Foreshadowing / The Batman (2022)

• In the background of the very first scene, a TV political debate mentions Gotham's sea-wall. Not only does this tell the audience the city has a sea-wall in the first place, it's also mentioned that it's fallen into disrepair- leaving it more vulnerable to collapse from Riddler’s planted explosives.
• During the murder in the film's beginning, Riddler takes great care to retrieve the bloody murder tool he used to cave the Mayor's head in, though its exact shape is unclear from the blurry camera angle. At first it just appears to be because he's attempting to leave no traceable evidence, but in the film's climax, he leaves the murder tool in his apartment, in his final letter to Batman. When Riddler accidentally reveals he has a final plan still in motion even whilst he's locked up in Arkham, and he's surprised Batman never figured it out because Riddler left Batman all the clues he needed, Bruce returns to the apartment. Officer Martinez tells Batman the murder weapon is a carpet tucker, and Batman uses the tool to remove the apartment carpet, which reveals Riddler's plan to flood the city and eliminate the final "corrupt" element in the city's leadership: Mayor-Elect Bella Reál.
• The Riddler's attack on the mayor in the beginning is filmed from his POV shot as he scans the mayoral suite through the windows, clearly getting a glimpse of the mayor playing around with his son, but despite that, he has no problems staging his gruesome, elaborate and over-the-top murder scene and leaving the mayor's body to be discovered by the next person to enter the room. It's later confirmed by Gordon that the kid was the first one to find his father's body, which absolutely traumatizes him. This shows that, unlike Batman, the Riddler only cares for the message he's sending and doesn't give a damn for the pain and suffering of innocents due to his actions. This apathy towards the common folk fuels the Riddler's final plan, to destroy Gotham by flooding it and eliminating the last remaining leading authority figure in the chaos so the city will gradually tear itself to pieces, all out of a sincere belief that his hero Batman will join him in the slaughter.
• There are several posters of Bella Reál scattered around the city in background shots and mentions of Bella Reál's mayoral rally being held at the stadium before it becomes the centerpiece of Riddler's final plan and the stage of the Final Battle.
• While Batman is slugging his way through the goons in the Iceberg Lounge, Kenzie appears with a gun and shouts at him to drop his weapon, which is something a police officer would do.
• "Something in the Way" has a symbolism to it that's not apparent until late into the movie. The thing that's in the way is Gotham's sea-wall, the only thing preventing the city from being flooded...until Riddler blows it up. The lyrics also refer to a tarp "springing a leak" and animals being trapped and becoming the narrator's pets, which foreshadow the reactions of panicky people when trapped by the flood, and Batman's sense of responsibility in taking care of them. It also foreshadows the revelation Bruce has in the climax, that his vigilantism, fueled by his vengeful need for retribution on criminals, is sending the wrong message to the people of Gotham, and is "in the way" of him becoming the hero that the city needs to make a real difference to it.
• At the Mayor's funeral, Bruce sees several protestors outside angrily yelling Riddler's "No More Lies" catchphrase and holding signs with his Arc Symbol, which showcases the ultimate threat the Riddler brings isn't the man himself, but rather the effect he has on others sympathetic to his cause with his public broadcasting of his targets' sins and corruption as justification for his actions.
• During the funeral, Bruce notices several people who might be the Riddler, including a random angry man whose daughter died. He's not the Riddler. He's a Riddler. He also recognizes Bruce with a smile, and in the climax he reveals he was inspired by Batman, with a very similar smile on his face. Shortly after that funeral moment, Bruce saves the dead Mayor's kid from the Riddler's attack, a kid who he clearly empathizes with. In the climax, he stops the aforementioned man, and then decides to become a symbol of hope and protection. He starts by saving the exact same kid.
• Look at the Riddler's photos. They're all shot from the exact same angle, the same spot; the apartment window he shoots Falcone from. In fact, Riddler assumed Batman had figured it out and did it on purpose.
• Bruce briefly taunts Falcone at the mayor's funeral by alluding to the gunshot which Thomas Wayne helped him recover from. In a bit of poetic irony, Bruce ends up being the one to accidentally do him in. Little Bruce was watching from the staircase above as his dad worked, and this time, Bruce is doing the work and the Riddler does the shooting, from above, while thinking of himself as the Batman's ideological "son". Carmine even passes on with Bruce looking down on him from above as he's bleeding out, just as in his vivid recollection of the past.
• Riddler leaves a flash drive which Gordon plugs into his laptop. This hacks the computer and leaks pictures to the press from Gordon's email. At the end of the second act, he similarly tricks Batman and Gordon into putting Falcone at the exact right spot to be shot. The first event inspires Gordon to bring down Falcone by leaking vital, inadmissible evidence to the press again, because he knows they trust him now, which gives the police a plausibly deniable reason to go arrest Falcone. It also helps that Riddler killed several of the corrupt officials who'd normally put the brakes on any such bust. Which may have been part of the point of those murders.
• During the Batman Cold Open, the civilian that Bruce rescues from the gang that was about to victimise him is clearly more terrified of him after his brutal showing against them than the gang themselves, showcasing that he's not looked upon as a heroic figure by the masses. This comes back in a big way during the climax, wherein Bruce is hit with the revelation that Edward and his crusade as the Riddler was inspired by his own actions, and so were his followers, with one of them even parroting his own "I'm Vengeance" catchphrase back at him. During the flooding of the stadium, despite the dangerous situation many of the imperiled civilians are too afraid of Bruce to accept his aid at first, which inspires him to start becoming the Big Good that Gotham needs to uplift itself from its Crapsack World state.
