Actors Who've Played Batman Over the Years, from Adam West to Robert Pattinson

LEWIS WILSON

The first live-action Batman ever, who starred in the 1943 serial Batman, marked the beginning of a long line of dashing gents to don the iconic cape.

ROBERT LOWERY

Batman and Robin's Lowery was also a total catch – you know, in that 1949 type of way.

ADAM WEST

Batman, the confidently campy '60s TV series and subsequent feature film, gave us a hero to swoon for.

MICHAEL KEATON

Keaton rocked a smart and sexy look in 1989's Batman and 1992's Batman Returns, both directed by Tim Burton.

In early 2022, he opened up about not returning for a third film after Joel Schumacher was brought on to direct and wanted to change the direction of Keaton's character.

"I said, 'I just can't do it,' " Keaton recalled on In the Envelope: The Actor's Podcast. "And one of the reasons I couldn't do it was — and you know, he's a nice enough man, he's passed away, so I wouldn't speak ill of him even if he were alive — he, at one point, after more than a couple of meetings where I kept trying to rationalize doing it and hopefully talking him into saying I think we don't want to go in this direction, I think we should go in this direction. And he wasn't going to budge."

Keaton is reprising his role in The Flash, which is set to premiere in theaters Nov. 4, 2022, as well as in the 2022 HBO Max film Batgirl.

VAL KILMER

The one-time Bruce Wayne – Kilmer scored the role for 1995's Batman Forever – nailed it in a tux like a true billionaire playboy.

GEORGE CLOONEY

Clooney's looks were almost enough to distract us from the ridiculousness of Mr. Freeze in 1997's Batman & Robin.

CHRISTIAN BALE

Bale's moody Wayne in Batman Begins (2005), The Dark Knight (2008) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012) was the hot bad boy we deserved.

WILL ARNETT

Okay, so we couldn't actually see Arnett when he voiced the Bat in 2014's The Lego Movie, but is anything sexier than a man who can make you laugh?

BEN AFFLECK

Affleck tried his hand at portraying Gotham's hero in 2016's Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, opposite Henry Cavill (double the sexy!) and returned for 2016's Suicide Squad, plus two Justice League films in 2017 and 2021.

ROBERT PATTINSON

Heartthrob Pattinson stars in the latest iteration of films about the Caped Crusader, 2022's The Batman, opposite Zoë Kravitz as Catwoman.

During DC Comics' virtual FanDome event in 2020, director Matt Reeves explained that the film follows the "early days" of Batman when Bruce Wayne is "very far from being perfect."