Puddin' time ! Rate Leto's Joker in comparison to other portrayals.

Favourite portrayal of the Joker (live action)

  • Jared Leto, in Suicide Squad (2016)

  • Heath Ledger, in the Dark Knight ( 2008)

  • Jack Nicholson, in Batman (1989)

  • Cesar Romero, in the Batman TV series/film (1966)

  • Other


Results are only viewable after voting.
For me it's way too early to do this and also unfair given those Jokers we all the main villains in their movies/episodes.
 
It's not fair to judge Leto after what was done to his performance.

But Ledger is the best.
 
Really, you might as well just take Ledger off the poll and ask who gets the silver medal. This isn't a comparison. This is a slaughter.
 
Ledger is the best and Leto (though I love the actor) is the worst.

I'm not even sure if more context would've fixed his Joker for me. I just didn't like it.
 
1) Nicholson!
2) Hamill!
3) Romero!
4) DiMaggio!
5) Leto!
6) Spiner!
7) Ledger.

...only joking. Ledger wipes the floor with all of them.

...along with just about every other villain performance from any other movie ever made.
 
Really, you might as well just take Ledger off the poll and ask who gets the silver medal. This isn't a comparison. This is a slaughter.
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Nicholson is still my favorite

I certainly understand that. He's a very close second for me. That version of Joker has some minor problems, but none of them are attributable to Nicholson. The "Smilex" commercial was quintessential Joker. While TDK's version was darker and more focused, Nicholson's mannerisms and the stylized Joker props/sets really helped lift the character off the comic pages.
 
I just feel that Nicholson was more of the classic comic book Joker come to life. His electric buzzer, the acid flower and the Joker gas really go a long way for me. They also couldn't have gotten a better actor for the role in 89.

Ledgers performance is god tier, and the characterization of his Joker was very much like the comics in a lot of aspects (I really respect how much inspiration Nolan took from TKJ and the first few appearances in the Golden Age for his Joker) but still I feel like Nicholson is more of a classic Joker.

As weird as it sounds... I think TDK is a better movie than Batman, but Batman is just my favorite movie ever. The murderous Burton Batman is a negative but despite that, it's still my favorite :) so many iconic scenes.
 
I just feel that Nicholson was more of the classic comic book Joker come to life. His electric buzzer, the acid flower and the Joker gas really go a long way for me. They also couldn't have gotten a better actor for the role in 89.

Ledgers performance is god tier, and the characterization of his Joker was very much like the comics in a lot of aspects (I really respect how much inspiration Nolan took from TKJ and the first few appearances in the Golden Age for his Joker) but still I feel like Nicholson is more of a classic Joker.

As weird as it sounds... I think TDK is a better movie than Batman, but Batman is just my favorite movie ever. The murderous Burton Batman is a negative but despite that, it's still my favorite :) so many iconic scenes.

I feel you. I loved Batman '89, used to have it on in the background on the vcr when I was in college. Nicholson was a great mix of Cesar Romero camp and psychotic killing joke glee.

Still Ledger's performance just takes the character to another level - it elevates him beyond comic book movie characters to simply great movie character level.
I watched a few youtube clips from TDK of Joker highlights on my phone at work the other day, during a break and was totally getting sucked in - Ledger is truly mesmerising.
TDK is my favorite film - but Batman '89 will always be near to my heart.

One final thing I will say for Nolan/Ledger's Joker is that the character represents the great irony of the Joker - that he's not actually funny. Nicholson's Joker was funny in a very dark way, but Ledger wasn't funny at all, hypnotic and scary, but not funny. I think that was part of Nolan's point, that what the Joker reflects is how deeply screwed up the world is, which isn't funny at all.
 
Really, you might as well just take Ledger off the poll and ask who gets the silver medal. This isn't a comparison. This is a slaughter.

Oh yeah, I always knew Ledger would come out on top - there's no question of that, and never was.

