We told Jake Gyllenhaal to his face that Lou Bloom, the malevolent protagonist of the new thriller Nightcrawler, would make a great Batman villain. And we think we’re onto something.
Because what makes a great Batman villain? Obsession, certainly. A single-minded drive to get whatever it is you want by any means necessary, even if it means breaking the law and getting innocent people killed. Or doing the killing yourself.
What else makes a great Batman villain? A gimmick. Lou Bloom has that in spades. He’s a crime scene photographer who is perfectly willing to commit or at least aid and abet crimes in order to get the perfect shot.
Related: 10 Red Flags That ‘Gotham’ Needs to Avoid
Lou Bloom is not alone. There are tons of great movie characters who, if you just gave them a mask and a catchy name, are practically Batman villains already. Some of these characters are heroes of their own stories, but Batman would obviously take issue with the criminal acts they commit. Some of them are villains already, and just need to come face-to-face with The Dark Knight to become some of the best Batman villains around.
We wracked our brains to come up with nine great movie characters who belong in Gotham City. What do you think? Which of these movie characters would make the best Batman villains, and which other movie characters would you pit against Batman in an all-star showdown?
Nine Movie Characters Who’d Make Great Batman Villains:
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and the host of The B-Movies Podcast and The Blue Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
9 Movie Characters Who Would Make Great Batman Villains
-
Dominic Toretto
From: The Fast and the Furious (2001)
Gimmick: Muscle Cars
Dominic Toretto commits crimes to take care of his family. So Batman would probably have some respect for Toretto, but if he's going to keep committing high speed crimes the Dark Knight is still going to break out the Batmobile for the car chase to end all car chases.
-
Louis Bloom
From: Nightcrawler (2014)
Gimmick: Crime Scene Manipulation
Lou Bloom doesn't care about breaking the law, he only cares about getting the best crime scene videos possible. This master manipulator would be a serious thorn in Batman's side, corrupting the evidence of major crimes and eventually trying to capture the vigilante himself on camera by setting the stage for the perfect photo op, with tons of collateral damage.
-
Dominick Cobb
From: Inception (2010)
Gimmick: Memory Theft
Domick Cobb may be the hero of Christopher Nolan's Inception, but he's still a criminal, breaking into his target's dreams and extracting whatever information he needs from their subconscious. (What, like fear gas and freeze guns are plausible?) When Cobb breaks into Bruce Wayne's mind to extract valuable intel about his corporation, our hero would be in for the challenge of his life: protecting his secrets by purging his subconscious of everything batty.
-
Joe
From: Nymphomaniac Volume II (2014)
Gimmick: Sex Therapy
In Lars Von Trier's sprawling Nymphomaniac saga, a sex-obsessed woman named Joe eventually turns to crime, using her intimate knowledge of human sexuality against her targets. She knows what men want, but what kind of sexual secrets does Batman hide? Would he be Joe's greatest challenge or her most unlikely victim?
-
The Four Horsemen
From: Now You See Me (2013)
Gimmick: Stage Magic
The criminal stars of the heist thriller Now You See Me wouldn't be the most threatening villains Batman has ever encountered, but they could be some of the most challenging. The group consists of stage magicians who commit crimes so elaborate that no one can predict what they are really up to, and even the experts are often stymied by how they pull them off. Batman has a history with magic himself, learning the art of misdirection over the course of his travels, and would have quite a tough time keeping up with The Four Horsemen, who always think 20 steps ahead.
-
Malkina
From: The Counselor (2013)
Gimmick: Cheetahs
The cheetah-spotted sociopath at the center of Ridley Scott's The Counselor is a master manipulator and, as the movie points out time and time again, she's also kinda like a cheetah. (She even keeps two of them as pets.) She is a vicious criminal whose willingness to cross any moral, ethical and even sexual line (she actually has sex with a car) would make it hard for even Batman to keep up with her machinations. We predict she'd be running Gotham's crime syndicates within a year, tops.
-
The Collector
From: The Collector (2009)
Gimmick: Death Traps
The Collector started off as a knockoff of Jigsaw, but whereas Jigsaw is a passive villain who puts his victims in a death trap and gives them a chance to escape, The Collector has no mercy whatsoever. He actually wants his malevolent death machines to kill as many innocent people as possible, preventing anyone from rescuing the victims at the center of his homicidal labyrinths. Good luck, Batman. You're going to need it.
-
Mary Mason
From: American Mary (2012)
Gimmick: Body modification
A former med student turned black market doctor, Mary Mason patches up criminals and performs illegal body modification surgeries on her willing clients. It's her unwilling subjects that make her a Batman villain, subjecting the sort of men who once victimized her to horrifying mutilations that they're forced to live with. Batman is used to getting captured and subjected to crazy death traps, but getting captured by Mary would be worse than anything The Joker could come up with. Maybe she'd take that whole "bat" thing literally. Wouldn't that be wild?
-
Tyler Durden
From: Fight Club (1999)
Gimmick: Fascistic anarchy
David Fincher painted Tyler Durden as an irresistibly charismatic cult icon, assembling an army of the disenfranchised and aiming them at the complacent society that marginalized them. The results were explosive. Batman would have a hard time tracking Tyler Durden down - his identity is a well-kept secret - and wouldn't be able to trust his employees at Wayne Enterprises ever, ever again.
