The 25 Best Episodes Of 'Batman: The Animated Series'

There are children's cartoons, and then there's Batman: The Animated Series. Upon debuting in September 1992, right on the heels of Tim Burton's second foray into the Gotham universe, Batman Returns, the series immediately drew more comparisons to Burton's work than any of its animated superhero peers.

The look of the series is the first thing you notice, the early '40s or '50s noir asthetic. In the world adapted by now legendary comic writer and animator Bruce Timm, bullets fly, real stakes are raised, and the villains are deadly serious. The series executed one power move after another, starting with the brilliant casting of Mark Haamill as The Joker (still a definitive performance to this day, vocal or otherwise) and created a fanbase that allowed their version of the character and the universe to run for over a decade, into one equally excellent spinoff after another.

The series worked best when the writers held a cracked pane of glass between Bruce Wayne and the psycho villains he pursued, and with eighty-five episodes, they rarely made a misstep. The best of the best don't rely on nostalgia—these episodes hold up on their own today because they weren't made with 10-year-old kids in mind. Today, on Batman creator Bob Kane's birthday, we count down the best episodes of one of his iconic character's greatest adaptations. Read on for The Best Episodes of Batman: The Animated Series.

Written by Frazier Tharpe (@The_SummerMan)

25. "Legends of the Dark Knight"

Even in an unusually light episode, no doubt meant to placate the Kids WB demographic, B:TAS reaches beyond its target audience to core Bat-fans who will appreciate three Gotham youths' varying accounts of Batman’s adventures. They're really just nods to past iterations like artist Dick Sprang’s 1940s tenure, with a hint of Adam West, and Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns.

24. "The Cape and Cowl Conspiracy"

A Gotham crime lord has a specific request: he not only wants Batman defeated, but the Dark Knight’s cape and cowl brought to him after as proof. Enter Wormwood, a mastermind who engages in a battle of wits with the Bat in a repeated attempt to claim the prize. The fun twist-ending is pure Batman badassery.

23. "Harley & Ivy"

Joker’s dim-witted, yet lovable sometimes girlfriend + the calculating, no nonsense Poison Ivy = Gotham’s own Thelma & Louise. When Harley Quinn gets fed up with Joker’s neglect, she embarks on a BFF crime spree with Ivy, much to the cops’ dismay, Batman’s frustration and Joker’s homicidal chagrin.

22. "Heart of Steel"

The tone and feel of the series takes a break from the noir crime aesthetic and shifts gears into an Invasion of the Body Snatchers type thriller, as an A.I. computer, H.A.R.D.A.C., aims to begin its takeover by swapping out all of Gotham’s major authority figures and power players—the mayor, Commissioner Gordon, Bruce Wayne—with robots. It’s ostensibly Batman versus a group of Terminators/Skynet, which admittedly sounds silly on paper but the end result is pure 50s style B-movie fun. Bonus points for a pre-Batgirl Barbra Gordon showing the first signs of fearless detective chops.

21. "The Strange Secret of Bruce Wayne"

When Batman discovers a resort scientist has the ability to extract a person’s deepest, darkest secret, Bruce Wayne takes a vacation to investigate, only to have Dr. Strange not only learn his identity, but get the proof on tape. The episode takes a slick turn however, when instead of blackmailing Bruce outright or running to the media, the money-hungry doctor flies none other than Two-Face, Joker, and Penguin out to bid on the information.

So rather than a super-serious, drawn-out episode which we know won’t end with Bruce exposed, we get a fun supervillain team-up?! The best part: After they’ve been defeated, a desperate Strange tries to convince them of Bruce’s alter ego—but they don’t buy the multi-billionaire-as-caped-crusader theory for one second.

20. "Second Chance"

After Two-Face’s initial episode, it would’ve been easy for the series to write him off in his subsequent appearances with coin-flips and number-two related gimmicks, but periodically the issue of his sanity and split personality reared its head. Bruce-as-Batman is eager for Two-Face to undergo an operation that may revert him back to just Harvey, but he’s kidnapped before the procedure. Batman and Robin scour the underworld and shake up the usual suspects, but the real culprit is simultaneously obvious and shocking.

19. "P.O.V."

Batman’s a superhero with supervillains in his own right, but he initially started against good old fashioned thugs and mobsters. In the episode, the rogues gallery takes a backseat for the Bat to get in touch with his roots, in a decidedly low-key plot that sees several cops tell their own account of why a police sting went awry, each of whom blames Batman.

Except for Gordon’s rookie Officer Montoya, who teams up Batman to go after the criminals that got away. There’s no grand scheme to stop: just cops vs. crooks, and a Dark Knight there to even the playing field. It’s not an epic episode, but damn is it cool.

