9. Talia Nullified Bane
Tom Hardy fully embodied and reinvented the role of Bane while honoring the source material to make the character into the ultimate antagonist for Batman. He was strong, intelligent, and cunning as he meticulously carried out a plan to best The Batman in fisticuffs and then make the unmasked Bruce Wayne watch Gotham fall to its knees from inside the walls of Bane's prison. Bane was one of the greatest villains in cinematic Batman history until Miranda Tate turned out to be Talia and seemed to have been running the show the whole time. All of the sudden, Bane was a henchman just like his unfortunate appearance in
Batman and Robin. It is amazing how one moment in a film can be used to invalidate everything else the audience had been shown for the two and one half hours leading up to that point. In looking at all of Bane's behavior and how the men under his command treat and react to him throughout the film, there can be little doubt that he was very much a leader in the resurgent League of Shadows. His men fear him and hang on his every word. When Bane tells a henchman to stay behind and die in a plane crash, the man complies with a smile on his face. Bane was also the one who solely delivered the impassioned speech that built an army to help keep Gotham under siege. None of that had anything to do with Talia. Look at what Bane does immediately after Talia is revealed. She tells him not to kill Batman, leaving The Dark Knight alive to feel the fire of the souls he failed. Once Talia leaves the room, Bane immediately disobeys her, prioritizing his own agenda in having to avenge his loss to Batman from moments before. He may have loved Talia, but Bane was still very much his own man with his own mind and motivation.