Plot
In Gotham City, Batman defuses a hostage situation orchestrated by the criminal Two-Face, formerly district attorney Harvey Dent, who escapes. Flashbacks reveal that Dent, once one of Batman's biggest supporters, was horribly disfigured with acid on one side of his face by mobster Sal Maroni. The trauma of the incident caused Dent to develop a split personality, make decisions based on the flip of a coin, and swear vengeance against Batman for failing to prevent the incident.
Edward Nygma, an eccentric and egotistical researcher at Wayne Enterprises, approaches his employer, Bruce Wayne, to present an invention that can beam television signals directly into the brain, demanding immediate approval directly from Bruce. Bruce rejects the device as he is concerned that the technology could manipulate minds. After killing his abusive supervisor and staging it as a suicide, Nygma resigns and plots revenge against Bruce, sending him riddles. Criminal psychologist Chase Meridian diagnoses Nygma as psychotic.
Bruce attends a circus with Chase. Two-Face hijacks the event and threatens to detonate a bomb unless Batman reveals his identity. Dick Grayson, the youngest member of the Flying Graysons family of acrobats, prevents the bomb from killing anyone by throwing it into a river with the help of his family; however, Two-Face kills all of them except Dick in the process. Bruce invites the now-orphaned Dick to live at Wayne Manor as his ward, where he later discovers that Bruce is Batman. Seeking to avenge the death of his family, Dick demands to join Batman in crime-fighting, hoping to kill Two-Face, but Bruce declines in order to help Dick move on instead, as he is considering retirement.
Nygma becomes the Riddler and teams up with Two-Face. They commit a series of robberies to finance Nygma's new company and mass-produce his brainwave device dubbed the Box, which steals information from minds and transfers it to Nygma's, increasing his intelligence but also slowly causing him to lose his grip on reality. At a party hosted by Nygma, Batman pursues Two-Face and is almost killed until Dick saves him.
Batman visits Chase, who explains that she has fallen in love with Bruce, and Bruce reveals his secret identity to her. Having discovered Bruce's secret through the Box, on Halloween night, Two-Face and the Riddler destroy the Batcave, shoot Bruce, and abduct Chase. As Bruce recovers, he and his butler, Alfred Pennyworth, deduce that Nygma is the Riddler through clues he left in his riddles, while Chase is held prisoner in the Riddler's lair. Bruce finally accepts Dick as his comrade, Robin.
At the Riddler's lair, Robin defeats Two-Face but chooses to spare him, which allows Two-Face to capture Robin at gunpoint. The Riddler reveals his final riddle: Chase and Robin, representing the two sides of Batman's personality, are trapped in tubes above a deadly drop, and he only has the time to save one. Batman distracts the Riddler with a riddle himself, before destroying the Riddler's brainwave receiver with a Batarang, damaging the Riddler's mind and enabling Batman to rescue both when he sees the floor is an optical illusion. Two-Face corners them and flips his coin to decide their fate, but loses his balance after Batman throws multiple identical coins in the air, and falls to his death.
Committed to Arkham Asylum, a now-delusional Nygma exclaims that he is Batman. Bruce, the real Batman, resumes his crusade with Robin as his partner.
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