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Film: The Dark Knight Saga
Begins. Falls. Rises.

"A vigilante is just a man lost in the scramble for his own gratification; he can be destroyed, or locked up. But if you make yourself more than just a man, if you devote yourself to an ideal, and if they can't stop you, you become something else entirely... a legend, Mr. Wayne."
— Henri Ducard

In 2005, eight years after Batman & Robin put the Batman film franchise on deep freeze, Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer rebooted the franchise with the first entry of a trilogy fans refer to as The Dark Knight Saga.

All three films star Christian Bale as The Batman, Michael Caine as Alfred Pennyworth, Gary Oldman as James Gordon, and Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox. Other stars in the saga include Katie Holmes (Batman Begins) and Maggie Gyllenhaal (The Dark Knight) as Rachel Dawes, Cillian Murphy as Dr. Jonathan Crane, Liam Neeson as Henri Ducard, Heath Ledger as The Joker, Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent, Anne Hathaway as Catwoman, Tom Hardy as Bane, Marion Cotillard as Wayne Enterprises board member Miranda Tate and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as GCPD officer John Blake.

The series consists of:

A direct-to-DVD animesque anthology, Batman Gotham Knight, helped to bridge the gap between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, though Christopher Nolan had no involvement in its production.

While the films feature original storylines, they borrow scenes and themes from multiple Batman comic book miniseries such as Alan Moore's The Killing Joke, Jeph Loeb's The Long Halloween and Dark Victory, and Frank Miller's Batman Year One and The Dark Knight Returns, as well as maxi-series like Knightfall and No Man's Land. Further, the films borrow heavily from Batman The Animated Series in terms of style and character. And despite all the liberties taken by the trilogy to combine these disparate elements into a unified vision — or perhaps because of them — Batman fans widely consider the films some of the best adaptations of the franchise to date.

Viewers outside the comicbook fandom agreed, and the series has been known primarily for its critical and commercial success.

See also Zack Snyder's Man of Steel, a reboot of the Superman movie franchise produced by Nolan and written by Goyer.

The series as a whole provides examples of:

  • Action Film, Quiet Drama Scene: Used frequently and to great effect throughout.
  • Action Prologue: Batman Begins starts off with Bruce Wayne beating up prisoners in Asia. The Dark Knight starts with the Joker robbing a bank and picking off his accomplices one at a time. The Dark Knight Rises begins with Bane conducting a mid-air kidnapping.
  • Adaptation Distillation: All three movies combine multiple stories:
    • Begins - Batman Year One (Bruce's origin mirrors that particular version, Commissioner Loeb, Carmine Falcone, Detective Flass), The Long Halloween (the idea of Batman, the police, and the DA's office presenting a united front; Scarecrow's appearance; Carmine Falcone's downfall), and Contagion (Ra's Al Ghul tries to spread a plague across Gotham). The Man Who Falls was also cited as an influence.
    • Dark Knight - The Killing Joke (Joker tries to make someone go crazy, Joker's multiple origins), The Long Halloween (Dent gets disfigured and goes on a rampage, supervillains begin to take over the mob's place), Dark Victory (Commissioner Loeb dies), Batman Year One (Gordon's family put at risk in the end), and Joker's original story from Batman #1/The Man Who Laughs (Joker arrives in Gotham and starts killing people). According to Steve Englehart, Nolan also cannibalised elements of Dark Detective and its unpublished sequel
    • Rises - Vengeance of Bane ( Bane's origin is used for Talia, King Snake is substituted for Ra's) Knightfall (Bane shows up and breaks Batman's back), The Dark Knight Returns (an older Batman comes back to fight crime, Batman fakes his death), Son of the Demon (Batman gets involved with Talia Al Ghul), No Man's Land (Gotham gets blocked off from the rest of the US and declared a disaster area), Legacy (Bane and Talia working together), The Cult (An underground group of criminals take over Gotham, Gordon is put in the hospital as a result of trying to confront them), again, Batman Year One (Catwoman's origins).
  • All-Star Cast: All three films feature Christian Bale, Gary Oldman, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Cillian Murphy, on top of:
  • All Your Base Are Belong to Us: Bruce Wayne has bad luck when it comes to his homes. The League of Shadows burn Wayne Manor to the ground in the first film, the Joker and his henchmen invade his penthouse in the second, and in the third Bane steals all Batman's equipment inside Wayne Enterprises R&D. Wayne Manor, though, survives the third one.
  • Animated Adaptation: Batman Gotham Knight, a direct-to-DVD Animesque anthology that bridges the gap between the first two films.
  • The Apprentice: Batman and to a lesser extent, Bane, were both apprentices of Ra's al Ghul.
  • Appropriated Title: Batman Begins has two sequels, both under the Dark Knight name, in what has become known as The Dark Knight Saga.
  • Artistic License - Physics: Microwaves do not work that way! And neither do cell phones! Or fusion reactors!! Or sonar for that matter!
  • Awesome Yet Practical: Batman's technology is all re-appropriated Wayne Enterprises R&D military prototypes that never made it into production. The result is that his awesome equipment is built to be combat effective: His suits are based off designs for army special forces body armor, his cape is made from memory cloth - a material intended for damage and weather-resistant quick-pitch military tents, and his Batmobile is a tank designed for precision operations in war zones.
    • Awesome, but Impractical: In-universe, this is one of the reasons the prototypes never made in into production. For example, the reason the Nomex survival suit never made it past the prototype stage because "bean counters didn't think a soldier's life was worth $300 grand".
  • Badass in a Nice Suit:
    • In Begins, Ducard can always been seen in a tailored suit when on an assignment and Scarecrow always wears a suit along with his mask.
    • Joker in The Dark Knight also qualifies as an extremely warped version. He even lampshades the suit's quality as he mocks the assembled gangsters.
      Oh, and the suit? It wasn't cheap. You should know, you bought it.
