Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne is forgettable and his Batman is terrible. I can't stand to listen to his Bat-voice. It grates on my nerves so much.
Batman: The Animated Series is my all-time favorite version of Batman. Following that, Adam West's Batman holds a special place in my heart, and Michael Keaton after that. Mainly because I was a kid when I saw the Keaton Batman movies and I still have good memories of them. All the other Batmans that came after him just didn't do it for me. George Clooney seemed too much like George Clooney and not Bruce Wayne/Batman. I don't even know what Val Kilmer was doing.
That said, I do think Dark Knight was one of the best Batman non-animated Batman movies. The others were mostly cartoony, though I feel that Batman Returns was another good representation of the lore. I mean honestly, it's taken a long time for Batman to go a more "srs bzns" route in the comics--A lot of the older ones are just eye-twitchingly bad with the kind of actions and dialogue they portray. So I don't fault the older movies with what they've had to work with. I had to wade through a lot of them to find specific ones that I find worthy of the Dark Knight and his villainous opposition.