Joker Actors Ranked From Worst to Best

3. Jack Nicholson – Batman (1989)

I was 11 years old when Batman came out and, admittedly, I hated Jack Nicholson’s performance back then. It just didn’t feel like the Joker to me, an opinion that solidified as I watched more Jack Nicholson films and assumed he played the same character in every role.

I was a very stupid child, is what I’m saying. Nicholson was the first actor to play the Joker with no real precedent outside of the comics, as the TV and cartoon versions were just generic villains. All the others would be riffing on the version that preceded them, which makes Nicholson’s idea of the Joker as performance artist all the more impressive.

THE Batman Warren Skaaren’s Sam Hamm script places the protagonists in standard ’80s action movie tropes, and director Tim Burton famously didn’t care about the characters’ motivations (“I have no idea,” Burton responded when Nicholson asked why the Joker climbed a tower at the end of the film). Yet Nicholson makes his Joker seem like a comic book character come to life, a murderous artist who sees the world as one giant joke without ever having to articulate his worldview. All the world’s a stage, and Nicholson’s Joker will play on the cheap seats while knocking them over. Literally.

Although Joel Schumacher wanted Nicholson to return as the Joker in a dream sequence for the archived Batman UnleashedIt’s better if he just went for a walk. Nicholson’s Joker is unique, unique in the annals of the character and the actor’s filmography, no matter what I thought, young and stupid.

2. Mark Hamill – Batman: The Animated Series

How good is Mark Hamill’s opinion of the Joker? It’s so great that Joker, and not the main character of a genre-defining blockbuster, is Hamill’s signature role. Where everyone else to play the Joker has a particular interpretation – sadist or prankster or showman or monster, etc. – Hamill plays several notes, often at the same time. When he growls low, the Joker conveys a genuine threat. However, when he drops a cheesy line and bows to the audience, Hamill makes all the different tones seem consistent.

Hamill, of course, wasn’t the first choice to voice the Joker Batman: The Animated Series. Tim Curry got the role first and voiced several episodes before Bruce Timm and Alan Burnett replaced him with Hamill, for reasons that were never made clear. Whatever led to the decision, there is no doubt that it was the right decision. Thanks to his ability to adjust his voice to a variety of tones, Hamill’s Joker truly feels like he exists in his own world. There is the grotesque nuclear family he establishes in Ghost Mask (“Meatloaf again? Awww, I had it for lunch!”), the jolly holiday host in “Christmas With the Joker,” the dapper businessman in “The Laughing Fish.” You almost get the feeling that he’s trying to be a normal person, but it always turns into something disturbing and strange.