Joker Actors Tier List: Every Performance Ranked
The Joker is the best villain role in comics, maybe in all of pop culture, and everyone who plays him gets measured against the ones who came before. We're ranking all nine actors who've brought him to screen (live action and animated voice work) based on what critics said, what fans argue about on forums to this day, and our own read on each take.
Some of these are locked in as legendary. Some are still being fought over in comment sections. A couple are just fine and nothing more. Here's where we landed, but this is the kind of list that's built for arguing, so feel free to rank it yourself.
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SS Tier
Heath Ledger
The pencil trick, the hospital scene, the way he licks his lips before every lie. Ledger's Joker in The Dark Knight is the performance every other actor now has to live up to, and the posthumous Oscar wasn't sympathy, it was earned. Even people who don't like superhero movies know this one.
About Heath Ledger
Australian actor who played the Joker in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight (2008). He won a posthumous Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the role.
- Film
- The Dark Knight (2008)
- Award
- Oscar, Best Supporting Actor
Mark Hamill
No face, no makeup, just a voice, and somehow it's the one longtime fans argue is the definitive Joker. Hamill's work on Batman: The Animated Series and in games like Arkham Asylum gave the character a cackle that's genuinely unsettling, not just theatrical. He's voiced the role on and off for decades and never once phoned it in.
About Mark Hamill
American actor best known as Luke Skywalker, who became equally famous in geek circles for voicing the Joker across animated series, films, and video games starting in the early 1990s.
- Debut
- Batman: The Animated Series, 1992
Joaquin Phoenix
Phoenix won the Oscar for a reason: his Arthur Fleck is less a comic book villain and more a character study that happens to end in makeup and a staircase dance. The bathroom scene where he first becomes Joker, with that slow, awful smile, is as good as acting in this genre gets. Critics were split on the movie itself but almost nobody argued with the performance.
About Joaquin Phoenix
American actor who played Arthur Fleck in Joker (2019), a standalone origin story. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for the role.
- Film
- Joker (2019)
- Award
- Oscar, Best Actor
AA Tier
Jack Nicholson
Before Ledger, this was the Joker, and Nicholson's gleeful, scenery-chewing turn in Tim Burton's 1989 Batman basically invented the modern blockbuster villain. "This town needs an enema" is pure Nicholson, barely even acting, and that's exactly why it works. It's aged into something closer to camp classic than horror, but it's still a blast.
About Jack Nicholson
Veteran American actor who played the Joker in Tim Burton's 1989 Batman. His version leaned into dark comedy and theatrical menace, reportedly earning a significant backend deal for the role.
- Film
- Batman (1989)
BB Tier
Cesar Romero
The original. Romero played it as pure comic mischief in the 1960s Batman TV series, refusing to even shave his mustache under the white makeup, which you can still spot if you look closely. It's not scary, it was never supposed to be, and it set the template for decades of pure clown-first Jokers.
About Cesar Romero
American actor who played the Joker in the 1960s Batman TV series and its movie spinoff. Known for playing the role with broad comic energy and famously refusing to shave his mustache for the part.
- Show
- Batman (1966-1968)
Cameron Monaghan
Monaghan's take on a young, pre-Joker Jerome (and later Jeremiah) in Gotham was weirdly one of the show's best running threads. He leaned hard into theatrical instability, somewhere between Nicholson's showmanship and something genuinely feral, and TV fans who stuck with Gotham tend to rate him higher than the show's reputation suggests.
About Cameron Monaghan
American actor who played Jerome and Jeremiah Valeska, Joker-inspired characters, in the Fox TV series Gotham. His performance was a prequel-style take building toward the character's eventual identity.
Barry Keoghan
His Joker shows up for maybe a few minutes total in The Batman, locked in Arkham, taunting Pattinson's Batman through glass. It's a tease more than a full performance, but Keoghan makes it count with a voice and stillness that feels genuinely off. People are curious what he does with more screen time, if he gets it.
About Barry Keoghan
Irish actor who plays a brief, imprisoned version of the Joker in Matt Reeves' The Batman (2022). His appearance is limited to a single scene late in the film.
- Film
- The Batman (2022)
CC Tier
Zach Galifianakis
The Lego Batman Movie needed a Joker who was needy and insecure rather than terrifying, and Galifianakis nailed that specific comic tone. It's a very different lane, played almost entirely for laughs and abandonment issues, and it works fine for what the movie is. Just don't expect anyone to put this performance next to Ledger's in a serious conversation.
About Zach Galifianakis
American actor and comedian who voiced the Joker in The Lego Batman Movie (2017), playing the character as comedic and emotionally needy rather than menacing.
- Film
- The Lego Batman Movie (2017)
FF Tier
Jared Leto
The "damaged" tattoo, the grill, the gangster-rapper energy: Leto's Suicide Squad Joker became a punchline almost instantly, and the reshoots and trimmed screen time suggest even the studio lost faith in it. His extended cut in 2021's Justice League version didn't win many people back either. This is the one Joker performance fans actively argue should be forgotten.
About Jared Leto
American actor and musician who played the Joker in Suicide Squad (2016) and later in the extended Zack Snyder's Justice League cut. His interpretation was known for a heavily tattooed, gangster-inspired design.
- Film
- Suicide Squad (2016)
How we ranked them
We weighed critical reception, award recognition, cultural staying power, and how much each performance actually shaped the character going forward. Voice work counts alongside live action because some of the most beloved takes on the Joker never needed a face at all. We also factored in the simple test of whether people are still talking about the performance years later.
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Rank these yourselfFAQ
Who is the best Joker actor of all time?
Heath Ledger is the most widely agreed-upon answer among critics and fans, thanks to his performance in The Dark Knight, though Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Hamill get serious votes too.
Did Mark Hamill ever play Joker in live action?
No, Hamill's Joker work has all been voice acting, mainly in Batman: The Animated Series and various DC games and films, but it's still considered one of the definitive takes on the character.
Why do fans dislike Jared Leto's Joker?
A lot of the backlash came from the character's design choices (the tattoos, the grill) and limited screen time in Suicide Squad, which felt more like a cameo than a full villain arc.
Is Joaquin Phoenix's Joker connected to the rest of the Batman movies?
No, Joker (2019) is a standalone story not connected to any shared DC film universe or to other actors' versions of Batman.
Who voiced Joker before Mark Hamill?
Various actors voiced earlier animated versions, but Hamill's 1992 debut in Batman: The Animated Series is the one most fans consider the start of the character's modern voice legacy.
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Image credits
- Heath LedgerPhoto: Howie, CC BY-SA 2.0 (Wikimedia Commons) · License · Source
- Mark HamillPhoto: John Sears, CC BY-SA 4.0 (Wikimedia Commons) · License · Source
- Joaquin PhoenixPhoto: Harald Krichel, CC BY-SA 3.0 (Wikimedia Commons) · License · Source
- Jack NicholsonPhoto: Georges Biard, CC BY-SA 3.0 (Wikimedia Commons) · License · Source
- Cesar RomeroPhoto: Allan warren, CC BY-SA 3.0 (Wikimedia Commons) · License · Source
- Cameron MonaghanPhoto: Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 3.0 (Wikimedia Commons) · License · Source
- Barry KeoghanPhoto: Kevin Payravi, CC BY-SA 4.0 (Wikimedia Commons) · License · Source
- Zach GalifianakisPhoto: CleftClips from Los Angeles, CA, United States of America, CC BY 2.0 (Wikimedia Commons) · License · Source
- Jared LetoPhoto: Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 3.0 (Wikimedia Commons) · License · Source