  • Badass Beard: Bruce in both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight Rises, and Ducard in Begins.
  • Badass Cape: Not only is it stylish, but when an electric current is run through it, the shape-memory fibers it's made from can transform the entire cape into a hang glider, or fold it up into a form fitting backpack.
    • Also, while not used in the movie, supplemental materials state that the gloves, which are used to apply the electrical current to the cape to allow it to become rigid, can also be used to administer high-voltage, non lethal shocks.
  • Badass Longcoat: The Joker, Jim Gordon, and Bane. Bruce also sports one in Begins.
  • Bald Black Leader Guy: Commissioner Loeb, Police Commissioner of Gotham City in the first two movies.
  • Big Applesauce: While Gotham City is usually considered to be more of a Chicago than a New York, you can't miss the half-completed 1 WTC in the aerial shots of its skyline in The Dark Knight Rises.
  • Big Bad: Ra's al Ghul in Batman Begins, The Joker in The Dark Knight, Bane and Talia al Ghul in The Dark Knight Rises.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Batman Begins and The Dark Knight both end with Batman triumphant, but at an extreme cost to both himself and Gotham. Dark Knight Rises has a more uplifting ending but not without its own bitterness.
  • Body Motifs: All three films put an emphasis on both faces and masks.
  • Bloodless Carnage: Comes with the PG-13 territory. The trope itself gets some Sequel Escalation; in Rises we barely know that Gordon got shot by Bane's mooks until he's seen still in the hospital weeks later..
  • Book Ends: Bruce Wayne both begins and ends the trilogy out of Gotham and presumed dead, although his prospects at the end are considerably better.
  • Break Them By Talking:
    • Ra's al Ghul delivers a genocidal Knight Templar harangue that leaves Bruce a complete mess in Begins.
    • The Joker's favorite tactic, using nearly every anecdote as an oppurtunity to get in someone's head.
    • Bane attempts this, but it seems it didn't work as well.
  • Canon Foreigner: Rachel Dawes for Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, Ramirez, Wuertz, Lau and all of the mobsters other than Sal Maroni for The Dark Knight. The Dark Knight Rises includes city cop John Blake and a Wayne Enterprises executive Miranda Tate.
    • Both cases from Rises end up being subversions — Miranda Tate is actually Talia al Ghul, while John Blake is a Composite Character combining Dick Grayson, Jason Todd and Tim Drake.
  • Cape Wings: Batman's hang glider cape, thanks to 'memory cloth', a special type of fabric that has bundled sections designed to take a specific shape when an electrical charge is applied. The Wayne Enterprise's version of memory cloth was originally designed to use in quick-pitch tents for soldiers, before Bruce repurposes the material to jump off rooftops.
  • Central Theme: According to Nolan; Fear, Chaos, and Pain, respectively. Note that these are all additive themes; each film includes the previous theme(s) in addition to its central one.
  • Chekhov's Armory
  • Chekhov's Gun: Bruce's gauntlet blades play a role in the defeat of each Big Bad. With them, he breaks Ra's sword in the train fight, prevents the Joker from blowing up the two ferries, and slices open Bane's mask to defeat him. Pretty good for a costume design that Christopher Nolan felt needed an explanation.
  • Chekhov's Gunman: Ra's Al Ghul's wife.
  • Closed Circle: Twice (Batman Begins and The Dark Knight Rises), both times involving explosives with the Big Bad holing up most of the city's police department, civilians, and inmates of nearby prison out of the way so that the entire area will be driven to chaos. The former was Arkham, the latter was the entire city.
  • Close On Title: All three films end by showing their title.
  • Combat Pragmatist:
    • Batman's fighting style for the movies, the Keysi Fighting Method, is set entirely around being as simple and damaging as possible.
    • Joker is by far the least reserved fighter of the cast. One fight has him shove a mook at Batman and then try to kick the Dark Knight in the groin with a knife strapped to his shoe. In another, Joker sets three mad dogs on Batman and then attacks Batman with a crowbar.
    • The Scarecrow in Begins is no slouch either. In his first confrontation with Batman, he hits the vigilante with a dose of fear gas from behind, splashes him with kerosene, and then lights him on fire. Yes, that's right; he brought experimental chemical weapons to a fistfight.
      The Scarecrow: You look like a man who takes himself too seriously. Do you want my opinion? You need to lighten up.
    • Bane, oh so very much. The man's forehead should be considered a lethal weapon.
  • Comic Book Movies Don't Use Codenames: The movies play with this trope.
    • Selina never gets called Catwoman even though there are a lot of cat motifs surrounding her.
    • Dent briefly discusses the nickname he had during his Internal Affairs days ("Harvey Two-Face") but he never goes by that name in either film.
    • Crane goes by his real name through three movies except for one scene towards the end of Begins when he, hopped up on his own fear gas, calls himself Scarecrow.
    • Bane, interestingly enough, never has his real name mentioned, averting this trope. In the comics, Bane did not have a real name, given his origins.
    • Ra's Al Ghul is a real name and sort of a title in both the comics and the movies, so its usage makes sense.
    • Joker's real name was never revealed in this franchise, nor the original comics.
    • This version of the Batmobile is never actually called "The Batmobile". Its official name is "The Tumbler".
  • Composite Character:
    • The movies' Flass resembled the dark-haired, unshaven, overweight Harvey Bullock more than the comics version of Flass, who was blonde, clean-shaven, and muscular, though movie Flass did retain his comic counterpart's corruption.
    • Likewise, the movies' Loeb only shares the name of the comics' character, resembling Michael Akins in both looks and personality (African-American, young, and honest) more than the comics' Loeb (Caucasian, old, and extremely corrupt).
    • Henri Ducard has become an alias for Ra's al Ghul in this continuity.
    • John Blake in Rises is a composite of the first three Robins, having Jason Todd's back story, deducing Batman's true identity like Tim Drake, and like Dick Grayson has a brief stint as a police officer and in the end takes up the mantle of Gotham's protector.
