The Joker is undoubtedly one of the greatest villains in the history of comics. Batman's number one nemesis, he has been terrorizing Gotham City since his debut in 1940, with crimes ranging from bank robbery to attempting to be the first to commit murder on the moon, all the way to widespread destruction that turns entire cities into grinning zombies bent on destruction, and is a great character whose popularity is not limited to comics.
The Dark Knight joker (Heath Ledger)
It's been long enough since Batman: The Dark Knight came out that we've all experienced the initial wave of hype, inevitable backlash, and rolling our eyes at people who are still somehow dressed up as Halloween clowns and hissing "why is it so serious?" Heath Ledger's Oscar-winning performance as a clown, though, goes like this: It's really that good.
The Joker in Batman: The Dark Knight is both scary and truly funny, but more importantly, he has an air of mystery that is almost impossible to cultivate for a character so well-known. In fact, everything he says in the film is a lie, whether it's his telling contradictory origin stories, or asking him to just burn a bunch of money, or assuring other characters that he has no plans, while making a complex plan built on clockwork precision.
Ledger's Joker has become one of the most influential film villains in recent memory, but for a man who exists solely to destroy order and control, the elements that other characters may be deficient in are perfect for someone Batman trying to take order and control from chaos.
2. 2019 Edition of Joker (Joaquin Phoenix)
You really have to give it to Joaquin Phoenix for his performance in the title role of 2019's Joker: he's dedicated to the role. Arthur Fleck, in a very deliberate and conscious way, is rightfully ugly. His compulsive laughter, the horrific shots of his emaciated figure and swirling limbs, the unsettling Oedipus relationship with his mother, and the disgustingly eerie atmosphere he emanates, keep the viewer at a distance, even as we see him go through a series of seemingly endless physical and emotional blows that, as it stands, should put us on his side. The shift from poor Flack to the Joker's twisted confidence and bravado is very solid in the shifts that surround the entire film.
Unfortunately, this kind of performance is in a movie that is not worth it. No matter how compelling You find Phoenix's performance, it's almost impossible to hear lines like "I used to think my life was a tragedy, but it really was a comedy" without rolling your eyes. To make matters worse, the film tries to walk the thin line of sympathy for Flake and is frightened by him, only to trample on it with a pair of clown shoes. There's only one murder in the movie that's not presented as at least partially defensible, and while that murder isn't a painful turning point, the film is more interested in showing us those that we've been told, hey, this mass murderer might actually make sense.
However, the Joker's greatest sin is that it strips the character of all its mystery. That's what sets the Joker apart from other supervillains, making him as compelling and terrifying as he is. Through Arthur Fleck, we get a meticulous and detailed report on his childhood abuse, tragic adulthood, and even how he got his name, if you missed it a few times. These are all things that might be necessary for a delicate character work, and shouldn't be a superhero movie about an established character, but the film actually has a future Batman.
89th Edition of the Batman Joker (Jack Nicholson)
Jack Nicholson's performance as the Joker in Tim Burton's 1989 Batman film was brilliant on almost every level. He's undoubtedly the best part of the film, and Nicholson's already creepy smile is emphasized through makeup and some truly stunning fashion options. Every time he looks just right, and he knocks everyone out at the art museum and rolls in with his crew so he can destroy some of the paintings while blasting a prince song about himself on the speakers, which is probably the funniest thing a supervillain has ever done – it really makes people feel like he prefers the whole "destroy Gotham City" thing.
The only real problem is Jack Napier, not just because of the laborious pun of "Jack-a-Nape."
The Joker's origin story goes through as many different experiences as the characters themselves, but one of the key moments is when he's thrown into a bucket of acid and looks like a murder clown. In Batman: 89, however, nothing really changed — Napier even carried a deck of cards with him as his trademark. It won't spoil the character like killing Batman's parents, but it's definitely going to make him less interesting.
Gotham, Jeremiah Valesca (Cameron Monaghan)
From day one, Gotham was a show that wanted to eat cake, and no character embodied that spirit better than Jeremiah Valesca. In a show that took years to become a Batman show without Batman, The Riddle Man wasn't yet a Riddler Man, and the Penguin wasn't yet a Penguin, but all the weirdest elements in the series, like the Order of St. Dumas and Professor Pig, are present and explained, that he's the closest we're to the Joker, and he's still not quite successful.
Not only was he a double dummy – the guy's twin brother who we thought would be a clown before he died, and then he was chemical-soaked and loved the purple suit – he also got as close as he could to being a clown without actually crossing the finish line. Even in the series finale, he adamantly refused to pay back the setting, instead calling himself by the name of every J in the book except the one we wanted.
As frustrating as it is, it's great too. There's a deliberate stupidity in the way he dances — like telling Ecco, who sounds and looks exactly like Harley Quinn, "There's never going to be someone like you" — that's really fascinating and funny. He's the kind of character that makes you wish the whole series were so crazy from the start.
Suicide Squad Joker (Jared Leto)
Suicide Squad was a poor rating, but Leto's Joker was still doing well, and despite the hype surrounding Leto's role as a clown in Suicide Squad, it was almost equivalent to about ten minutes of screen time, most of which was Harley Quinn's origin story.