Sunday Best: Ranking Movie Jokers

I don't know what it is about the Joker that inspires so many actors to give great performances.  My guess is that his extreme insanity pushes the actor beyond their normal range and forces them to a higher level of performance.

Not every Joker has been great.  But here are the performances ranked from worst to best.  I've only included theatrical movie performances, so there will be a few people who will not make it to the list who only performed the character on TV, video games, or direct to video movies.


7. Zach Galifianakis - The Batman Lego Movie

There is nothing wrong with his vocal performance as Joker, but it is so forgettable, that I actually had to look up who did the voice work.




6. Jared Leto - Suicide Squad

Leto got a lot of flack for his portrayal.  I think he had the unfortunate disadvantage of being the first on-screen Joker after Heath Ledger.  I wasn't a big fan of his take either, but it is not an intrinsically bad performance.  I think the production design was flawed from the start.  To make him a tatted-up gangster made him feel more like a punk than a psychopath.  His relationship to Harley also served to undercut his cold-bloodedness.  I think if Leto was given a better starting point, he would have turned in a better performance.  But as it is, it is sub-par.



5. Caesar Romero - The Batman Movie

This performance is burned into my mind as the foundation, the base for what the Joker is.  All other performances, even the ones that improve on it, have to begin here.  As campy and as silly as the 1960's Batman was, Romero leaned heavily into that tone but still managed to make a wonderful performance.  The key was that the Joker took glee in mayhem and that is core to his character.




4. Mark Hamill - Batman: Mask of the Phantasm

The only reason Hamill is not higher on this list is that I have to limit my scope of his Joker work to this one film.  Hamill might be the most prolific Joker actor, with work in TV, video games, and movies.  One of the great things about him is that rather than phoning it in as the years went on, he got better and better.  In Mask of the Phantasm, Hamill gives us a classic Joker vocal performance.  I would have to say that when I hear the Joker's voice in my mind, Hamill's voice is what I hear.




3. Jack Nicholson - Batman

Stan Lee once said that Tim Burton didn't make a Batman movie, he made a Joker movie.  And he is mostly correct.  You can see how much Nicholson built off of Romero, except that Nicholson went way more murder-y.  His performance is especially fun when you see his pre-Joker Jack Napier, who is cool, refined, and restrained at time (though still very murder-y).  To see that character cut loose was a great deal of fun.  I remember the first time I saw him step out of the shadows in full makeup, I felt like the comic book had come to life.  The best scene, though, is the one where he talks to the mob boss he just murdered.  That gives you a real window into his utter madness and it is actually pretty terrifying.




2. Joaquin Phoenix - Joker

This was a tough choice.  As I wrote about in my review for the movie, his performance is stunning.  The talent and technique on display is evidence of an actor at the top of his game.  Phoenix pulls us into Arthur Flecks insanity as we see him slowly lose the tenuous grip he had on his soul.  If he does not win an Oscar for this, it would be another Academy injustice.



1. Heath Ledger - The Dark Knight

It really was a toss up between Phoenix and Ledger.  And I hate to take anything away from Phoenix's performance, which does something completely different.  Phoenix is in every scene of Joker whereas Ledger is only in 33 minutes of The Dark Knight.  Ledger's job is to be mysterious, charismatic, and electric, and then get off the stage to let his performance linger in the air.  In some ways that is more difficult, because he has to make such an impression that you feel him present in the entire film, even when he is nowhere to be found.  And Ledger does this.  Whenever he is on screen I cannot help but be drawn in.  I remember the first time I saw the movie I was shocked by his acting choices.  Every choice I would have made as an actor, he did the opposite.  When I would have brought my voice low, he went high.  When I would have gone menacing, he was nonchalant.  It was such a rebellious performance that it embodied the chaos of the character.  Some of complained that his Joker was the least in line with the comic book version and that is a fair criticism.  But Ledger captured the essence of the character with his "agent of chaos" speech.  My theory is that his Joker is literally, not symbolically, the devil: the embodiment of evil.  And Ledger captured that perfectly.