The heroic brass theme which plays when Batman leaves Ra's al Ghul to die in Batman Begins makes a reappearance when Batman hurls the Joker off the building in the film's climax. The suite contains ten thousand musical bars. James Newton Howard composed the 'elegant and beautiful' themes for Harvey Dent/Two-Face, to work as an aural contrast. When Ledger died, Zimmer stated that he felt like scrapping his original material and composing a new theme, but decided that to do so would compromise the 'evil projects'. Throughout the piece, Zimmer used razor blades on string instruments to achieve the tortured, twisted sound to accompany the character on the screen. Zimmer compared its style to the band Kraftwerk, who come from his native Germany, as well as his work with bands like The Damned.

The nine-minute suite for the Joker ('Why So Serious') was based around two notes played by electric cello, solo violin, guitars and a string section. The Batman theme (audible twice early in the film, once towards the end and a final time at the beginning of the end credits) creates what Zimmer described as a ' red herring', a kind of musical foreshadowing, which was played by a cello. Zimmer and Howard both believed that creating a heroic theme that a viewer could hum would ignore the complexity and darkness of the character. Zimmer originally said the main Batman theme was purposely introduced at the end of Batman Begins, and would be fleshed out in the sequel as the character develops. The score won the Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media, 'Best Music' at the Saturn Awards and 'Best Soundtrack' at the Brit Awards, while it was nominated in the category 'Best Film Music' at the BAFTA Awards. Zimmer was responsible for creating Joker's theme, while James Newton Howard focused on Harvey Dent/Two-Face theme.

In many tracks is also reprised Batman's main action theme ('Molossus'), first used in Batman Begins and later in The Dark Knight Rises. Just like Batman Begins and later The Dark Knight Rises, the main motif always consists in just two notes, played by horns and accompanied by strings, representing Batman's pain and guilt. The soundtrack was composed by Batman Begins collaborators Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard and recorded in April. A limited edition 180-gram vinyl LP was released on August 12. The 2-CD Special Edition was released on December 9, along with the DVD.

The soundtrack was released on July 15, 2008, in three editions: CD, limited edition CD digipak, and digital download. The Dark Knight: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is the soundtrack album to the 2008 film of the same name, which is a sequel to Christopher Nolan's 2005 film Batman Begins.

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