Joker (2019)

Joaquin Phoenix’s performance is nothing short of astounding. His physicality tells more of the story than dialogue ever could, from the uncontrollable fits of laughter to the way his body language and dancing shift gradually from awkward and defeated to eerily confident. This isn’t a straightforward comic-book adaptation so much as a character study that draws on the broader mythology of the Joker. Arthur Fleck may be an unreliable narrator, which mirrors the character’s long history of having no single, fixed origin story.

The grimy late-’70s and early-’80s Gotham, complete with class division and piling garbage, feels uncomfortably close to our own world. The film weaves in themes of mental illness and what happens when society’s safety nets are stripped away, and it does so with a restraint that makes the dread far more unsettling than any explicit violence. Hildur Gudnadottir’s score tracks Arthur’s transformation beautifully, growing bolder as he does.

The influence of The King of Comedy runs through the film, and Robert De Niro’s presence only sharpens that connection. Warner Bros. took a genuine risk greenlighting a standalone, character-driven Joker film, and it paid off. Phoenix’s interpretation and Heath Ledger’s are both brilliant in entirely different ways, and they coexist without diminishing each other.