18. "The Demon's Quest"

Batman goes full-Indiana Jones in a globe-spanning adventure that also serves as his first face-off with Ra’s Al Ghul, the immortal madman hellbent on ending the world and a fascination with the Dark Knight detective. The interest runs in the family too: Ra’s daughter Talia can’t keep her eyes off of the man she dubs her beloved. What’s an epic adventure without a sweeping, forbidden romance?

17. "His Silicon Soul"

The goofy fun of "Heart of Steel" gives way to a darker follow-up. Of course H.A.R.D.A.C. would’ve had a Batman robot on deck to replace the real thing, but the duplicate wakes up long after those events. Worse yet, convinced he’s the true Caped Crusader.

16. "Perchance to Dream"

Dream episodes have a tendency to be tepid, especially those that imagine a world in which everything is reversed. “Perchance,” however is not only watchable but a series high moment in the way that it affirms Bruce’s dedication. Even in a universe where his parents never died, Selina Kyle is his fiancé, and Gotham still has a Batman as its protector, of course Bruce Wayne can’t just rest on his laurels and let the fantasy wash over him. There’s work to be done in the real world.

15. "Joker's Favor"

This series would go on to take The Joker to especially dark places for a kids series, but Bruce Timm, Paul Dini, and co. also knew how to expertly toe the line between making him both menacing and a pure joy to watch. Case in point: “Joker’s Favor,” which sees the Clown Prince of Crime intimidate an average Joe into playing a pivotal part in his assassination attempt on Commissioner Gordon.

The laughs start early, when a typical Batman-police-Joker chase scene is presented from aforementioned schmuck Charlie’s point-of-view, namely the traffic jam it causes. And when he’s had enough, the person he unleashes his road rage on is none other than Joker himself (“I just cussed out the Joker!” he cries in hilarious disbelief), who uses the incident to ingratiate himself in Charlie’s life.

14. "The Trial"

Few things in superhero fiction are greater than watching members of the extensive rogues gallery team up, and we get that tenfold when all of Batman’s recurring enemies flip the script and lock him in Arkham Asylum, where they make him stand trial for his “crimes.” Beyond the thrill of supervillainy, “Trial” engages a pertinent question in the Batman mythology: is he the reason most of his foes exist, perpetuating the crazy that plagues Gotham? An anti-Batman D.A. who believes the answer is yes gets a shock to her system when she’s kidnapped in the asylum along with him. Spoiler: Joker, Two-Face, Riddler, Poison Ivy et. al aren’t as victimized as they portray themselves.

13. "On Leather Wings"

The first episode of B:TAS doesn’t feature The Joker, nor any of Batman’s most recognizable enemies. Instead it marks the first on-screen appearance of the lesser-known ManBat, who is, quite literally, a guy who involuntarily transforms into a giant winged creature.

Batman usually works best against (slightly) more grounded foes. However, "On Leather Wings" is a perfect pilot because of several show-stopping airborne chase sequences, not to mention a transformation scene that lowkey scared the shit out of us the first time we saw this episode, way back when Kids WB was a thing. Best of all, the ManBat inadvertently frames Batman for his crimes, throwing us right into the series with the cops, save Commissioner Gordon, already against the Caped Crusader.

12. "Dreams In Darkness"

This episode is full-on noir homage, complete with narration and an in-media res opening that finds Batman in Arkham Asylum, alongside many of the unhinged criminals he put away. Of course, his ailment isn’t a psychotic break, but exposure to Scarecrow’s fear gas during an attempt to thwart his plan to pump his toxin into Gotham’s water supply. (Sound familiar?) “Darkness” is one of Scarecrow’s spookiest appearances, thanks in part to several truly trippy, haunting hallucinations as Bruce, ever the badass, fights through the fear.

11. "Two-Face"

Before his psychological break, Bruce Wayne and Harvey Dent were friends, making him more than just an enemy to pummel and defeat. Batman has a vested interest in him, and B:TAS gets that—Harvey’s prior appearances don’t hurt—making “Two Face” (which is, fittingly, a two-parter) more satisfying than either of his live-action appearances.

The first half lays the track, revealing Harvey’s history of split personality disorder, leading up to "The Accident" and a conclusion that’s all Two-Face in his Jekyll and Hyde visage, Tommy-gun toting, coin-flipping glory. In both halves, mob boss Rupert Throne looms as the overarching threat, underlining Harvey’s trajectory from victim to villain.

10. "Day of the Samurai"

This is an episode in which Bruce engages his decades-old ninja nemesis in Japan, beside a volcano, and uses a Kill Bill, Five Point Palm Exploding Heart-esque technique to defeat him. In a word: awesome.

9. "Heart of Ice"

B:TAS really mines the tragedy in the DNA of some of Batman’s more well-rounded foes, and Mr. Freeze is the most tragic. Here he’s depicted with not one ounce of camp, voiced to such chilly perfection that even a rare pun is uttered humorlessly. Like so many of Batman’s foes, he’s the product of horrible circumstances, so much so that he’d be deserving of sympathy—if he wasn’t hellbent on vengeance.

