The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

Gary Oldman: Commissioner Gordon

Photos 

Quotes 

• Jim Gordon : I never cared who you were...

  Batman : And you were right.

  Jim Gordon : ...but shouldn't the people know the hero whot saved them?

  Batman : A hero can be anyone. Even a man doing something as simple and reassuring as putting a coat around a young boy's shoulders to let him know that the world hadn't ended.

  [takes off in the Bat] 

  Jim Gordon : Bruce Wayne?

• Jim Gordon : [reading from the book "A Tale of Two Cities" by Charles Dickens]  I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss. I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy. I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence. It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.

• Bane : [addressing media reporters outside the prison]  Behind you is a symbol of oppression. Blackgate Prison, where a thousand men have languished under the name of this man,

  [holds up a picture of Harvey Dent] 

  Bane : Harvey Dent, who has been held up to you as the shining example of justice!

  John Blake : [to Gordon, at Blake's apartment]  Commissioner, we need to keep you moving until we can get you in front of a camera.

  Bane : You have been supplied with a false idol to stop you from tearing down this CORRUPT CITY! Let me tell you the truth about Harvey Dent from the words of Gotham's police commissioner, James Gordon.

  [holds up Gordon's speech papers and begins to read] 

  Bane : "The Batman didn't murder Harvey Dent, he saved my boy then took the blame for Harvey's appalling crimes so that I could, to my shame, build a lie around this fallen idol. I praised the mad man who tried to murder my own child but I can no longer live with my lie. It is time to trust the people of Gotham with the truth and it is time for me to resign."

  [calls to prisoners] 

  Bane : And do you accept this man's resignation? Do you accept the resignation of all these liars? Of all the CORRUPT?

  [prisoners roar with approval] 

  John Blake : Those men locked up for eight years in Blackgate, and denied parole under the Dent Act, based on a lie?

  Jim Gordon : Gotham needed a hero...

  John Blake : It needs it now more than ever. You betrayed everything you stood for.

  Jim Gordon : There's a point, far out there when the structures fail you, and the rules aren't weapons anymore, they're... shackles letting the bad guy get ahead. One day... you may face such a moment of crisis. And in that moment, I hope you have a friend like I did, to plunge their hands into the filth so that you can keep yours clean!

  John Blake : [disgusted]  Your hands look plenty filthy to me, Commissioner.

• John Blake : I just can't take it. I mean, nobody will ever know who it was who saved an entire city.

  Jim Gordon : They know who it was; it was the Batman.

• Jim Gordon : [Gordon and his men have been brought into Crane's kangaroo court]  No lawyer, no witnesses? What sort of due process is this?

  Dr. Jonathan Crane : Your guilt has been determined. This is merely a sentencing hearing. Now, what will it be? Death or Exile?

  Jim Gordon : Crane, if you think we're going to walk out on that ice willingly, you got another thing coming!

  Dr. Jonathan Crane : So it's death then?

  Jim Gordon : Looks that way.

  Dr. Jonathan Crane : Very well. Death!

  [smashes gavel] 

  Dr. Jonathan Crane : By exile!

• Batman : [Hands over device]  This blocks the remote detonator signal to the bomb. Get it onto it before sunrise. They might hit the button when it starts.

  Jim Gordon : When what starts?

  Batman : War.

• [Bruce, wearing a ski mask, visits Gordon's hospital room] 

  Jim Gordon : [lying in a hospital bed]  We were in this together, and then you were gone.

  Bruce Wayne : The Batman wasn't needed anymore. We won.

  Jim Gordon : Based on a lie. Now this evil... rises from where we tried to bury it. The Batman has to come back.

  Bruce Wayne : What if he doesn't exist any more?

  Jim Gordon : He must... he must...

• Jim Gordon : Can I change your mind about quitting the force?

  John Blake : You were right, about the structures becoming shackles.

• [first lines] 

  Jim Gordon : I knew Harvey Dent. I was his friend. And it will be a very long time before someone... inspires us the way he did. I believed in Harvey Dent.

• [Blake finds Gordon on the police station roof next to the broken Bat-signal] 

  John Blake : Sir, Congressman Gilly's wife has been calling in. Apparently the Congressman never made it home after the Wayne Foundation event.

  Jim Gordon : That's a job for the police.

  John Blake : When you and Dent cleaned up the streets, you cleaned them good. Pretty soon we'll be chasing down uh... overdue library books. And yet, here you are, like we're still at war.

  Jim Gordon : What's your name, son?

  John Blake : Blake, sir.

  Jim Gordon : You got something you wanna ask me, Officer Blake?

  John Blake : It's about that night, this night, eight years ago. The night Dent died, the last confirmed sighting of the Batman. He murders those people, takes down two SWAT teams, breaks Dent's neck and then just... vanishes?

  Jim Gordon : I'm not hearing a question, son.

  John Blake : Don't you wanna know who he was?

  [Gordon looks at the broken Bat -Signal for a moment] 

  Jim Gordon : I know exactly who he was. He was the Batman.

  [starts walking] 

  Jim Gordon : Let's go see about the Congressman's wife.

• Jim Gordon : We could use some hotter heads around here.