Batman: Knightfall Part 1: Knightfall (2026)

Batman: Knightfall is an American adult animated superhero film trilogy featuring Batman, and based on the DC Comics arc "Knightfall" (1993–1994) itself consisting of three storylines. The films were directed by Jeff Wamester from a script by Jeremy Adams and stars Anson Mount, Michael Mando and Pablo Schreiber. They are installments of the DC Universe Animated Original Movies series.

The first installment, Batman: Knightfall – Part 1: Knightfall, follows Batman as he exhausts himself in confronting the escaped inmates of Arkham Asylum who were freed by a Caribbean prison escapee, Bane. It premiered at the 2026 Annecy International Animation Film Festival, and was released digitally on August 25, 2026.

Plot

Part 1: Knightfall

In Gotham City, Azrael preys on members of the Kobra Cult to punish them for their sins, but Batman intervenes at the last moment to save a human trafficker from his lethal wrath. After dueling Batman, Azrael snaps out of his murderous rage when the trafficker is struck and killed by a truck. Revealing his true identity as Jean-Paul Valley, he begs Batman for help.

Years earlier in the Caribbean island nation of Santa Prisca, a young boy and his mother are forced to serve out his rebel father’s prison term at Peña Duro. Under his mother’s intense indoctrination, he learns to despise weakness and assiduously educates himself. After seeing Thomas Wayne and his family featured in a tattered Gotham Today, he dreams of ruling Gotham City—especially noting that the Waynes' son, Bruce, was about his own age on the cover. Following his mother's death, the boy beats a pedophilic janitor to death with a book and violently fights off the guards and warden attempting to restrain him. As punishment, the boy is confined to a pit, where he refines his body. After growing into a man, his peak physical condition allows him to survive experiments with Venom, a volatile super-steroid. Armed with newfound superhuman strength, he slaughters the doctors and warden, escapes, and names himself Bane.

In the present, Bruce Wayne's doctor, Shondra Kinsolving, inquiries about his lingering feelings toward his estrangement from Dick Grayson and the tragic death of Jason Todd—acknowledging both men's pasts as Robin and urging the secretly masked Batman to get help before their successor, Tim Drake, suffers a similar fate—just as Bane breaks into Arkham Asylum and triggers a massive explosion that releases all the inmates.

Two days later, Batman and Robin confront the escaped Mad Hatter. The two can save the Mad Hatter's captives, but Batman reprimands Robin for not staying in the Batmobile as ordered. In the Batcave, Jean-Paul continues his recovery and training, revealing to Alfred that his actions resulted from his father's conditioning. After returning to the Batcave, Batman orders Robin to investigate the destruction of Arkham and immediately heads back out, ignoring Alfred and Tim's concerns about his crippling fatigue.

At an all-girls boarding school, Batman saves hostages and one of Commissioner Gordon's detectives, Renee Montoya, who entered against orders, from serial killer Victor Zsasz. Batman pummels Zsasz nearly to death before Renee stops him. As the night goes on, Batman becomes increasingly exhausted and injured while fighting and capturing the Ventriloquist and Scarface, Mr. Freeze, Catman, and Firefly. After hallucinating Jason due to Scarecrow's fear gas, he reaches out to Shondra but is called away by the Bat-Signal. At a clock tower, Batman confronts the Riddler, who has been forcibly injected with Venom by Bane to attack and further exhaust Batman. Riddler plants a bomb and flees, but Batman disposes of it. Gordon confronts Batman about him losing control, but the latter ignores his offer of help. Bruce goes to Shondra's office, where she tends to his wounds and they both fall asleep.

After tracing the asylum's explosive residue to the Bertinelli Cartel, Robin and Jean-Paul confront its leader, Franco Bertinelli. They discover that before Arkham's destruction, Bane had ambushed the syndicate and seized their arsenal. However, when Franco’s security detail opens fire, the sudden violence triggers Jean-Paul’s deep-seated brainwashing, forcing him to retreat in a blind panic. While Robin investigates the stolen bombs, Bane ambushes him. Awakening to captivity, Robin learns the depth of Bane's obsession with the Waynes. Armed with the secrets of Batman and his protégés—a knowledge born of sheer monomania—Bane details an ultimate plan to reshape and strengthen Gotham by utterly breaking its hero. Robin breaks free and narrowly escapes after finding his attacks useless against Bane. In a church, Jean-Paul gives his confession, but hallucinates a priest and a Knights Templar instructing him to listen to the Order of St. Dumas and embrace his role as Azrael.