    • Talia al Ghul combines elements of comic's Talia and her sister Nyssa Raatko, along with a bit of Bane's comic backstory.
  • Continuity Nod:
    • Scarecrow's appearance in the first act of The Dark Knight and his appearance in The Dark Knight Rises.
    • In Dark Knight, Bruce at one point tries to contextualize the Joker using the same lessons Ducard taught him in Batman Begins.
      Bruce Wayne: Criminals aren't complicated, Alfred.
    • Harvey Dent mentions Carmine Falcone's continuing incarceration in Arkham during Sal Maroni's trial.
    • Ra's appears in Rises in a hallucination, and his daughter is the Big Bad.
    • During Rises, Bruce remembers his father saving him from a well as a child along with the phrase, "Why do we fall?".
    • Gordon gets a brief flashback to comforting Bruce as a child and Dent's actions as Two-Face.
    • Also in Rises, we get to see Bruce's makeshift Batcave from Dark Knight in one scene which also includes the gear he used to get Lau out of Hong Kong.
    • Bane and his men steal Tumblers from Wayne Enterprise. Also, in Dark Knight, we see the first Tumbler's blueprint at the same company.
    • When seeing "The Bat", Lucious Fox remarks that "Yes, it does come in black", mirroring a similar question Bruce asked in Begins.
  • Cool Car: Bruce's Lamborghini Murciélago LP 640, bonus is the fact that Murciélago is Spanish for "Bat".
  • Corrupt Politician: The trilogy isn't as bad as the comics. In addition to Gordon and Dent, there's an honest judge and an honest mayor, and the Commissioner before Gordon was honest as well, if incompetent. All the above but Gordon bite the dust before the series is over, though.
  • Crapsack World: Gotham is on the brink of economic collapse when Bruce is a child, under the thumb of the mob by the main events of Begins, being terrorized by psychopaths and increasingly desperate gangsters by The Dark Knight, and becomes a city without law and then a total war zone in Rises. However, by the end of Rises, Gotham shows steps towards becoming A World Half Full.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: Batman, as always. These films especially place a HUGE emphasis on how dark the character is, but also on how heroic and selfless he is.
  • Darker and Edgier: The films in The Dark Knight Saga are arguably the darkest film adaptations of Batman to date.
  • Demoted to Extra:
    • Crane goes from a major antagonist to a One-Scene Wonder between the first, second, and third films.
    • Alfred has very little screen time in The Dark Knight Rises.
      • Though he does at least make the most of what he has, providing his usual insight, wisdom, and poignancy.
  • Doing in the Wizard : The movies discard many supernatural and unrealistic elements of the comics, offering plausible pseudo-scientific explanations instead. For example:
    • Batman's equipment is re-purposed prototypes for the Department of Defense, and based on technology that given current research will likely be available within a decade or so.
    • Ra's al Ghul's apparent immortality comes from a simple Body Double trick instead of a supernatural pit of primordial goo.
      • In the third film, he shows up as a hallucination, and points out that there are many types of "immortality". Such as having a child willing to carry out his legacy.
    • The Joker's deformed smile is just a Glasgow Grin, and his white skin is just face paint to unnerve opponents.
      • Similarly, instead of Joker Venom leaving his victims with deformed smiles and other Joker-like features, he instead carves Glasgow Grins and then paints their faces himself.
    • Bane only uses an anesthetic gas to help him cope with a severe injury, instead of a Super Serum that lets him Hulk out to enormous size.
  • The Don: Carmine Falcone and his successor Salvatore Maroni are old-school Italian mafiosi who are slowly put out of business both by The Caped Crusader and his psychotic enemies.
  • Dramatic Irony: Between the second and third films. In Dark Knight, Rachel believed Bruce was incapable of living without Batman. And yet, Rises opens with Bruce having given up the cowl for 8 whole years, making her choice of Harvey over Bruce and her sudden death because of it all the more tragic.
    • Technically Rachel was right, because although Bruce gives up being Batman, he also gives up being Bruce Wayne as well and is content to live in mental torment as a recluse.
      • That, and the fact that at the first major sign of trouble, he suits up again without a second thought.
      • Batman wasn't so much "given up" (indeed, Rises make a point about Bruce's inability to give the identity up), as forced into retirement due to a lack of organised crime in Gotham.
  • The Dreaded: Each of the major villains to their own degree.
    • Carmine Falcone is terrified by Ra's al Ghul, to the point where the mention he'll be in Gotham puts the mobster on edge.
    • The Joker is feared by everyone from mob bosses to civilians to cops, and for good reasons. Even after being dropped off a building and having both his legs fractured, Maroni is still too scared of the Joker to give up any information about him to Batman.
    • Everyone from CIA agents to Catwoman is afraid of Bane. Given what he does to Gotham, they're right to be.
    • Batman's MO is to become this to the city's criminals: in most cases of crimefighting, he pulls off moves that seem designed to cause the maximum amount of fear in those he's chasing. In Dark Knight, it's shown to be working, as the presence of the bat symbol in the night sky discourages a would-be thief from going out. However, he is eventually overshadowed by The Joker here.
  • Electric Boogaloo: Averted. It's The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, not Batman Begins 2: The Dark Knight or Batman Begins 3: The Dark Knight 2: Rises.
  • Elaborate Underground Base: The Batcave.
    • In the first movie, it's an underground cave network originally re-purposed by Bruce's ancestors for use in the Underground Railroad.
    • In the second film, the Batcave is one big concrete room underneath an empty Wayne Enterprises lot with the Tumbler, an incinerator, some computer monitors and a massive collection of secondary equipment that pops out as needed from the floor and the walls.
      • In something of a Shout Out to the Neil Adams-era Batman comics, Bruce's Wayne Tower penthouse also sports secret passages leading to spare costumes and equipment.
    • In the third film, the Batcave has been expanded into an even more elaborate underground base that combines the giant cave of the first film with the simple geometric designs of the second.
