Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight trilogy offered a darker, more realistic version of Batman, Gotham City, and all the criminals living in it, among those Dr. Jonathan Crane a.k.a. Scarecrow, the only villain to appear in all movies. Nolan’s trilogy began in 2005 with Batman Begins, introducing Christian Bale as the new Caped Crusader and Liam Neeson as Ra’s al Ghul, and serving as a much needed reboot of the Batman universe on the big screen after the poor reception of Joel Schumacher’s Batman & Robin.

Batman Begins was followed by The Dark Knight in 2008, which had the Joker (played by Heath Ledger) as the main villain, and which has become one of the best superhero movies ever made. The final entry in the trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises, arrived in 2012, and had Bane (Tom Hardy) as the villain, along with Talia al Ghul (Marion Cotillard), and introduced a new Catwoman (Anne Hathaway). Although each movie had its own villain(s), there’s one that appeared in all three Dark Knight movies: Scarecrow.

Played by Cillian Murphy, Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow was a corrupt psychopharmacologist who worked as Chief Administrator of Arkham Asylum. His specialty was the psychology of fear, and used a fear-inducing toxin to torture criminals and pretty much anyone who stood on his way. Crane was introduced in Batman Begins and had minor appearances in The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises – but why was he the only one to appear in all movies?

Scarecrow’s Appearance Brings All Dark Knight Movies Together


It’s very common in the world of filmmaking for directors to have their go-to actors, hence why you see them in almost every movie they make – such as Martin Scorsese and Robert DeNiro, and Tim Burton and Johnny Depp. Christopher Nolan has his favorites too, and Cillian Murphy is one of them. In addition to The Dark Knight trilogy, Murphy appeared in Inception and Dunkirk, so in that sense, it’s not surprising that Nolan decided to keep him for a bit longer, even if Scarecrow didn’t have a big role in the following Batman movies. But in terms of narrative, Nolan might have had other reasons to bring Scarecrow back.

Scarecrow’s appearance gives a sense of continuity to the movies, serving as the link between all of them. Some fans have pointed out that it would have been weird if Crane and his actions hadn’t been at least mentioned in The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, given how much of the plot in Batman Begins he helped set up. Scarecrow was brought back in ways that actually fit the trilogy’s storyline: Batman caught him at the beginning of The Dark Knight, and spent a lot of time in prison as a result of The Dent Act. In The Dark Knight Rises, Bane released the prisoners of Blackgate Penitentiary, among those Crane, who presided over a kangaroo court later on.

Others have pointed out that “fear” was the theme present in all movies, and Crane was the character that represented it, thus why he was included in each story. Neither Nolan nor Murphy have given a reason for Scarecrow to appear in all movies from The Dark Knight trilogy, but it ultimately helped bring all of them together, and it was done in ways that didn’t feel forced and that were coherent with the plot of each movie.