The most memorable Christian Bale roles

If you are under a certain age, you might have no idea that Bale was a child actor. He had his breakthrough performance in Empire of the Sun. The film wasn’t just the first significant role for Bale. His debut came in a Steven Spielberg film.

A Disney musical about newspaper boys at the turn of the century? Yeah, it happened! At the time, Newsies was a total flop. However, since then, the film has become a cult classic, perhaps partly because the lead is played by, yes, none other than Bale.

Before Greta Gerwig’s adaption of the classic novel, there was this 1994 version. Unlike Gerwig, this film doesn’t try and get away with having the same actors play the role throughout the film (leading to Florence Pugh trying to pull off playing 13 or whatever). Bale plays Laurie, the role played by Timothee Chalamet in the Gerwig version.

As Bale transitioned to adult roles, one of his first standouts was in Velvet Goldmine. The Todd Haynes movie is set during the glam rock rise in 1970s England, focusing on a fictional musician named Brian Slade. Jonathan Rhys Myers plays Slade, but Bale plays the writer tracking him down for a story.

Salacious, controversial, and enduring in equal measures, American Psycho attracted attention when it came out. The bonkers film is loaded down with sex and violence, and it all centers on Patrick Bateman, a deranged Yuppie who also may or may not be dangerously violent (depending on how much, if any, you think the action is happening in his head). Bale plays Bateman, and to this day, it is still a role he is synonymous with.

After getting noticed for playing Bateman, studios figured they'd see if they could turn Bale into a conventional movie star. Enter the fantasy epic Reign of Fire. Bale and McConaughey star in this film about dragons in a post-apocalyptic London of…2020. It turned a profit at the box office, but barely, and was largely viewed as a misstep.

Look, you probably haven’t seen The Machinist, but you likely remember it. This is one of Bale’s most memorable starring roles because it was the first time Bale made a significant bodily transformation for a role. The actor dropped a staggering 62 pounds for the role.

To think, one year after the weird indie drama The Machinist came out, Bale was thrust into the spotlight as perhaps the most iconic superhero. Also, somehow, he was super ripped? Don’t ask us how that guy’s body works. Batman got rebooted thanks to Christopher Nolan and Bale, and it was a massive success. We know that Bale played Batman in three films, and The Dark Knight is largely considered the best of the bunch. However, Batman Begins is on this list for all three movies.

After working with Nolan on Batman Begins, Bale joined the director for one of his personal projects he gets to make because his blockbusters make an obscene amount of money (and because sometimes his personal projects are also incredibly lucrative, i.e., Inception). Bale plays one half of a feud between magicians that drives the two to destruction…or does he?

If you are a fan of a modern revisionist Western and you haven’t seen 3:10 to Yuma, you should amend that. One of the best Westerns of the new millennium, Bale plays a Civil War veteran tasked with getting a vicious criminal (Russell Crowe) on a train to prison, the titular “3:10 to Yuma."

First, Haynes made a somewhat biographical film about a fictional musician. This time, he made a largely fictitious biopic of a real person. I’m Not There is ostensibly about Bob Dylan, but the essence of the musician is divided into a handful of distinct personalities and characters. Bale is one of those, representing the period when Dylan got deeply into Christianity.

Hey, rebooting Batman worked. Why not try to reboot the Terminator franchise as well? Alas, this didn’t work as well as Batman Begins, but Bale did get to play John Connor. However, the thing most people probably remember from this film is a leaked rant of Bale railing against a crew member. This movie was mediocre at best, but if you liked it, well, good for you.

Michael Mann’s love of movie stars got him quite the cast for Public Enemies, a story about John Dillinger and the changing landscape of America, crime, and America’s relationship to crime. Johnny Depp plays Dillinger, but Bale plays Melvin Purvis, the FBI agent tasked with tracking him down.

Once again, Bale lost a ton of weight. This time, it was to play the drug-addicted Dicky Ecklund. It’s a tic-filled, showy performance but the Academy loved The Fighter. Both Melissa Leo and Bale won supporting acting Oscars for this film.

Hey, another bodily transformation for Bale. How novel! Reuniting with David O. Russell, the director of The Fighter, Bale plays another take on a real person, though this time more fictionalized. The story of con artists and the Abscam operation saw the four primary actors, including Bale, all get Oscar nominations. None of them won, though.

When you play Moses in a big-budget epic, it will make a splash. Ridley Scott, an Oscar winner himself, directed the massive Biblical movie, a throwback to the early days of Hollywood. Moses, of course, plays a significant role in the book of Exodus, making Bale the lead. While the movie got mixed reviews, including some people being weirdly mad that an atheist in Scott made a Biblical epic, the film made $268.2 million at the box office.

The film altered the career of Adam McKay, for better or worse (mostly worse, if we’re being honest). The Big Short is an ensemble piece about the financial collapse that started in 2007, based on a Michael Lewis book of the same name. Bale played one of the key figures from the book and earned another Oscar nomination in the process.

If Bale likes a director, he’s not afraid to return to that well. After The Big Short, Bale worked with McKay again, taking on the role of Dıck Cheney. The film and Bale’s performance were both divisive, but Vice got Oscar nominations nevertheless, including Bale as Best Actor.

Ford v. Ferrari was a surprising critical and commercial success. The movie, about Ford building a car that could compete at the 24 Hours of Le Mans race, featured Matt Damon and Bale as the leads. Bale, for his part, played British auto racer Ken Miles. In addition to making a splash at the box office, Ford v. Ferrari was a surprise nomination for Best Picture at the Oscars.

In the end, it seems no actor can avoid the pull of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Bale was able to hold out for longest than most, at least. He followed fellow Oscar winner Cate Blanchett as the main villain in a Thor film. In truth, we really can’t blame Bale for wanting to play a character named “Gorr the God Butcher.”