Really going all in on these Batman topics, eh, @scottyhawkeye?
I'm going to be the guy to say Christian Bale, even though Kevin Conroy is probably the "right" answer.
There's no such thing as a definitive [insert superhero here] portrayal in our day and age. Superheroes and their respective franchises have been commodified in film to the point that actors carrying the mantle change with, now, unsurprising regularity. Superheroes don't feel like huge archetypes anymore. Some of them have been so diluted that an actor change feels less important for them than it does for, say, James Bond.
You don't hear people say things like "Christopher Reeve was Superman" anymore because we're all so much more aware of the studio machine at work. And it takes so, so, so much more to surprise audiences with a portrayal of a well-trodden superhero story.
I say all this because Christian Bale's Batman--you could argue alongside Robert Downey's Tony Stark and probably Chris Evans's Captain America--feels like one of the last superhero portrayals that really meant something to people in that old-fashioned way.
Sure, Nolan's Batman universe was categorically a spin on the traditional Batman mythos. Not some gesture toward being comic-accurate by any overt stretch. But within that depiction, within the logic of that world, I completely bought in to Bale as Batman and Bruce Wayne, someone for whom this whole superhero thing had genuine human stakes and lifelong physical and psychological consequences. Bale was the Batman of our time, not just because he played the character for nearly ten years, but because he and Nolan redefined the way in which Batman was cool--and, in doing so, made us forget about Batman's embarrassing then-recent history.
I remember being genuinely wounded when Batman was recast for Batman v. Superman. Not because I had some grudge against Ben Affleck, but because it felt like we'd all just reckoned with the true importance of the Batman. So suddenly do we move on from objects of resonance.
[A sidenote: I think a common--and true--sentiment is that Nolan's Batman was always second fiddle to his unforgettable villains. The Dark Knight is elevated by the presence of the Joker. The Dark Knight Rises, though criticized for weird time dilation and unrealistic plot turns, really belongs to Tom Hardy's Bane, not Bale's Batman. While I agree with that, I think that's largely true of Batman in the source material, and I think the films smartly position the villains as foils to investigate Bruce Wayne's--and, to get theoretical, a post-War on Terror, post-G.W. Bush, post-Patriot Act America's--psyche. He might not be the most outwardly persuasive character in the movie, but his is the perspective the story cares about the most. Where does he bend. Where does he break. How do the pieces fall. What possible shape can they take when re-congealed. Batman is fascinating because of his counter-position with his adversaries, not in spite of it.]
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