  • Equal-Opportunity Evil: The League of Shadows is multiracial in Begins. Sal Maroni also employs gangsters of any nationality in Dark Knight.
    • Truth in Television for Maroni. It's possible for anyone to work for the "mafia" (they don't actually call themselves that) and become quite influential. The limitation is that only Italians (or half Italians) can become Made Men.
  • Establishing Character Moment: Both The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises open with a short prologue introducing the viewer to the Big Bad, showing him doing something badass, and teaching us something about how he operates (e.g., the Joker manipulates his men into backstabbing each other, while Bane inspires such loyalty that his men would die for him).
  • Everyone Has Standards: Joker tries to defy this, but it turns into a Double Subversion when he plants bombs on ferries and says both will blow up unless one boat uses a detonator on the other. One boat has convicts, and the other has innocent people. Neither can bring themselves to do it. For extra irony points, it's the convicted murderers, thieves, and rapists who take the moral route and actually discard their detonator.
  • Evil Is Hammy:
    • The Joker in The Dark Knight.
    • Cillian Murphy also starts chewing scenery after being poisoned by his own fear toxin.
    • Bane isn't afraid to chew the scenery, either.
  • Evil Plan:
    • In Begins, The League of Shadows' plot to destroy Gotham by covering the city in fear gas.
    • Subverted in Dark Knight, as the Joker has no real Evil Plan, just the thesis that all Humans Are Bastards, and lots of increasingly complicated "experiments" to prove his point.
    • In Rises, Bane wants to break Batman, body and spirit, and completely destroy Gotham, as Talia Al Ghul's right hand man, and co-leader of the League of Shadows, fulfilling her estranged father's plan and simultaneously avenging him on Batman.
  • Expansion Pack Past: Alfred's past in the British military and later as a freelance mercenary is often mentioned in anecedotes, but never fully explained.
  • The Faceless: In The Dark Knight, Gordon's daughter Barbara appears, but her face is never seen (she was on-screen briefly in Begins, as well, but doesn't even get credited as her real name).
  • Fake American: Notably, almost the entire cast of Begins (including most of the main stars) hail from one part of the British Isles or another, although Michael Caine's character is British and Ducard is a stateless individual.
    • This is mostly averted in the sequels, although notably the main villains of both sequels play it straight (Heath Ledger was Australian, Tom Hardy is British and Marion Cotillard is French.)
  • Fan Nickname:
    • Fans who disliked Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character being revealed to be the Nolanverse's version of Robin have taken to calling him "Not Robin".
    • On a meta-level, BatBale is used when referring to the actor or the character.
  • Foil: Many characters serve as this for Batman.
  • Genius Bruiser: Bane, as is tradition. However this is actually one of the few times where he's been portrayed as such outside of the comics, or at least emphasized as one.
  • Genre Shift: Batman Begins is equal parts crime drama and adventure film, with elements of mysticism figuring heavily into the plot. The Dark Knight abandons the mysticism in favor of a more straightforward crime thriller set completely in an urban environment. The Dark Knight Rises then largely drops the crime drama and becomes more of a large-scale action epic, featuring a plot that wouldn't seem out of place in a James Bond film.
  • Handy Remote Control: A villain wields one in both the second and third films.
  • Hello, Attorney!: Both Rachel Dawes and Harvey Dent.
  • High Altitude Interrogation:
    • Batman Begins features the title character dangling and dropping Det. Flass almost as if he were bungee jumping until Batman is satisfied with what information he's given.
    • Subverted and lampshaded in The Dark Knight. Batman wasn't threatening to kill Maroni to get his information but to use the situation in a novel way that would actually make this Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique. However, Maroni doesn't tell him anything anyway, because he's not going to rat out The Joker for anyone, least of all Batman. "We're on to you," he says. "You've got rules. The Joker has no rules."
    • The Dark Knight Rises double subverts and lampshades this in the opening scenes of the film. A CIA team has captured a group of Bane's minions and is trying to get Bane's location out of them on a plane; they have them all in hoods, bring one to the open door of the plane, and stick the mook's head out of it. The suspect refuses to talk, and the CIA interrogator pretends to have him killed (shooting his gun into open air before claiming to have thrown the mook from the plane) before moving him out of the way.
    Interrogator: Lot of loyalty for a hired gun.
    Bane: Or perhaps he's wondering why someone would shoot a man before throwing him out of a plane.
  • Honor Before Reason: Bruce turning on The League of Shadows. Also everyone in Gotham who takes on the mob.
  • Horrifying Hero: Invoked by Batman, who actively tries to cultivate the image of terrifying, elemental, and incorruptable symbol. Those unlucky enough to be exposed to fear toxins also see him as a giant demonic bat.
  • I Have the High Ground: At least once each film, Batman observes the city like this. Combines with Cue the Sun across the films: Batman Begins is at night, The Dark Knight is at dawn, and The Dark Knight Rises is in morning twilight.
  • If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him: A reoccurring theme in the series.
    • Discussed in Begins. Bruce Wayne gives this as his reason for refusing to kill defenseless criminals.
      Bruce: I'm no executioner.
      Ducard: Your compassion is a weakness your enemies will not share.
      Bruce: That's why it's important. It separates us from them.
    • Later subverted, as while Batman doesn't decide to kill Ra's, he still leaves the villain to die in a train crash.
    • Also Inverted in Dark Knight by Joker, who tries to get both Batman and Harvey Dent to kill him so they'll go just as insane.
      Joker: Come on, come on, come on, I want you to do it, I want you to do it. Come on, hit me. Come on, hit me. Come on, hit me! HIT ME!
  • I Own This Town: In each of the movies:
    • Carmine Falcone in the typical mob lord sense.
    • The Joker has a more disturbing version of it: Come nightfall this city is mine, and anyone left in it plays by my rules.
    • Taken to the extreme with Bane, with isolates Gotham and establishes himself as the warlord of it.