  • Similarly, while it demonstrates Batman's credentials as The Dreaded to the criminal population, it also shows that this reputation is doing nothing to stop crime from happening, the criminals only running scared after they've done their dirty deeds, reinforcing that fear alone isn't helping Gotham.
• Upon realizing that Riddler is targeting 'Bruce Wayne' for the 'Sins of the Father', Bruce immediately tries to run back to Wayne Tower and warn Alfred that he's in danger, only for his call to be instead be picked up by his housekeeper, and Bruce to be told that Alfred was caught in a letter-bomb explosion meant for him an hour ago. The same thing happens on a much grander scale by the climax, wherein Batman discovers Riddler's final plan to bomb Gotham's sea-wall and flood the city, only for the bombs to start going off the very moment he finds this out.
• Bruce says he doesn't care what happens to him and his family's company, as long as he can keep being the Batman. Turns out his dad's unmonitored charity is responsible for much of the corruption. Maybe if Bruce had been more involved with the company, or Batman had been more of a symbol of hope, Nashton might've gone to either of them for help instead of becoming the Riddler.
• Early in the film, Alfred notifies Bruce that some accountants are coming over to discuss some issues with the finances of the family fortune, but Bruce brushes it off. The audience is inclined to brush it off as well, as it seems to serve as nothing more than a Mythology Gag to other times that Bruce Wayne has had money issues or dealt with overly investigative accountants poking around the Wayne Foundation finances. On a rewatch, it's almost certain that the accountants are coming to tell Alfred and Bruce that the Wayne Renewal Fund, a billion-dollar investment that is supposed to last for years and years, is depleting at a rate far faster than it should... Hinting at corrupt siphoning from the money pot.
• When kidnapping Gil Colson, Riddler hides inside his car parked right outside the Iceberg Lounge, home of several crooks and corrupt officials he's targeting as part of his crusade, showing that, like Batman, he doesn't fear the city's criminal element and is willing to take risky actions against them in order to take them down. This ties into the later reveal that the lair he broadcasts his viral messages from is located across the street from the lounge, Riddler having camped outside the Mafia's doorstep to be in a prime position to gather incriminating photos of their clientele as well as execute Falcone once Batman brought him 'into the light'.
• When at Selina's apartment, Batman notes how many cats she has, and she admits that she has 'a thing for strays'. Selina herself turns out to be a stray, having been abandoned by her biological father Carmine Falcone after he murdered her mother. Furthermore, when she's undercover at the Iceberg Lounge, meeting Carmine face-to-face noticeably rattles her, and she has to take a moment to collect herself in the bathroom before quitting as Batman's mole inside the club. Seeing the man she (correctly) blames for her mother's death face-to-face and having him come onto her, despite her being his daughter, would unnerve anybody.
• When Riddler finally contacts Batman through a phone taped to Gil Colson's hands, he excitedly tells him that he's been trying to reach him, and that he's 'a part of (his plans)', saying only that Batman will see what he means when he asks for further clarification. Initially, this seems to be hinting towards Riddler knowing that Bruce Wayne is Batman, as he reveals the Awful Truth about how the Wayne family's Renewal fund has been funding crime in Gotham without Bruce's oversight over his company's finances after attempting to kill Bruce with a letter bomb, holding Bruce accountable for his family's sins and marking him as another target to be removed to expose the corruption in Gotham. However, it later transpires that Riddler is completely ignorant about Bruce's secret identity and he was accidentally sending mixed messages towards what he thought were two different men. Instead, what Riddler meant was that his plans called for Batman to expose Carmine Falcone as the Rat that provided the valuable intel needed for the Maroni drugs bust and take him outside his heavily-defended Iceberg Lounge when arresting him, where Riddler is waiting to shoot him.
• In a Freeze-Frame Bonus, Riddler livestreams one of his murders, and you can see that some people have left comments cheering him on, because they feel he's going after the right people. This not only hints that Riddler sees his killing spree as a righteous crusade against corruption, but reveals that he has fans, a fact that will become very important in the climax when some of them show up to help him carry out his last grand plan. Additionally, one of the comments says Riddler's a much better vigilante than "that goth poser," which hints that some people see Batman and Riddler as being cut from the same cloth — including, as it turns out, Riddler himself.
• A subtle hint that Riddler has no idea that Bruce Wayne and Batman are the same person is seen in the content of his clues—specifically, the ones Batman can't solve on his own and requires outside aid to get a "Eureka!" Moment for. Both the clue in the deliberate misspelling of 'el rata alada' ^note Spanish is heavily associated with the working class in the United States and him relying on Batman being able to recognize the intended function of the 'carpet-scraper' he murdered the mayor with show that Riddler believes Batman to be a Working-Class Hero, when in reality Bruce needs somebody with more grounded knowledge to help decipher the clue correctly. Notably, the man to identify the carpet-tucker is named Martinez, meaning that he likely would have been able to identify the poor Spanish as well.
• The "el rata alada" clue, more specifically its deliberate misspelling, has already been implied prior to its explicit reveal by Cobblepot. Alfred cracked the code by himself and pointed out to Bruce it was written in incorrect Spanish, though he brushed it off as a simple error on the Riddler's part.