8. "Feat of Clay"

In addition to blockbuster storytelling, B:TAS also features truly beautiful animation, the full scope of which is on display in this episode which tells the origin of shape-shifting villain Clayface. Every visual detail of his fluid, formless mass is impressive, but the end sequence, where Batman uses a neat trick to make him shift out of control, is stunning, especially by 1992 standards.

7. "Over the Edge"

So what if the events of “Over the Edge” are clearly just a nightmare? The villain is Scarecrow after all, but the dream is very real, beginning with a scenario where Commissioner Gordon discovers his daughter is Batgirl—right after Scarecrow sends her flying from a rooftop onto the hood of his car.

An enraged, betrayed Gordon blames her death on Batman and after quickly putting two and two together, declares all out war on Bruce. When Batman and Robin slip through a brutal police raid on Wayne Manor, Gordon turns to Bane to exact revenge, which goes about as well for him as you’d expect. Who knew Batgirl’s fears were so dark?

6. "Mad Love"

The darkest episode of the series takes a cold hard look at the relationship dynamic between the emotionally manipulative Joker and his adoring yet constantly neglected pseudo sidekick-girlfriend Harley Quinn. Their banter is usually played for Honeymooners-type laughs, but “Mad Love” shows the ugly, abusive side of the relationship and the warped co-dependence, to the backdrop of flashbacks revealing how the once career-oriented psychiatrist fell in league and love with the city’s greatest criminal.

5. "Robin's Reckoning"

Flashbacks reveal how Dick Grayson came to live with Bruce, while a present day, college-aged Robin has his vigilante coming of age when Tony Zucco, the criminal who orphaned him returns to Gotham. You’d be quick to mistake the two-part episode for a feature film the way each action sequence is so cinematically staged. And while there are no city-flattening bombs at play, the stakes in this series have never been higher, as Batman races to get to Zucco first before Robin does the unthinkable.

4. "The Laughing Fish"

This standout Joker appearance blends several classic comic issues into an episode that also blends Joker’s best character traits: a silly schemer whose threats must nonetheless be taken very seriously.

After poisoning Gotham’s fish supply to bear his signature warped smile, Joker demands a copyright. It’s all fun and games when he’s making ridiculous commercials dressed like the Gorton’s fisherman with Harley Quinn (a nod to Jack Nicholson-as-Joker’s commercial in Batman, perhaps?) but things get deadly quick when he targets the clerk who denies his legal action, staging a memorable mastermind plan to get his man despite full police protection and outsmarting Batman in the process. He didn’t earn archenemy status for nothing.

3. "I Am the Night"

This is hands-down the most hardcore episode of a cartoon barely catering to kids to begin with. When Batman is late to assist Gotham PD on a raid against the dangerous Jazz Man, Commissioner Gordon is shot—remember, this was the rare cartoon at the time to display real guns—plunging Bruce into seriously low depths of depression and pessimism. Is Batman really affecting change on the city or just causing more chaos? Meanwhile, The Jazz Man is, despite a dumb moniker, effectively chilling in his single-minded quest to break out of prison and finish the job on Gordon.

2. "Almost Got 'Im"

The brilliant, instant classic series peak finds Joker, Penguin, Two-Face, Killer Croc, and Poision Ivy surly and defeated, playing poker in a dive while they commiserate over their shared hatred of the Dark Knight, as colorful flashback vignettes recounting each respective rogue’s moment where they thought for sure they had him dead plays.

But there’s more to the story than good old-fashioned reminiscing, as revealed when it’s Joker’s turn for storytime, naturally. The interaction between the five villains, all sharing of circumstance but still not particularly fond of each other, is golden, and the twist is great fun. If the last moment doesn’t make you crack a smile, maybe something on PBS is more your speed.

1. Mask of the Phantasm

You're right—technically this is a feature film. A classic film, at that, which bricked in theaters but deserved to go triple because it's that damn good. I'd put it up against any of the Nolan films.

A new villain bearing a strange likeness to Batman is killing mobsters—yes, killing. This feature-length spinoff of the series features real bullets, and beyond the series norm, actual death and blood. The case of mistaken identity is enough to put the Bat on the cops' bad side again, leading to a vicious manhunt. Meanwhile flashbacks reveal the first days of Bruce Wayne's tenure as Gotham's Dark Knight, and how they tragically dovetail with a chance encounter with the love of his life. If that's not epic enough for you, somehow a corrupt city councilman, Gotham's old organized crime syndicate, and The Joker (because it wouldn't be a true Batman epic without him) all play a part in the sweeping narrative.

It all builds to a fantastic twist, with a somber conclusion just as affecting as any Bat-thing you've seen in the movies. A live-action adaptation of this would be more welcome than anything Ben Affleck and Zack Snyder have planned, but knowing Hollywood, they'd probably just ruin it. Seriously, Mask of the Phantasm is that good. Get familiar.