  • Jerkass Façade: Bruce Wayne combines this with Obfuscating Stupidity to protect his Batman identity.
  • Kill It with Fire: Attempted by Crane, on Batman, and done successfully by Joker, on mob accountant Lau. It's horrifying both times.
  • Knight in Sour Armor: Jim Gordon, who's trying to be a good cop in what continues to be a very corrupt town.
  • Loving a Shadow: The entire basis for Bruce's infatuation with Rachel Dawes - he sees her as the only woman in the world who could possibly understand him and his angst and the most perfectly pure woman imaginable, even though they have very little in common beyond being childhood friends who would like to see Gotham become a better place. fortunately Selina Kyle eventually comes along and straightens him out.
  • Master of the Mixed Message: Rachel Dawes. She'll talk about how she admired Bruce when he was young and then rebuke him, or give Bruce a gift of a childhood memory and then rebuke him, or kiss him and then rebuke him.
  • Meaningful Echo: Aside from the echoes within the films, there's a number between them. We hear the following conversation between Batman and Gordon towards the end of Begins:
    Gordon: I never did say thank you.
    Batman: ... and you'll never have to.
    • And then there is this, towards the end of Dark Knight:
      Gordon: Thank you.
      Batman: You don't have to thank me.
      Gordon: ... yes, I do.
      • Again in Dark Knight Rises:
        Batman: Don't thank me yet.
        Blake: I might not get the chance later.
    • There's also this quote Ducard says in Begins to his then-student Wayne:
      Ducard: You've traveled the world to understand the criminal mind and conquer your fears. But the criminal is not complicated.
    • Wayne, having apparently internalized this lesson, paraphrases this in The Dark Knight:
      Wayne: Criminals aren't complicated, Alfred. Just have to figure out what he's after.
    • In Dark Knight, the scene between Alfred and Bruce following Rachel's death mirrors the scene in Begins between Alfred and the child Bruce after the death of Bruce's parents.
    • The Dark Knight has Harvey Dent's slogan, "I Believe In Harvey Dent", said by Bruce Wayne genuinely. Later, in the opening of The Dark Knight Rises, Commissioner Gordon speaks reluctantly and wearily at the eighth annual Harvey Dent day: "I Believed In Harvey Dent".
  • Messianic Archetype:
    • The unselfish Bruce Wayne of this universe. Somehow, this doesn't stop him from maintaining the Jerkass Façade of being a Rich Idiot with No Day Job at the same time.
    • Harvey Dent at first seems to be this, as everyone in Gotham seems to view him as a living saint. Ends up a subversion by the end of the film.
  • Mythology Gag: Several, mainly referencing the comics:
    • Batman using a sonic device and summoning a swarm of bats to escape a police SWAT team is taken directly from Batman Year One.
    • Mob hitman Zsasz carving marks into his arm with a knife during the climax of Batman Begins.
    • In The Dark Knight, Bruce asks Mr. Fox if his new suit can withstand large dog attacks. Fox jokingly responds that it should do fine against cats.
    • The Joker's constantly changing backstory is inspired by a similar mythology gag from Alan Moore's The Killing Joke:
      Joker: If I'm going to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice!
    • Joker's disappearing pencil trick is inspired by a conversation between Batman and Joker in Grant Morrison's Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth.
    • Many scenes in The Dark Knight are adapted from The Long Halloween, though with very different contexts and outcomes:
      • Harvey Dent being attacked in court by his own witness (although this particular incident was not original to The Long Halloween, it is the best known recent version of it).
      • The campaign slogan "I Believe in Harvey Dent".
      • The ploy of transporting a target in police custody to draw out a would-be killer.
      • The mob's savings going up in flames.
    • The sonar lenses Batman uses in the finale of Dark Knight were designed to mirror the white slits for eyes seen in most comics depictions of the character.
    • The Tumbler was inspired by the hulked-out tank of a Batmobile featured in The Dark Knight Returns.
      • The copycat Batmen in the opening of Dark Knight are also a direct reference to the The Dark Knight Returns' vigilante group the 'Sons of the Batman'.
    • The name of Gordon's new division, the Major Crimes Unit, is taken from Gotham Central.
    • After giving a toast to Harvey at the fundraiser in Dark Knight, we see Bruce throwing all the champagne in his glass out over the balcony.
    • Lucius Fox summing up Bruce's complaints about his original Batsuit with "You'd like to be able to turn your head". None of the Batsuits since the 1989 Batman had allowed the actor wearing them to do this.
    • During the press interview where Harvey Dent claims he is Batman, you can see a microphone for "News 26", the channel for all Gotham news in Batman The Animated Series.
    • When Batman returns to the streets in The Dark Knight Rises, he chases down crooks who are fleeing from an Old Cop, Young Cop pair in a police cruiser, much like he did in The Dark Knight Returns. Even the dialogue is very similar:
      Old Cop: You're in for a hell of a show tonight, kid.
    • The Bat Cave being used by Wayne's ancestors in the Underground Railroad is from an old issue of Shadow of the Bat.
    • Bane hiring orphans for his operations in Gotham's sewer system is reminiscent of the "Sewer King" episode of BTAS.
    • The outfit Bane wears while robbing the stock exchange is a realistic take on Jason Todd's Red Hood costume.
    • Batman's first fight with Bane mirrors their battle in Knightfall in many ways, but most of all, Bane's finishing blow. The back break.
    • Bane cuts off Gotham from the world, its bridges are blown up, and its citizens left to fend for themselves on the streets, just in No Man's Land.
    • When the League of Shadows gives Bruce a chance to evacuate his birthday party, he does it by calling all his guests Two-Faced sycophants.
    • A joke is made about alligators in the sewer after John Blake tries to start an investigation on Bane in the sewer.
    • In Rises, when Catwoman pulls a Stealth Hi/Bye on Batman, his quip of "So that's what that feels like" is from Kingdom Come.
