With two different Batmen set to appear in upcoming DC movies, filmmakers have some creative freedom in how they approach the character. Matt Reeves’ The Batman proved something crucial in 2022: Gotham doesn’t need shared-universe clutter to feel alive. His crime-noir vision grounded Bruce Wayne in a world of grit and shadows, a Gotham closer to Chinatown than Justice League. Now, as Reeves expands his Elseworlds corner, with The Batman: Part II on the horizon and The Penguin series, available to stream with an HBO Max subscription, already fleshed out the city’s underworld — he has a rare opportunity. Free from continuity handcuffs, Reeves can cherry-pick from decades of iconic Dark Knight stories.
Which brings me to one of the greatest animated TV series of all time, and that’s Batman: The Animated Series. So many of the episodes of the DCAU resonated with me.
I’m struck by how well many of the episodes hold up, even through my 2025 movie schedule lens, and could easily slot into Matt Reeves’ Gotham. Animator Bruce Timm’s series isn’t just a “kids’ cartoon,” but a pulp-noir for Saturday mornings. With jazz-infused scoring, heavy shadows, and characters drawn with as much moral complexity as you’d find in adult comic book fare, it’s ripe for scouring for adaptation possibilities. But, there are six of the greatest BTAS episodes in particular that I feel are tailor-made for Reeves’s Elseworlds corner of the DC universe, and they’re the type of stories that carry both the atmosphere and psychological weight his films thrive on.
“Heart of Ice” — Season 1, Episode 14
When people talk about Batman: The Animated Series reinventing characters, this is the gold standard. Paul Dini and Bruce Timm took a one-note villain and transformed him into a tragic figure defined by grief and unrequited love. Suddenly, Mr. Freeze wasn’t just a guy with a freeze ray, but a man frozen in the trauma of trying to save his wife, Nora, and one of the very best BTAS villains.
In Reeves’ world, the Riddler is a loner radicalized by systemic corruption in The Batman, and Colin Farrell’s Penguin is a mid-level gangster hungry for respect. Freeze’s tragic tale would fit right into that pantheon. Imagine Reeves’ stark Gotham filtered through icy blues and sterile lab light, with a story less about freeze guns and more about a man mourning in extremis. The noir lens practically writes itself.
“Read My Lips” — Season 1, Episode 64
On paper, the Ventriloquist and his dummy Scarface sound ridiculous — the kind of villain modern audiences might dismiss outright. But watch Read My Lips again, and the absurdity melts away into genuine menace. The tension doesn’t come from the puppet, but from Arnold Wesker’s fractured psyche. It’s a psychological horror story disguised as a gangster plot.
Reeves has already shown he isn’t afraid of Gotham’s stranger corners. He leaned into the uncanny with the Riddler’s live-streamed performances and hint of Zodiac-style theater. In the hands of Reeves, Scarface wouldn’t need to be camp; he could be chilling. Picture a Gotham crime thriller about a meek man completely dominated by his wooden puppet. It’s the kind of uncanny strangeness Reeves could mine, showing yet another Gothamite broken in a way that mirrors Bruce himself.
“Beware The Gray Ghost!” — Season 1, Episode 32
If Heart of Ice is tragedy and Read My Lips is uncanny horror, Beware the Gray Ghost! is meta-mythology at its finest. The episode pairs the late Kevin Conroy’s Batman with Adam West as Simon Trent, an aging TV actor who once played Bruce Wayne’s childhood hero, the Gray Ghost. What begins as a pulpy mystery doubles as an elegy for the enduring DC icon’s own lineage, and a commentary on how stories shape us.
Robert Pattinson’s Bruce Wayne is still wrestling with what it means to turn trauma into a crusade for justice, so by bringing in a “Gray Ghost” equivalent, Reeves could fold in the brooding billionaire’s pulp roots while telling a deeply human story about fading heroes and the weight of nostalgia.
“Almost Got ’Im” — Season 1, Episode 35
A poker table. A handful of villains swapping stories about their near-victories over Batman. That’s it. That’s the premise. And it’s one of the best Dark Knight stories ever told.
“Almost Got ’Im” is pure pulp brilliance. It’s funny, revealing, and as structurally sharp as a Batarang. Each vignette peels back something about Gotham’s rogues while underscoring the titular superhero’s resilience. The episode manages to be both a hangout story and a crime anthology in twenty minutes. For Reeves, this is gold. His Gotham is already stuffed with mobsters, corrupt cops, and costumed rogues brushing shoulders in smoky back rooms.
“On Leather Wings” — Season 1, Episode 1
Every Batman story risks collapsing into crime drama without the “other” — the gothic, the uncanny, the monstrous. On Leather Wings, the show’s very first episode, sets the tone by introducing Man-Bat, a literal monster in the night. It’s part horror movie, part tragedy, and part detective story.
Reeves proved with The Batman that audiences are hungry for a gothic detective take and a rain-drenched, monstrous Gotham. Man-Bat is a natural extension of that. A scientist’s experiment gone wrong, haunting the skies of Gotham, isn’t just a monster-of-the-week tale, but a parable about ambition and humanity’s darker impulses.
“Robin’s Reckoning” — Season 1, Episode 32 & 33
Ever since 1997’s Batman & Robin tanked with critics and audiences, filmmakers have been reluctant—even scared—to bring Dick Grayson back to the big screen. Honestly, I think that’s a little cowardly. Robin has been part of DC’s legacy since 1940, just one year after Bill Finger and Bob Kane introduced Batman. The Boy Wonder is almost as synonymous with Detective Comics as the Dark Knight himself, and it’s long past time he got the respect he deserves.
Yes, telling a story about a grown man taking in a young orphan is complicated, but so is telling a story about a billionaire who dresses up as a bat to fight crime. If anyone can ground Robin’s origin in a believable, emotionally rich way, it’s Matt Reeves.
Fortunately, Reeves doesn’t have to start from scratch. The Emmy-winning two-part episode “Robin’s Reckoning” already laid out the perfect blueprint. It digs deep into Dick Grayson’s trauma, his bond with Bruce, and the complicated father-son dynamic that shapes their partnership.
Reeves’ Gotham has so far been deliberately solitary, with Robert Pattinson’s Bruce still figuring out who he is and what kind of symbol he wants to be for the city. But Robin’s Reckoning makes the case for what Bruce Wayne and his alter ego could become: not just Gotham’s avenger, but a figure of hope for other orphans—for another lost child whose world has been ripped apart.
Why These Stories Could Matter In Reeves’ Gotham
What ties all these episodes together isn’t just nostalgia. It’s how they embody the noir, psychological, and thematic richness Reeves has already proven he can deliver. The Batman wasn’t about gadgets or superpowers — it was about a city rotting from the inside and a man struggling to make sense of his role within it. Batman: The Animated Series spoke that same language, just in 22-minute bursts of animation.
These weren’t just cartoon stories, but noir parables waiting to be staged on the big screen. Reeves doesn’t need to look far to keep Gotham compelling. The roadmap was already drawn thirty years ago.
What we know about The Batman Part II is limited, but the upcoming superhero movie is scheduled to hit theaters on October 1, 2027. So, here’s hoping some of the flavor from these BtAS episodes finds its way onto the big screen in the next installment or beyond.
