The Dark Knight Rises brought Christopher Nolan's critically acclaimed Batman saga to a close in 2012, but the ending remains a subject of fan speculation to this day. Batman/Bruce Wayne is presumed dead after he flies a neutron bomb out of the city, only for Alfred Pennyworth to later spot him and Selina Kyle, alias Catwoman, at a café in Italy. The scene's meaning is frequently debated. One camp believes that Alfred imagined his surrogate son getting a happy ending, while the other purports that Bruce survived the explosion.
Though no one could survive a blast from that proximity, I've always found it much more likely that Batman figured out an escape plan. I mean, we're talking about the same guy who escaped from Lex Luthor with his entire body restrained using just a sip of water in Justice League.
Granted, comparing a live-action film with a cartoon isn't apples-to-apples, but regardless, Batman is known for being resourceful. On both a character and a thematic level, the theory that Alfred hallucinates Bruce and Selina at the end of The Dark Knight Rises doesn't hold up, especially when examining what Nolan set out to achieve with the film.
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Ultimately, Batman wrestles control of Gotham back from Bane and the city's criminal underworld with the help of the GCPD and Catwoman. However, when Bruce is left with sacrificing himself as the only option to save innocent people, he reveals his secret identity to Commissioner Gordon before flying the bomb out into the ocean. Though, as mentioned, he only appears to die in the resulting explosion. Alfred sees him after his escape. The film does not show how he survived, which is likely why fans are divided about what happened.
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The final moments of The Dark Knight Rises could serve as Alfred symbolic saying goodbye to a deceased Bruce, but I think that's reading too much into the scene. Obviously, Bruce wouldn't have survived the blast had he been on the plane. However, the Batwing has an autopilot function, which was broken earlier in the film, but Lucius Fox later discovers it has been repaired. Bruce could have ejected before the explosion. The climactic moment is shown in a nonlinear fashion; shots of the plane and Bruce's face aren't necessarily occurring at the same time.
Another argument points out that Bruce was stabbed earlier in the battle, but seeing as he fully recovered from a spinal injury in the same film, it's not far-fetched that he'd survive a stabbing. The amount of time between his supposed death and the café scene is unclear, so Bruce could feasibly be fully recovered.
Additionally, the film foreshadows this ending, with Alfred encouraging Bruce to pursue a normal life. He expressly says: "I had this fantasy, that I would look across the tables, and I’d see you there, with a wife and maybe a couple of kids. You wouldn’t say anything to me, nor me to you. But we’d both know that you’d made it, that you were happy.” Alfred even states the location of the café in Florence at which he hoped to see Bruce. I took Bruce being there as his way of letting Alfred know he survived to give him closure.
Though, the biggest smoking gun that Alfred didn't imagine the ending is simple. He's never liked Catwoman. The kindest thing he said about her was sarcastically suggesting that she and Batman should get coffee, though he also stated that he'd set Bruce up with a chimpanzee just to get him to rejoin the world. I think his ideal ending for Bruce would not feature Selina, lending credence to the scene being real.
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Beyond the ending being much more emotionally poignant when taken literally, both the star and the director of The Dark Knight Rises insist the scene actually happened. Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Batman actor Christian Bale said: "With most films, I tend to always say it's what the audience thinks it is. My personal opinion is [that] no, it was not a dream. That was for real, and he was just delighted that finally he had freed himself from the privilege but ultimately, the burden of being Bruce Wayne."
This aligns with Bruce's arc of learning to heal and move on. He wanted and needed to save his city, but he would never be able to save himself unless he let go of the grief Gotham had caused him. Moreover, Nolan revealed his take on the ending to Collider:
"For me, The Dark Knight Rises is specifically and definitely the end of the Batman story as I wanted to tell it, and the open-ended nature of the film is simply a very important thematic idea that we wanted to get into the movie, which is that Batman is a symbol. He can be anybody, and that was very important to us. Not every Batman fan will necessarily agree with that interpretation of the philosophy of the character, but for me, it all comes back to the scene between Bruce Wayne and Alfred in the private jet in Batman Begins, where the only way that I could find to make a credible characterization of a guy transforming himself into Batman is if it was as a necessary symbol, and he saw himself as a catalyst for change, and therefore it was a temporary process, maybe a five-year plan that would be enforced for symbolically encouraging the good of Gotham to take back their city."
The director further clarified: "for that mission to succeed, it has to end, so this is the ending for me, and as I say, the open-ended elements are all to do with the thematic idea that Batman was not important as a man, he's more than that. He's a symbol, and the symbol lives on." Bruce retiring and leaving the role of the Caped Crusader in the hands of optimistic former detective John Blake is keeping the symbol of Batman alive for Gotham.
If Bruce is truly dead, then his character arc was never resolved. I, for one, prefer to think Nolan knew exactly what he was doing. From Batman Begins onward, his trilogy focused on Bruce's trauma driving his vigilantism, so having the conclusion show him letting go and embracing freedom is a full-circle moment. The Dark Knight Rises ends with Bruce surviving and Alfred knowing his surrogate son has finally started healing from his lifelong wounds.
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