But, I really wanted to hear about what folks thought about Leto - because I kind of liked what he did (he wasn't close to Ledger, but still an interesting new direction). Sounds though like most folks didn't share my enthusiasm.
 
I was , at first , kinda on-and-off about Leto, but the more I think about it, the angrier I get.

Yeah, Leto was garbage , but considering the amount of fan films there are.... maybe not THE worst Joker, lol.
 
Trust me. There are some fan film Joker's that are head and shoulders better than Leto.
 
Trust me. There are some fan film Joker's that are head and shoulders better than Leto.

Oh, no doubt about that. Fan films are getting so good lately that sometimes I'd prefer to watch them over most studio films. But there are also worse ones.
 
Really, you might as well just take Ledger off the poll and ask who gets the silver medal. This isn't a comparison. This is a slaughter.

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I like Leto's Joker. It's different and it fits with Joker having a criminal career longevity in this cinematic universe. Heath's interpretation would just keep blasting chaos till he gets killed by the death Penealty, law enforcement, or Batman himself.
 
I'm willing to re-evaluate Leto's Joker in a future movie if they reign his character in a bit. He needed direction. I'll never like the look of him, but with a better director (Affleck) maybe we could get a completely different performance from SS that would work even better?
 
Ledger on his way to steal Leto's Harley

:hehe:

I like Leto's Joker. It's different and it fits with Joker having a criminal career longevity in this cinematic universe.

Yeah nothing screams longevity Joker than one who runs a strip club.

Heath's interpretation would just keep blasting chaos till he gets killed by the death Penealty, law enforcement, or Batman himself.

"I think you and I are destined to do this forever". If Heath's untimely death had not thrown a spanner in the works, we would have seen more of that.
 
I liked Ledger's Joker, particularly the multiple choice origin story bit, and his pathological need to 'prove' that everyone was as flawed as he was (and therefore that his choices were 'sane'), but I also liked Leto's Joker, all glammed up for the 21st century. As someone who is closer to fifty than fifteen, I've *seen* the classic Joker, more than once, even, so something new that modernizes the concept intrigues me.

It's not a gift to the younger audience who may have no idea who the character is, it's a gift to *me,* the old fan, who, to quote Deadshot and El Diablo, 'wants to see something.' (I felt the same way about the Iron Man 3 Mandarin switcheroo. Younger fans who had never read a classic Mandarin story were howling for blood, and I was like, 'Huh, that's clever. How thoughtful of them to put in something for us old-folk who don't want to see another ill-conceived Sisyphean attempt to 'get it right' futilely attempting to turn a serial character with 40 years of often-times contradictory and inconsistent history into a standalone movie villain who'll have maybe fifteen minutes of good screen time before dying, instead of just telling a good story.')

Nicholson's Joker was too campy, for my tastes (which is odd, since Michael Keaton is probably my favorite Bruce Wayne/Batman, and Michelle Pfieffer is hands-down my favorite Catwoman), and I've never seen Romero's Joker.

While I normally sing praises for the Young Justice cartoon, I was not a fan of Spiner's (animated) Joker, and I'm not really familiar with the rest of the animated Jokers, since I don't watch a lot of cartoons.
 
Nicholson's Joker was too campy, for my tastes

I'm sorry , but I never quite understood this complaint. There's nothing campy about lines like " you ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight?" ( I always sort of saw The Joker as being like the Devil himself, so I always loved this line)

He certainly wasn't the darkest Joker , but he definitely had layers of darkness to him, and any goofiness was done for ironic purposes.
 
Its hard to really judge Leto when he's yet to be the focus of a film and had most of his scenes cut from the one movie he has been in. For now, I'd have to leave Ledger with the throne, but I vastly prefer the direction Leto is going (creepy, perma-white gangster) than Nolan and Ledger's watered down terrorist in makeup.
 
Heath Ledger not watered down. He scariest and best Joker. Leto is worst. Just crazy boyfriend stalker who look like pimp in ugly tattoos and gold jewllery lol.
 
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