📖 About
No villain has been adapted to live-action film more often or more successfully than the Joker. Eight different actors have played him on screen since 1966 — winning Oscars, defining franchises, and redefining what a comic book antagonist could be on screen. Three of those performances are now considered all-time-great cinema, period.
🎭 Every Actor Who Played The Joker
Across 60 years and 8 films, these are the performers who brought The Joker to life on screen.
🎬 Every Film Appearance
All 8 appearances of The Joker on the big screen, in chronological order.
Romero's Joker partners with the Penguin, Riddler, and Catwoman to ransom the world. Camp-era ensemble villainy at its most exuberant.
Nicholson's gangster Jack Napier turned Joker. Acid bath origin. "Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?" Defining 80s Joker.
The greatest comic-book performance ever filmed. Earned a posthumous Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Ledger died of accidental overdose six months before release.
A divisive gangster-Joker covered in tattoos. Leto's method-acting tales from set drew widespread criticism. Most footage was reportedly cut from the film.
Todd Phillips' character study. Won Phoenix the Best Actor Oscar — only the second acting Oscar for the role. Standalone Elseworlds, no Batman.
Leto returns in the Knightmare sequence — a redemption-of-sorts. Tighter, more menacing performance with reworked face paint and a calmer register.
Brief mid-credits-style appearance in an Arkham cell, laughing with a captured Riddler. Sets up The Batman Part II antagonist.
Phillips' divisive musical sequel. Lady Gaga as Lee Quinzel. Critically and commercially underperformed; widely seen as a misstep.
📚 Comic Storylines That Inspired the Films
The original published stories that screen versions have drawn from.
The story that gave Joker his "one bad day" origin. Influences Phoenix's Joker (2019) and references appear in both Burton's Batman and The Dark Knight.
The Joker beats Robin (Jason Todd) to death with a crowbar. Referenced visually in BvS — the defaced Robin suit on display.
A noir mystery where Joker is one suspect among many. Adapted heavily by Nolan into The Dark Knight's thematic structure.
A modern origin story for the character. Reframed Joker's emergence as a deliberate Gotham-engineered event.
Joker presented as immortal — an entity older than Gotham itself. Influenced the multi-Joker arc of recent comics.