    • The clown mask the Joker wears at the beginning of The Dark Knight is identical to a clown mask Cesar Romero's Joker wore in the classic Batman TV Series episode Batman is Riled.
  • Obfuscating Stupidity: Just like in the comics, Bruce Wayne downplays his intellect and behaves like a stereotypical eccentric billionaire so that no one would suspect he is really Batman.
    • After Bruce puts his lamborghini in between the big truck and the police SUV, he acts like this to Gordon.
      Bruce Wayne: You think I should go to the hospital?
      Jim Gordon: You don't watch a whole lot of news, do you, Mr. Wayne?
    • Played with in The Dark Knight Rises: Blake discovered Wayne was Batman upon recognizing the persona that Wayne often wore in public, as Blake himself had learnt to do the same to bottle his anger.
  • No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Happens at least once per movie. Bruce saving Ducard, Batman saving Harvey, and Bane saving young Talia.
    • The "rewards" for the above good deeds, respectively are Ducard coming back and revealing he is Ra's al Ghul, and then burning down Bruce's home and trying to destroy Gotham, Harvey's botched rescue burns off half his face, which combined with the loss of Rachel Dawes, his Love Interest, drives him into insanity and villainy as Two-Face, and Bane is heavily beaten by the other prisoners of the Pit, forcing him to don his mask to feed himself anasthetic to dull his pain from the injuries.
  • Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Lucius Fox appears to be an expert in toxicology, ballistics, computer technology, sonar, radio communications, and personal protective equipment, to name a few.
    • Justified in that he used to be the head of a highly prolific multi-national corporation's R&D department. A working knowledge of the science behind most projects is generally required in such positions.
  • Once A Movie: There are multiple uses of this trope:
    • Batman's signature interrogation tactic, screaming 'WHERE?' while beating people up, used on Flass, The Joker, and Bane in each film respectively. It only really worked the way he expected it to in the first one, but either way he did get the information, although the second and third times did not end as well for him, with The Joker manipulating him and tricking him into saving Harvey not Rachel and later, Bruce found out his new Love Interest was Evil All Along and that she had the trigger for the nuclear bomb that he was looking for.
    • Batman surveys the city from high up every movie, each time at a different time of day (See I Have the High Ground above).
    • There is a party in each movie as well; Bruce's birthday party, Harvey Dent's fundraiser, and a masquerade ball held by Miranda Tate.
    • Batman's bladed gauntlets help him defeat Ducard, Joker and Bane.
    • Batman's vanishing act. First, Batman manages to startle Gordon with it during some of their initial meetings. Then, Batman pulls the same thing on Harvey during their first encounter, and Gordon, who by this point is used to Batman doing that to him after six months of it, simply tells Harvey, "He does that." Finally, Batman himself is on the receiving end courtesy of Selina Kyle. "So that's what it feels like..."
    • Each movie has a line about thanking Batman (the first two times from Gordon and the last time from John Blake).
    • There is a different location from Gotham in each movie (a prison in Bhutan and the nearby League of Shadows base in Batman Begins), Hong Kong in The Dark Knight and the Pit some unidentified place far from Gotham in The Dark Knight Rises.
    • The only villain to appear in every movie in the trilogy is Doctor Jonathan Crane, AKA Scarecrow.
    • There is a funeral in every movie. First Bruce's parents, then Commissioner Loeb's and finally, Bruce Wayne's own funeral, though he is Faking the Dead.
  • Playing Against Type: Gary Oldman is known for his great acting range, but is often typecast as a villain. In these movies, he plays a heroic Jim Gordon, and avoids going overboard with his acting.
  • Police Are Useless: All of them, save Jim Gordon. The Gotham police can't stop the League of Shadows in Begins and get regularly played by The Joker in Dark Knight, to the point Batman has to take out a SWAT team to stop them from killing hostages due to misdirection.
    • The police in Hong Kong are little better. Though quick on the scene, they just watch in stunned confusion as Lau is taken away by Batman.
    • Deconstructed with their inability to do their job in the beginning and reconstructed with their willingness when given the chance in the third film. The police did not have the equipment, ability, or number to take on Bane and his army after nearly all the Gotham police are trapped underground for three months in Bane's trap, becoming malnourished on the little food and water they could get and thus could only do recon on Bane's movements. Reconstructed after Batman blows open a way for the police to leave the underground and Batman gives the hesitant ones the hope to actually make a difference as they are shown that given the right chance and equipment they WILL do their best to protect society, even with low odds. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that the police were shown to be huge heroes, especially with the impact of Foley being too afraid to act during Bane's reign of terror, but deciding to fight after Batman comes back, and then being killed during the war against Bane's army.
  • Porn Stache: Sported by Jim Gordon.
  • Race Lift: Commisioner Loeb (Caucasian in the comics, African-American in the films).
    • Talia al Ghul and Bane, both played by Caucasian actors in the films.
  • Reality Is Unrealistic: Nolan's penchant for having special effects done in-camera tends to garner this reaction. The Tumbler and the Batpod were both thought to be too unwieldy to operate in real life, when each has at least one drivable model. In The Dark Knight, the eighteen-wheeler truck flipping over was at first deemed CGI or a scale model. It was a real semi in a real street.
    • Batman's cape was designed to fold into a backpack for The Dark Knight because the costume designers thought it would get caught in the Batpod's wheel. After a test run in which nothing actually happened, Nolan was happy to let it billow dramatically in the wind (though people still complained).
    • The police force is not obligated to provide a phone call for anyone and tend to comply if the suspect is being cooperative. However, this is such a pervasive occurrence in media that people brought it up.
    • After the initial snipe on the clowns failed, some reviewers were confused as to why the SWAT team would state their identities and refrain from opening fire for so long during close combat. As mentioned on the page for The Dark Knight, this is actual operating procedure.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech: The villains deliver some of the best ones ever. Like the one that Carmine Falcone gives to Bruce at the beginning of Batman Begins. Bruce realizes that Falcone is 100% right about him, and his efforts to remedy that eventually enable him to become Batman.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: Gordon in both films. Also Commissioner Loeb, Mayor Garcia, and Harvey Dent before he loses it.
