The Dark Knight 10 Ways Heath Ledger Is Still The Best Joker

The Dark Knight: 10 Ways Heath Ledger Is Still The Best Joker

Heath Ledger was the perfect for The Dark Knight and remains the absolute best Joker to this day.

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The Dark Knight may have come out nearly fifteen years ago, but audiences still reflect upon the film as one of modern cinema’s best examples of a comic book movie. When The Dark Knight first released in July of 2008, one of the movie’s stars, Heath Ledger, had tragically already passed away about six months earlier.

Upon seeing just how incredible Heath Ledger was in one of his final performances as the Joker in The Dark Knight, fans were devastated to have lost such a young talent before he could truly shine. Heath Ledger was the perfect for The Dark Knight and remains the absolute best Joker to this day, even if fans will never see him again.

10 Perfectly Suited For The Story Christopher Nolan Was Telling

Christopher Nolan set out to tell a very specific story with his Batman trilogy. This interpretation of Batman may not be the one that the collective public shares, but Christopher Nolan executed his vision incredibly across all three films in the Dark Knight trilogy.

Casting Heath Ledger as the Joker was a surprising move, but he turned out to be perfectly suited to the story that Christopher Nolan wanted to tell in The Dark Knight. He’s unlike any other version of the Joker, more like an anarchist and a madman than ever before, but he works perfectly in this setting. Nobody but Heath Ledger could have played this role.

9 He Was At The Highest Point Of His Career When He Played The Joker

Heath Ledger’s career is filled with performances that other actors long to have on their best day. Even in movies that didn’t see great commercial success, Ledger was always the standout, improving his skills each and every day. The proof was evident in his results, as he grew more talented as an actor and greater as a man constantly.

By the time he was cast in The Dark Knight, Heath Ledger was without a doubt at the highest point his career had seen to date. If he had not passed away, there is no telling what new heights his career would have gone to next and what iconic performances viewers would still be talking about to this day.

8 Christian Bale Is The Perfect Batman To Play Opposite Him

Not only was Heath Ledger perfectly cast as the Joker, the rest of the performers around him were just as excellent. Many vital characters have to play off the Joker, but none are more important than Batman. If Batman and the Joker don’t mesh well, the entire film may as well be a wash.

However, Heath Ledger and Christian Bale have dynamic chemistry that practically radiates off the screen throughout the film. The Joker as he exists in the Nolan trilogy is the exact Joker needed to face off against Christian Bale’s more grounded Batman. If Christopher Nolan needed a very specific Joker, it’s only because he started with a very specific Batman in the first place.

7 The Joker Was A Clever Mastermind Counterpart To Batman

The Joker as portrayed in the comics (and often in the movies) is a wild, flamboyant madman who will do anything for attention and a moment in the spotlight. This was all incorporated into Heath Ledger’s Joker to a degree, but the character was also modified.

The Joker may be a madman, but in order for him to always face off against Batman (the World’s Greatest Detective), he would need to be cunningly intelligent. Heath Ledger’s Joker was that smart, clever mastermind who could be the perfect scheming counterpart to Christian Bale’s genius-level tech-whiz Batman.

6 This Joker Was Completely New, Yet Still Accepted And Beloved

It is admittedly incredibly difficult to portray a character that fans feel they know everything about, and even more difficult when the actor portraying the character chooses to do anything new. DC Comics have been around for a long time, and people have fairly cemented concepts of who Batman, the Joker, and other popular characters are.

Heath Ledger gave fans a version of the Joker they had never quite seen before, but he committed completely. He gave the performance of a lifetime, nailed the Joker, and fans loved it. This just goes to show that performers like Jared Leto might just be missing the mark, when there are definitely others who could hit the nail right on the head.

5 The Joker Still Kind Of Beat Batman In The Dark Knight

While viewers know that ultimately the superhero will likely win in their movies — especially if the movie is second in a trilogy — the path to victory is not always easy. In The Dark Knight, this version of the Joker actually gave Bruce a true no-win scenario. In order for Batman to win, he would have to be able to lose, too.

Batman believes he needs to save Harvey Dent’s reputation so that Gotham will continue to believe their white knight was still incorruptible, even by the Joker. As such, he takes the fall for the deaths Dent caused. As fans saw in The Dark Knight Rises, even this was the wrong call. No matter what angle you look at it, the Joker ultimately did beat Batman, proving Heath Ledger might be the best (and most powerful) of all Jokers in that regard, too.

4 Few Actors Have Transformed So Completely With Such Skill

Not only was it shocking that Heath Ledger was cast as the Joker, some viewers were still shocked to learn of his casting even after they had seen the movie. Heath Ledger seemed to change so dramatically for the role, both in his performance and in his physical appearance, that he was nearly unrecognizable. This is truly the mark of an excellent actor.

When audiences watched The Dark Knight after it came out, Heath Ledger’s performance didn’t feel like a performance. Even now, it feels real. His phenomenal acting talent has been seen in very few actors over the years, and he was nearly at full force in this film.

3 He Proved It’s Possible To Have A Fresh Take On An Old Character Without Messing Up

As the DCEU has been rolling out their new DC movies, viewers are left wondering if the creators behind these properties truly understand the characters or not. At first, it even seemed like Zack Snyder missed the mark, though Zack Snyder’s Justice League dramatically clarified his vision and patched things up.

These newer, messier movies have started to make fans wonder what the point is of making superhero movies if they’re not good, fresh, or genuine adaptations of their comics origins. However, fans have simply lost hope; Heath Ledger proved over a decade ago that it is possible to have a fresh take on an old character without messing up how people view them or how they want to be interpreted on screen and in the comics.

2 His Joker Characteristics — Including The Laugh — Were All Spot-On

There are several characteristics that are iconic to the Joker as a character. Among them are his facial makeup, his brightly-colored (and often clownish) clothing, and his maniacal laugh. Heath Ledger’s Joker was not only fresh and completely original in its interpretation, even these classic Joker characteristics were present.

He completely nailed each mannerism, right down to the iconic laugh. There are few Joker laughs these days that can truly be considered good, but Heath Ledger’s was natural, terrifying, and right up there with Mark Hamill’s Joker as the best of the best.

1 Heath Ledger Was Only Improving As An Actor When He Passed

The Joker has made countless appearances in movies, television shows, and other properties over the years. A number of actors have played this iconic role, each to varying degrees of success. However, it would be difficult to argue that any of these actors were more skilled at the time than Heath Ledger was when he played the Joker.

When Heath filmed The Dark Knight, his career was on a sharp uphill climb. His acting skills were getting more impressive at an exponential rate, and it was inevitable that he would have become one of the greatest acting legends of stage and screen had he lived. His performance as the Joker remains evidence of this fact still to this day.

Link Source : https://www.cbr.com/batman-heath-ledger-best-joker-ever/

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