Bane, a former member of the League of Shadows, leads an attack on a CIA plane over Uzbekistan to abduct nuclear physicist, Dr. Leonid Pavel, and fake Pavel's death in the crash.
Meanwhile, eight years after the death of Gotham City District Attorney Harvey Dent[a], organized crime has been eradicated in Gotham by legislation, the Dent Act, giving expanded powers to the police. James Gordon, police commissioner, has kept Dent's killing spree a secret and allowed the blame for his crimes to fall on Batman. Bruce Wayne, still mourning the death of Rachel Dawes, has become a recluse, and Wayne Enterprises has stagnated.
Bane enlists businessman John Daggett to buy Bruce's fingerprints. Cat burglar Selina Kyle steals Bruce's prints from Wayne Manor for Daggett, but he double-crosses her, and she alerts the police, who pursue Bane and Daggett's henchmen into the sewers while Kyle flees. The henchmen capture Gordon and take him to Bane, but he escapes and is found by Officer John Blake, an orphan who has deduced Bruce's secret identity and persuades him to resume his vigilantism. Bane attacks the Gotham Stock Exchange and uses Bruce's fingerprints to verify a series of fraudulent transactions, leaving Bruce bankrupt. Batman resurfaces to pursue Bane's henchmen. Fearing Bruce will get himself killed fighting Bane, his butler, Alfred Pennyworth, resigns in the hope of saving him after admitting to burning a letter that Rachel left for him saying she was going to marry Dent. Bane expands his operations and kills Daggett while Bruce and Wayne Enterprises's new CEO, Miranda Tate, become lovers.
Kyle agrees to take Batman to Bane but instead leads him into a trap under Wayne Tower. Bane gloats that he intends to fulfill Ra's al Ghul's mission to destroy Gotham City before he brutally cripples Batman in combat. He then takes Bruce to an ancient underground prison in the Middle East, where Bruce learns that Ra's al Ghul's child was born and raised in the prison but had a protector that aided the child in escaping, thought to be impossible. Back in Gotham, Bane traps the police forces in the sewers, destroys all but one bridge surrounding the city, kills Mayor Anthony Garcia, forces Pavel to convert a fusion reactor core into a decaying neutron bomb before killing him. He exposes Dent's crimes to the city and releases the prisoners of Blackgate Penitentiary, taking over the city, and has Gotham's elite exiled and killed in proletarian kangaroo courts presided over by Jonathan Crane.
Five months later, Bruce escapes captivity and returns to Gotham. As Batman, he frees the police, and together, they clash with Bane's army in the streets. During the battle, Batman overpowers Bane, but Tate stabs Batman in the abdomen, revealing herself as Talia al Ghul, Ra's al Ghul's child. Unable to activate the bomb's detonator due to Gordon blocking the signal, Talia leaves to find the bomb. Kyle returns, killing Bane and helping Batman pursue Talia, hoping to bring the bomb back to the reactor chamber where it can be stabilized. Talia's truck crashes, but she remotely floods and destroys the reactor chamber before dying. With no way to stop the detonation, Batman, after revealing his identity to Gordon, uses his aerial craft, the Bat, to haul the bomb far over the bay, where it safely explodes.
In the aftermath, Batman is presumed dead and honored as a hero. Wayne Manor becomes an orphanage, and Bruce's estate is left to Alfred. Gordon finds the Bat Signal repaired, while Lucius Fox discovers that Bruce had fixed the Bat's malfunctioning auto-pilot. In Florence, Alfred discovers that Bruce is alive and in a relationship with Kyle, and they silently acknowledge each other before parting ways. Blake, whose legal first name is revealed as Robin, resigns from the GCPD and receives a package leading him to the Batcave.