  • Reconstruction: The trilogy takes apart and then puts back together many of the unrealistic and potentially negative elements of the Batman mythos while staying true to the character’s identity as the quintessential Cowl. For example, the second movie is one of the darkest Batman movies since Batman Returns, but it is placed right on the Idealist side of the Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism. "What are you trying to prove? That deep down, everyone is as ugly as you? You're ALONE!"
  • Rich Idiot with No Day Job: Bruce Wayne actively cultivates this image, to cover his activities as Batman.
  • Rule Of Cool: Hang gliding, microwave weapons, ninjas, sonar mapping, fingerprints, fourth degree burns, and anesthesia, among other things, do not work that way. But it all looks awesome, so who cares?
  • Rule of Symbolism: The logo for Batman Begins is raw and unfinished metal. The logo for The Dark Knight is burned into the side of a building. The teaser poster for Rises has the logo as a gaping hole in the sky.
  • Save the Day, Turn Away:
    • Inverted Type 1 at the end of Begins. Rachel tells Bruce the man she loved is gone, and for now, only the Batman remains.
    • Followed by a straight Type 2 at the end of Dark Knight. Batman's stopped the Joker and saved Gordon's family, but instead takes the blame for Dent's murder spree to protect Harvey's legacy.
  • Save the Villain: Played straight with Ducard, then subverted. Played straight with The Joker. Later subverted again with Two-Face.
  • Science Hero: Nolan's version of Batman relies on his company's cutting-edge technology to create his superhero persona, provide himself with useful gadgets and find criminals. Also applies to the Omnidisciplinary Scientist responsible for creating Batman's gizmos, Lucius Fox.
  • Secret Identity: Deconstructed; although Bruce has a Secret Identity, it’s practically impossible for him to hide it from everyone else, even when they are not Secret Chasers actively looking to know who the Batman is. The ones who find out all decide to be Secret Keepers, or even Secret Secret Keepers:
  • Sequel Hook: Joker's calling card at the end of Batman Begins, Batman riding off into the night as a wanted criminal at the end of The Dark Knight, and while Bruce and Selina live the rest of their lives together, with the rest of Gotham believing that Bruce Wayne died during Bane's occupation, the last shot of the trilogy has John Blake, or rather, Robin John Blake discovering the Batcave, and, like Bruce before him, bats begin to circle him as he prepares himself to become the newest Batman.
    • Alas, DC have announced that they plan to reboot the Batman franchise to allow it to fit into the greater multiverse, with a particular eye towards a Justice League movie.
  • Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: The whole trilogy is a poster child for swinging from one end to the other and back again.
  • Sliding Scale of Silliness Versus Seriousness: Arguably the most serious superhero movies.
  • So Last Season: The batsuit from Begins quickly proves inadequate for Bruce's needs in The Dark Knight. At least now he can move his neck for the first time in twenty years. Averted in Rises, as even though 8 years pass in the story, he uses the same suit that debuted in The Dark Knight.
    • Played straight with the vehicles, however. Each film has the previous film's vehicle show up and then be discarded for something better.
  • Sorting Algorithm of Evil: Crane, one of the main villains from Batman Begins, was reassigned in the sequel to the head Mook of the Batman Cold Open. The Joker meanwhile ends up being worse than the entire mob put together. To top that off, Bane takes over Gotham as a warlord for months and holds the city hostage with a nuclear bomb.
  • Status Quo Is God: Averted with Wayne Manor. After being burnt to the ground in Begins, the new mansion is still years away from completion in The Dark Knight, leaving Bruce and Batman to set up in a penthouse at Wayne Tower.
  • Stealth Expert: Batman.
  • Stealth Hi/Bye: Used regularly and played with in Begins, where Bruce's first attempt to do the iconic move on Gordon results in an epic failure. Also used regularly and lampshaded in The Dark Knight
    Gordon: He does that.
    • And again in Rises when Catwoman is the one doing that to him.
    Batman: So that's what that feels like.
  • Superhero Paradox: Subtly applied throughout the series, as it isn't often talked about. Ra's al Ghul would have destroyed Gotham if Bruce hadn't become Batman, but The Joker seems to find Batman an inspiration and tells him how he changed things. Bruce does discuss with Alfred how Batman was supposed to inspire good, not madness and evil; something that The Joker goes on to inspire in Harvey "Two-Face" Dent. On top of that, Batman saved Harvey Dent from certain death but didn't manage to save half his face and more importantly, his Love Interest who also happened to be Bruce's, which let The Joker visit him and convince him to give into insanity. Dr. Jonathan Crane was already evil before Batman came around, but it probably didn't help that Batman drove Crane insane with Crane's own fear toxin. Finally, if Batman did not leave Ra's to die; Bane and Talia would not have sought revenge on Bruce by torturing Bruce and Gotham, then nuking Gotham. Pretty much every main villain in the series with the exception of Ra's al Ghul is somehow linked to Batman in relation to why they're insane and/or evil and why they want to torment others or Gotham.
  • Take My Hand
  • The Teetotaler: Bruce is never seen drinking any alcoholic beverage during the series, save for the scene in Begins where he kicks all his party guests out of Wayne Manor. In The Dark Knight, he's even shown emptying the glass of champagne he took for his toast to Harvey off the balcony of his penthouse. In such situations in the comics, where Bruce had to be seen drinking, he usually switched champagne for ginger beer or some other variant, and in the former situation Bruce had plenty of chances to switch his drink.