When Bruce awakens and returns to the Batcave, Tim attempts to tell Bruce about Bane, but Bruce is furious that Tim disobeyed him and fires him. He later attempts to apologize to Tim and Alfred but instead finds them unconscious and is confronted by Bane. Bruce fights him despite his weakened state, but he is no match for a Venom-enhanced Bane, who pummels Bruce through Wayne Manor and the Batcave while taunting him for his failures. Frustrated by his defiance, Bane breaks Bruce's spine, leaving him to suffer a fate worse than death.

While Gordon, Montoya, and Jean-Paul watch on with Tim, Alfred, and Shondra watching on TV, Bane throws Batman's shattered body off the roof of GCPD headquarters and declares that Gotham will have to fend for itself. Montoya's partner Harvey Bullock warns Gordon that Bane's actions will plunge Gotham into chaos.

Voice cast

Appearing in Part 1

Anson Mount as Bruce Wayne / Batman

Michael Mando as Bane

Noah Mendes as young Bane

Pablo Schreiber as Jean-Paul Valley / Azrael

Jack Griffo as Tim Drake / Robin

Bruce Boxleitner as Commissioner Gordon

David Dastmalchian as Edward Nygma / Riddler

Simon Templeman as Alfred Pennyworth

Toks Olagundoye as Shondra Kinsolving

Jason Flemyng as Jervis Tetch / Mad Hatter

Jessica Camacho as Renee Montoya

Mick Wingert as Harvey Bullock

Andrew Morgado as Victor Zsasz

Jeff Bennett as Arnold Wesker / Ventriloquist and Scarface

Luis Bermudez as Thomas Blake / Catman

Max Mittelman as Jason Todd / Robin

Adriana Isabel as Bane's mother

Bayardo de Murgula as the Peña Duro prison warden

Anthony Crievello as Franco Bertinelli, Priest, Prisoner

Production

In October 2025, during New York Comic Con, it was announced that a series of animated films based on the Batman three-part story arc "Knightfall" (1993–1994) was in development. The first installment, Batman: Knightfall – Part 1: Knightfall, is directed by Jeff Wamester from a screenplay written by Jeremy Adams, with Jim Krieg and Kimberly S. Moreau serving as producers, while Sam Register and Michael Uslan serve as executive producers. Warner Bros. Animation and DC Studios will produce the film, with Studio Mir providing the animation services. When production on the film started, supervising producer Rick Morales and his fellow crew members worked around the parameters that the film had to be rated as "PG-13" due to being a Batman film despite Morales' experience in Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind (2022) "forming part of his DNA", so their first set of storyboards were based on that toned down level of violence until they showed them to the executives and they said that they could show a little bit more, to which a surprised Morales started asking his colleagues to push the limits to be a "little bit more" violent and crazy to earn an "R rating", like a scene that according to producer Jim Krieg, involved characters burning to death but it was originally offscreen, so they doubled down to show it more explicitly. At the premiere of Part 1: Knightfall in the 2026 Annecy International Animation Film Festival, the voice cast—which includes Anson Mount, who previously voiced Batman in Injustice, Michael Mando, and Pablo Schreiber—was unveiled. John Jennings Boyd & Eric V. Hachikian composed the music.

Release

Part 1: Knightfall premiered at the 2026 Annecy International Animation Film Festival on June 23, 2026. The film was released digitally on August 25, while a physical release on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, and DVD is set for September 8; Part 2 is planned to release later in 2026, while Part 3 is expected to release in 2027.

Reception

Swara Ahmed of The Nerds of Color declared Part 1 as a "Superb Adaptation" of Knightfall, calling it the best animated Batman film since Mask of the Phantasm and one of the best overall Batman films.

References

External links

Official website (Part 1)

Batman: Knightfall – Part 1: Knightfall at IMDb