has a lot more jokes. 

If we look at Joss Whedon's "Justice League" as a reaction to the dour, depressing elements of "Batman v Superman," then the inverted take on the trailer line from "BvS" is the defining moment of the movie. During his post-resurrection fight with the rest of the Justice League, Superman asks Batman, "Do you bleed?" Then he drops him like a sack of potatoes. After Superman sees Lois Lane and instantly loses interest in beating up costumed upstarts, Batman responds in the affirmative, "Something is definitely bleeding..." 

Joss Whedon has taken a lot of flak in recent years, much of it entirely deserved. But now and again, he can still write a heck of a funny superhero quip.

In a vacuum, the phrase "I'm vengeance" coming from the Dark Knight sounds hammy as heck. Hammy though it may be, that line conveys serious thematic gravitas within the larger context of 2022's "The Batman."

Bruce Wayne — Robert Pattinson, this time around — begins the film with a borderline psychotic obsession with his crusade against Gotham's superstitious and cowardly. This version of Batman has more in common with Rorschach of "Watchmen" infamy than, for instance, the Bright Knight Adam West portrays in the '60s. 

Over the course of the story, events transpire that force Bruce to fold some empathy and humility into his perspective. Simultaneously, he observes the limits and issues with a revenge-based worldview, best illustrated by the Riddler — played by Paul Dano — who's genuinely shocked to discover Batman doesn't think of him as a likeminded ally. Worse yet, one of the Riddler's goons unknowingly echoes Batman's catchphrase back in his face after the Caped Crusader foils an attempted mass murder. "I'm vengeance," says a maniac pointing a sniper rifle at innocent bystanders. 

The story ends with Batman realizing that vengeance alone won't cut it, and he pledges to become a symbol of hope ... as well as brutal retribution against evil.