  • Thou Shalt Not Kill: Consistent with the character's meta portrayal. It's handled somewhat realistically in that, while Batman makes it clear he's completely against straight-up executing criminals under his power, and goes out of his way to use non-lethal takedown methods, he's shown to be willing to use potentially lethal force in a crisis situation (throwing Maroni off a three story ledge (dude could have landed on his head), doing the same to Dent (who did land on his head), and shooting at Talia al Ghul with an anti-tank gun to stop her from blowing up Gotham, and virtually anyone he beat up could have died from internal bleedings, concussions, etc.).
  • To Create A Playground For Evil: The Joker's apparent goal.
  • Took a Level in Badass:
    • The first half of Begins chronicles Bruce Wayne's transformation from frightened child to badass vigilante over the course of 20 odd years.
    • Jim Gordon goes from being Batman's sidekick in Batman Begins to being a force of his own in The Dark Knight.
  • Trying to Catch Me Fighting Dirty: Aside from the Joker, it helps to remember that Batman almost always jumps enemies by surprise, and Crane uses chemical warfare in fist fights. And then there was that trick with the rappelling cable on the SWAT team in The Dark Knight...
  • Two Part Trilogy: Double subverted. The second movie is a standalone adventure, and the first and third are closely tied together.
  • Underestimating Badassery: A recurring theme throughout the series - Falcone underestimates Bruce (who comes back and trashes him years later), Batman underestimates pretty much all his villains and then his villains in turn underestimate him, Gordon is underestimated a few times, Selina Kyle is underestimated once or twice, etc.
  • Unlucky Childhood Friend:
    • Rachel Dawes in Begins.
    • Bruce Wayne himself in The Dark Knight.
  • Vice City: Gotham, especially in Begins. As Gordon puts it to Flass:
    Gordon: In a town this bent, who's there to rat to anyway?
  • The Villain Makes the Plot
  • Villain Opening Scene: Both The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises have an opening action sequence centered around Joker and Bane respectively.
  • Villain Team Up: Ra's al Ghul and Scarecrow, Bane and Talia. The Joker also shares the movie with Two-Face, but while Two-Face is pushing the Joker's plans forward, he doesn't team up with him, making it a Big Bad Ensemble rather than a Big Bad Duumvirate.
  • Warrior Poet: Alfred, though his warrior days are past.
  • Weaponized Car: The Batmobile and the Batpod.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: The League Of Shadows, which genuinely wants to make the world a better place... by burning it to the ground and building a new one over the ashes of corruption.
  • Western Terrorists: Played with. Ra's al Ghul is played by Liam Neeson, though his group is fairly multi-cultural. The Joker and his group are all Americans from Gotham. Finally, Bane is played by Tom Hardy, though like Ra's he has an organization consisting of mercenaries from all over the world.
  • What You Are in the Dark: A recurring theme in the series.
    • Bruce always believes the people of Gotham are inherently good when freed from consequences, and his enemies always think the people are inherently evil.
    • Ra's al Ghul and The League of Shadows believe the entirety of Gotham is corrupt, and it must be destroyed to allow the rest of the world to regain some semblance of balance.
    • Joker believes all humans are nothing but animals that will eat each other the second society breaks down. But only Harvey Dent gives in to his base desires, with Batman and those on the ferries showing they're not so ugly on the inside as Joker is.
  • Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys?: Bruce appropriates most of his equipment from Wayne Enterprises R&D.
  • The Windy City: The entire trilogy was partially shot Chicago, and as such many Chicago landmarks and features can be picked out:
    • The car chase with the Joker takes place on Lower Wacker Drive.
    • Maroni's car wrecks in the Amtrak yards at 18th Street
    • Gotham General is actually a touched up Brach's candy factory.
    • As the blaze at the hospital is being extinguished, a CTA (Chicago Transit Authority) bus can be seen, only with a decal saying GTA (Gotham Transit Authority).
    • 'L' trains are frequently visible in the background.
    • Part of the first Batpod chase scene shows Batman driving through the Millennium Station. Signs for Metra, South Shore, Pedway and Randolph Street are also visible.
    • Bruce Wayne's Illinois license plates, only with "Gotham" where it normally says "Illinois".
    • Averted in the third film, where Gotham starts looking just like New York City, being an island surrounded by rivers that empty into the ocean. One World Trade Center, Saks Fifth Avenue and the Brooklyn Bridge also make cameos.
    • The LA skyline is also visible when The Bat takes off the roof during its first night of action.
  • World of Snark: So very, very much. You could make a drinking game out of it, if you feel like drinking yourself into a coma.
  • Would Not Shoot a Good Guy: Played with. Batman will attack police officers with swarms of bats and endanger their lives in high speed chases, but all to try and avoid direct confrontation. It's only when he has to stop a Disguised Hostage Gambit that he's willing to take them head-on.
  • Wuxia: Albeit a very modern (and western) take on a traditionally Chinese genre of Martial Arts story. Begins in particular is filled with an extended Training Montage in Asia, The Obi Wrong Old Master, mystical initiations and philosophical introspection. The whole series, American setting notwithstanding, asks the classic Wuxia question; "What does it mean to be a Martial Artist?" and "What is a Warrior's duty to society?"
  • You Are Better Than You Think You Are: A rare example of the protagonist reassuring his colleagues. Batman reminds Selina that she is less selfish than she lets on, and tells Gordon that heroes don't need to dress up like giant bats.

BatmanFilm SeriesBetty Boop
CubeFilms Of The 2000s FranchisesBatman Begins
InsomniaCreator/Christopher NolanBatman Begins
Batman ReturnsHugo AwardBatman Begins
Crouching Tiger Hidden DragonEpic MovieThe Dark Knight
Blood DiamondThe EpicGangs Of New York
DaredevilSuperheroBatman Begins
BatmanTrope OverdosedThe Dark Knight
Cold PreyFilms of the 2010sThe Dark Knight Rises
Corpse BrideCreator/Warner Bros.The DCU
alternative title(s): Dark Knight Trilogy; The Dark Knight Trilogy; Nolan Verse; The Dark Knight Saga; Dark Knight Saga; Dark Knight Trilogy; The Dark Knight Trilogy
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