Ledger overall, but Nicholson is the most entertaining/fun.
Phoenix isn't playing The Joker. He's playing some unfunny, shambolic sad-sack who doesn't possess an iota of The Joker's diabolical wit and menace.
I'll go with Ledger. But this is a difficult question. In a most wonderful way. It's great that we have these three performances that are all wildly amazing and so vastly different
shareJarred Leto
shareI'm very curious, since I rarely see this opinion, what makes you place Leto on top? I'm not trying to be mean; your opinion is your own and I don't think it's "wrong" or "bad," I just want to know what got you there.
shareTrolling got him there.
shareIt's possible, but I try to enter with the assumption that the dialogue is in good faith. Sometimes this takes me under some bridges (where I find trolls) but most of the time I find I get good discussions and insights into different points of view.
shareSeriously, I don’t like any of them. Never found the "Joker" character particularly interesting.
shareI can respect that. So was "Leto" sort of a "spoiled ballot" vote, or do you legitimately find his character to have a flash or two of "something" that other Jokers haven't grasped up until Suicide Squad? Do you find him more interesting as a gangland maniac than a total psychotic, for instance? Or did you just feel Leto was doing a better job?
shareLedger easily.
shareBest Joker? Ledger. Best portrayal of mentally ill person turning to crime? Phoenix.
shareMost like the comics?
Nicholson
Ledger
Phoenix
As an enjoyable performance? It's very close between all three, but
Ledger
Phoenix
Nicholson
Also, Cesar Romero was a great Joker (once you get past the moustache!).
Those line-ups are really good. I am inclined to agree with the first one completely, insofar as the adherence to the comic mythology goes, yeah: Jack is king. (Although, as I say in my post, there are a million different versions of these characters, so some of that is subjective). My own rankings were based pretty much only on performance.
And to your footnote: I agree that Cesar Romero needs some love!
Thanks 👍
Re your post below, absolutely take your point about Phoenix. He had a whole movie entirely focused on him and his performance, so yes more to play with. Also completely agree about Leto. It felt 'different just to be different'.
Batman '66 had some of the greatest villain portrayals of all, including Julie Newmar and Frank Gorshin - my all-time favourite Catwoman and Riddler!
The villains could really cut loose on the TV show, and just have a lot of fun. Vincent Price as Egghead was always super-fun.
My favourite Catwoman is Michelle Pfieffer. From the TV series, I kinda like Eartha Kitt. With that said, Newmar was also really great.
Price was great (then again, he was great in everything!).
One thing I've noticed lacking in Phoenix's version - I'm not saying it's a bad thing, just an observation - is that normally, no matter what vile atrocity he's committed, I laugh at Joker. Romero (obviously), Nicholson, Ledger, Hamill's legendary turn in the DCAU, I laugh at them all. I don't remember ever laughing at Phoenix's Joker.
100%. Vincent Price was always top-grade. Cheesy, horrifying, dramatic, comedic - he always delivered full Price.
I'd agree with that. Phoenix's Joker doesn't have the black comedy that is kind of intrinsic to the character. I'll give the naysayers that. I might have chuckled at the fridge thing - where he climbed into it. But, yeah, for the full Joker, I'd want to see that in there.
What I did really like, and what I felt I did see, was a sense that Joker thinks he's funny. Like, objectively, while we probably all laughed at Ledger's "disappearing pencil" or Nicholson's joyful buzzer, they are actually horrible ways to murder people. So, in a theoretical real-life scenario, they aren't really funny at all. But we can laugh 'cause it's a film. More importantly, though, I think each Joker thinks he's funny. Joker finds his "antics" hilarious, and doesn't get why everybody doesn't lighten up. That's part of the genius of the line, "Why so serious?" in Dark Knight: Joker thinks he's funny. Why doesn't everybody else? And while I don't laugh at anything Joker does in Joker, I do feel like Phoenix's character feels slighted. He "knows" he's hysterical. Killing all those people is a scream to him. In fact, I think his film highlights that better than any other incarnation, and that's one of many things I really enjoyed about the picture.
Phoenix, but I'll asterisk his portrayal because he had a script solely focused on his character. I'm not saying it's "cheating," but he had more opportunity to delve into the strange psychology of the character. To those saying he isn't portraying Joker: it's a very different take on the character, I grant you, but there are those who would say the same of Ledger or Leto; there are so many interpretations on any long-running comic book character, I'm not willing to write off anybody.
Next for me is Ledger. I love Burton's films, I love Jack Nicholson, but Ledger's performance is on another level. It's really special.
Nicholson comes in third. It's still a witty portrayal of a psychopath with panache. I'd push back on critics; he isn't "just playing himself."
Fourth - and a guy I considered putting at either the No.2 or No.3 slots - is Cesar Romero. He lit up the screen with a delightfully goofy bad guy on the campy Batman '66. It's not the preference anymore to have flamboyant villains in Batman; we like Bats brooding and angst these days. But in the '60s, Cesar was given a mission and he accomplished it to the hilt. I squeaked Nicholson ahead, but that's how good Romero is.
Leto is a good actor, but he's screwed from square one. The whole concept of the character in Suicide Squad feels try-hard for me, like the creative team are spending all of their efforts here just trying to say, "Look! Look! Look how much edgier we are! Look how we're pushing this further than Heath Ledger!" I don't mean they were trying to spit on his legacy, just that they felt the coldness of standing in his shadow and they just tried so hard to be "edgy" and it winds up not working. Of course, Leto has the least screentime of any Joker (I think?), a plot that isn't about his character, and a script that is in-general just a mess. So, again, I don't want to slam Leto, but this Joker is weak.
For posterity: I'd put Hamill's Joker in the No.2 slot, but with the same reservation that I attached to Phoenix's portrayal: Hamill gets a series' worth of episodes to explore his character and show him off. We get more sides (goofy, psychotic, sinister, scheming, etc.) and more interactions, so he has more time to give us the madness.
Phoenix was also the most impressive for me.
This fluctuation between the urge for recognition and madness.
A psycho who desperately tries to maintain the mask of normality (or leastwise the comic) and in the process slips further and further away.
All the mentioned actors were great in it.
Phoenix was the greatest.