Ranking Every Joker Origin Worst To Best
6. How'd He Get Those Scars? - The Dark Knight
Heath Ledger's Joker was a pure tour-de-force, and one that possessed a disturbing and now iconic 'origin' on screen.
The Dark Knight stands today as the second and most beloved entry in Christopher Nolan's eponymous Batman Trilogy, and while there certainly isn't a shortage of iconic moments from the sequel, almost everyone revolves around the Joker. Potentially the most iconic of all - aside from the famed interrogation scene - is where Ledger's character begins to make his move against Gotham's mob.
The sequence sees the Clown Prince gatecrash a hideout and hold one of his rivals at knifepoint, where he then regales him in a story about how he "got his scars" - a reference to the permanent smile etched into his ghastly face.
He reels off a story about how his dad was a "drinker and a fiend", and how he took a knife to his mouth at a young age. On another occasion, he tells a story about how he did it to himself after his wife was scarred by loan sharks, in order to cheer her up. Both are disturbing, and the film lends weight to neither scenario.
Nolan's Joker, just like the one from the comics, has no fixed origin. But that doesn't make his stories any less intimidating.