DC just confirmed a deep roster of major villains for Batman’s next movie. The villains Batman is set to face include Bane, Azrael, and many more. This formidable list of bad guys is poised to give Batman one of the biggest challenges he's faced on screen. The upcoming Batman film has one of the shortest runtimes for a Batman movie, but that doesn’t stop the creators from digging deep into the comics and scattering numerous brutal foes across Gotham.
That film is Batman: Knightfall, an R-rated animated take on one of the most famous Dark Knight stories ever printed. The comic, published in 1993, introduced the hulking criminal Bane and ended with him breaking Batman’s back. Warner Bros. is telling the story across three movies, and the first one, Batman: Knightfall - Part 1: Knightfall, arrives later this year.
Warner Bros. recently dropped the first trailer for the first installment in the Knightfall trilogy. The clip is short, yet it packs in several of Batman’s biggest enemies and gives each one a design very close to their comic book counterparts.
The Major Villains Appearing in DC's Next Batman Movie
Bane heads the group of antagonists, voiced by Michael Mando, who also appears in the upcoming Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Bane is the reason the rest of Batman's deadliest foes break loose. He blows open Arkham Asylum and scatters its inmates across Gotham, the move that kicks off the whole story.
In the trailer, he keeps his focus locked on Batman, proving to be a big thorn in the Dark Knight's flesh. In one of the trailer's early shots, Bane confronts Batman, taunting the "world's greatest detective" for failing to foresee his evil plans. He then vows to break the Dark Knight, a promise he is likely to fulfill, given his infamous history of doing exactly that in the comic the movie adapts.
Another famous Batman villain, Mr. Freeze, shows up in the footage, firing his trademark cold gun to create an ice wall, as the GCPD fire their weapons at it. Freeze rocks his iconic cryo-suit in that scene, a reminder of his tragic backstory. In the comics, Victor Fries was a cryogenics scientist whose wife, Nora, fell terminally ill, so he froze her and kept hunting for a cure. A lab accident wrecked his body and left him unable to survive outside sub-zero temperatures. He hides his grief behind a freeze gun and a suit of cold armor, which makes him one of Batman’s most tragic enemies. He fits naturally into a story about Arkham letting one more familiar face loose on Gotham’s streets, and he's likely to play an important role in this non-canon DC Batman film.
The Scarecrow appears briefly in the footage, shown on the run from the Caped Crusader. In the source material, Scarecrow’s fear toxin turns into a major problem later in the saga, when a dose of it infects Jean-Paul Valley and triggers the violent programming buried in his mind. That one encounter helps tip the replacement Batman toward the dangerous figure he becomes. Although the trailer doesn’t focus heavily on him like Bane and other characters, Scarecrow's role in the film will be a scary one.
The Riddler makes a brief cameo in his classic green look with his question-mark cane in hand, musing that something has gone badly wrong in the city as Gotham descends into chaos around him.
His part in the original story comes with a nasty twist. Before the Arkham breakout, Bane injects the Riddler with the same Venom that powers his own body, juicing up a villain who normally depends on his brilliant mind. Even then, the comic portrays him as a minor threat, and Robin takes him down with little trouble. He'll likely be one of the villains, easily taken down by the film's heroes.
Jean-Paul Valley, better known as Azrael, also shows up in the footage, prior to him assuming the role of Batman later on in the story.
Robin (Tim Drake) name-drops him in the trailer, urging an exhausted Batman to bring him in to help. Valley is one of the most important figures in this story. Once Bane breaks Bruce, Valley takes over as Batman, and his Dark Knight tenure is a brutal one. Azrael starts his Batman run well, but later gets very violent and doesn’t follow the moral code that Bruce Wayne does.
Additionally, two villains come as a pair in the trailer, those being the Ventriloquist and Scarface. The duo comprises a puppeteer and a marionette resembling a 1920s mobster, with it being unclear whether Ventriloquist is controlling Scarface or the other way around. Though they play a minor role in the original comic storyline, being amongst the rogues who escape Arkham, the trailer teases gun-toting action with the meddlesome twosome.
Another escapee from the asylum is Firefly, who is seen in the footage committing his trademark arson on a building. Mad Hatter also took advantage of the prison break in the comic, with a shot showing him firing a gun as he promises to end the night with a bang.
Which Other Batman Villains Will Appear in the Knightfall Trilogy?
This isn’t the end of the villain list, as a separate trailer for the Knightfall trilogy as a whole revealed many other villains who are set to wreak havoc on Gotham at some point across the movies.
Joker is featured in the trilogy trailer, who turns up in one of the most intriguing scenes with a look of pure glee. After Batman gives a cornered thug a savage beating, the Clown Prince of Crime appears behind a vintage film camera, delighted by how vicious the hero has become, admiring the "gritty new look for the Dark Knight" as he rolls the camera. The moment matches his comic role well. In the original story, the Joker teams with the Scarecrow, attacking Mayor Krol, and helps grind Batman down, causing him problems on several occasions.
When that alliance later sours, the Joker shrugs off the Scarecrow’s fear toxin, more entertained than scared. He beat Scarecrow up and tied him to a chair. A Batman movie feels incomplete without the Joker appearing as a constant thorn in the Dark Knight's side. In this adaptation, he's sure to do just that.
Two-Face also surfaces later in the trailer, mid-robbery behind the glass of a bank teller window. Two bound hostages can be seen slumped behind him as he sprays gunfire at unseen targets and dares whoever is out there to come and get him. Every Batman fan knows the story of Harvey Dent, Gotham’s former district attorney, who came out of an acid attack and went down the route of villainy. From the looks of it, this new Batman trilogy would depict one of the most brutal versions of Two-Face. In the source material, the defaced villain is an absolute menace, and that is likely to translate into the film.
Another interesting character appearing in this film is Lock-Up. One of the trailer's early scenes shows him pounding a group of suited men in his black, comic-accurate gear. The addition of Lock-Up is an interesting and exciting deep cut that Batman fans will immediately smile at when they spot him in the film. Lyle Bolton started life as a creation of Batman: The Animated Series, a security expert so cruel that even the Scarecrow once fled Arkham just to escape him. He was introduced in the comics in 1996, after the saga had already wrapped, which makes his inclusion here a trade of timeline for spectacle. His whole gimmick is imprisonment. He hunts criminals, locks them away on his own terms, and answers to no court. Although he hates crime and fights against evil, his extreme methods are sure to clash with Gotham's heroes.
Then there's Tally Man, who appears in one of the trailer's most beautiful shots with a wide grin as he opens fire with a submachine gun in each hand. Tally Man is one of the villains who ties directly into this story. The original Tally Man first appeared in the comic series Batman: Shadow of the Bat in 1993, right as the Knightfall saga was unfolding on the page, as a hitman who collects debts by killing victims. He even crossed paths with Jean-Paul Valley during the replacement Batman’s run, and that Batman beat and scarred him for it.
The movie may be hiding another famous Batman foe, and the trailer gave a brief tease. In the footage, a pair of thugs can be seen wearing yellow and grey penguin-shaped masks, one gripping a crowbar and the other a knife. This hints at Oswald Cobblepot having a hand in the chaos in Gotham. Nothing official confirms the Penguin yet, but these two thugs are most likely his henchmen. Batman already has a lot of problems to deal with, and the Penguin getting involved would be pure overkill.
Geraldo Amartey is a writer at The Direct. He joined the team in 2025, bringing with him four years of experience covering entertainment news, pop culture, and fan-favorite franchises for sites like YEN, Briefly and Tuko.
