The pick: Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight (2008)
I keep coming back to Ledger because he solves the hardest part of the role: making chaos feel planned. The laugh is short and wet, not a cackle. He leans in when he threatens someone, and the smeared makeup reads as a choice rather than a costume. Watch the interrogation room scene. He never raises his voice, yet the room belongs to him. That control is why he tops this list.
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How I rank them
I score each performance on three things: the laugh, the physical threat, and how much the script lets the actor build a person instead of a mascot. A good Joker needs a point of view. A great one makes you uneasy before the first line lands.
The rest of the ranking
2. Joaquin Phoenix, Joker (2019)
Phoenix plays the man before the clown. The dance on the stairs and the talk-show meltdown work because he keeps the pain visible under the paint. It is a slower, sadder read than Ledger's, and it holds up on repeat viewing. The weakness is the script: it explains too much, and explanation dulls menace.
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3. Jack Nicholson, Batman (1989)
Nicholson is the most fun version. He plays the Joker as a mob boss who got a new hobby, and the museum scene is pure showmanship. He owns the frame without trying. The tradeoff is that this Joker feels sane. You never doubt he planned the whole thing.
4. Mark Hamill, Batman: The Animated Series (1992 to 1995)
Voice work counts. Hamill moves from silly to cruel inside one sentence, and that swing is the character. Kids heard it first and adults still quote it. He does more with a laugh track than most live actors do with a full set.
5. Cesar Romero, Batman (1966)
Romero refused to shave his mustache, and the show painted over it. That detail sums up the performance: playful, theatrical, and completely unbothered by realism. It is a different genre, so judge it on its own terms.
6. Jared Leto, Suicide Squad (2016)
Leto had maybe ten minutes of screen time and a design team that went too far with tattoos and grills. The result is noise without a scene to anchor it. Not the actor's fault alone, but the performance does not survive the edit.
7. Barry Keoghan, The Batman (2022)
A single deleted-scene cameo. The smile is good, the laugh is better, and that is all we have. Ranking him lower is about sample size, not talent. If the next film gives him a full arc, he could jump several spots.
Bottom line
Start with Ledger if you want the benchmark. Go to Phoenix for a character study, Nicholson for style, and Hamill for the purest voice performance. The role rewards actors who find the hurt under the joke, not the ones who just play crazy.